DT with guitar pedals

Elektron Gear Digitakt
#1

Hi there everyone,

Bought myself a DT for Christmas and it’s on its way. While I count down the seconds and constantly refresh UPS tracking page, I wanted to see if anyone here has experience using the MIDI tracks to control compatible guitar pedals?
I’m an experimental/indie musician with a folk bent and I got the digitakt because I wanted to have a way to incorporate rhythm into my live guitar set. Then I learned about the ability to sequence external MIDI, and had the idea of using it to jump to presets on my pedalboard (I’d be running it into a Strymon Timeline and a Chase Bliss Dark World)
Anyone else done something similar? How did you do it? Any tricks/recommendations?

2 Likes
#2

I have no experience with that, but that sounds really cool… please post with updates!!

#3

I have a Digitone controlling 4 guitar pedals (Eventide TimeFactor and Space, SourceAudio Nemesis and Ventris) on its 4 MIDI Channels. Everything works perfectly. It’s the same thing if you use a Digitakt.

This way, all your Pedal’s Presets are saved with your Patterns. No need to memorize or to write it down. You also have plenty of ways to control the parameters on each Pedal (P-locks, LFO, …).

If you use OB with Ableton Live, you can rout them as External Effects, as an example.

6 Likes
#4

Didn’t know about that, it’s very interesting! I think I might just remove the dust off my guitar sometimes :wink:

#5

I really need a Digitone/DT Keys :joy:

#6

Read the MIDI implementation chart for the pedals - should give you all the CC’s you need. Assign a MIDI channel to the pedals and then control up to 8 CC’s per channel. You’ll be interested in Parameter Locks (P locks) for setting any CC’s to certain steps of the pattern. You can also apply the LFO to any of these CC’s.

2 Likes
#7

I MIDI sync the Digitakt with the Eventide H9’s looper.

3 Likes
#8

Thanks everyone for the replies and information. Looking forward to diving in and sharing my experiments with the new setup.
Meanwhile, I for one am definitely interested in hearing about more folks who’ve done stuff like this

#9

I used my Digitakt to program recordings and loops in the EHX 95000 looper. I don’t own the looper anymore, but they played together really well.

1 Like
#10

I use a DT to control a strymon big sky, electrix filter factory, lexicon mx200, and akai mfc42 all through an old MOTU midi timepiece AV as a splitter.

Some pedal format some 19’ RU…
Works like a sushi chef with a ginsu knife, slicing and dicing parameter changes per step no probs.

#11

@atoastghost Did it work out to connect to your pedals?

I would love to control my pedals via the Digitakt, but it just doesn’t work!

I’ve connected DT midi out --> Chase Bliss Midi Box --> trs-cable to the MIDI in on my Chase Bliss pedal.

Now my first problem appears: the Aux lamp on the pedal starts to shine as soon as I connect, and one of the knobs is over-ridden by the midi. That knob can no longer control the effect of the sound. All other knobs work as usual. So it seems the DT is already sending some sort of midi signal (although I’m in a new DT project). Same thing with another CB-pedal I own: light goes on, and one of the knobs are overridden.

And if try to control the pedal via the DT, nothing happens. The pedal is on midi channel 2. So I go to midi track A, set the channel to “2” under “SRC”, set the desired CC value (I’ve tried many different) under “AMP” and play with the Value knob under FLTR while the DT is playing… nothing happens.

Under midi-config settings I set the midi track channel to “2”. Out port is set to midi. The encoder dest i set to int+ext. But nothing! :frowning:

What could I do wrong? Help appreciated! :slight_smile:

Thanks!

#12

Hi, I’m actually in the process to connect the digitakt with the strymon timeline and as soon as I have any idea what I’m doing, I’ll get back in the discussion. Otherwise I’ll bore everyone with my lack of midi-knowledge :slight_smile:
Good luck,
Domi

Indie musician, guitarist, songwriter (from Winterthur, Switzerland)

#13

Did you check on what midi channel your chase bliss pedal is , perhaps for some reason it isn’t on default channel 2 anymore.

How is your midi settings in the menu on the digitakt
Midi outport on midi and not on DIN 24 or 48
Check your setting of your encoder destination on the DT
Check your OUTPUT CH (selects whether the knobs will send data on the auto channel or the track channel)

what is your digitakt sending? CC messages or nrpn messages perhaps your DT is on NRPN and your bliss pedal can only listen to CC messages.

For more detail info check the manual in menu settings, I believe chapter 15 and then look after midi settings, if I’m not mistaken it is on page 60 in the manual.

so I hope you get it working with his information

2 Likes
#14

DT midi sequencer sends only Control Changes AFAIK.

#15

no he also sends out NRPN
see settings menu of midi
see manual I think on page 60

#16

@Adam9 and @Tchu would you care to explain your setups in mode detail? Ie Digitakt or Digitone MIDI settings, connection flow, etc? It sure looks like it’s an interesting topic.

#17

With knobs, yes, with midi tracks sequences I’d be surprised it does. :slightly_smiling_face:

#18

In MIDI Settings > PORT CONFIG > PARAM OUTPUT (CC or NRPN)

Do Sequences are considered as Parameters?

#19

PARAM OUTPUT setting is for parameter knobs on most recent Elektrons (since A4).

MIDI TRACK PARAMETERS
CC 1–8 Select specifies the CC commands that are controlled by the parameters on the AMP PAGE 1 (CC VALUE) page. The selectable values are the standard MIDI Control Change Messages. (0–119)

Can’t see NRPN there. Setting them would require more pages…

1 Like
#20

I’ve not tried the looper in my H9. Must give it a try!