I purcahsed dt2 a few days ago and I was very surprised recorded samples from my analogue synth sound really bad. “bad” in a sense that overall volume is low and bass is gone. basically it killed all the charateristic of sound and made it some vanilla thing.
now, back in the days I had DT1 and it had problem 'cause it automatically normalized my recorded samples. now it seems like it’s opposite problem.
I’m using mono L input from my neutron to dt2 and all the settings seem to be clear, nothing really to tweak. the problem seems to be happening dt’s internal processing of recorded samples.
have anyone has any idea of what I’m talking about? do I miss something here something obvious?
all I want is to dt to do NOTHING to recorded sample. if it’s clipping like hell, then I want it as it is. is it possible in some way that DT doesn’t process my recordings and sounds identical to original source?
for instance, I never really recognized any difference between original source and smapled one in my OT, can it be like that?
I really hope that someone can clarify this issue…
I tried different cables and different settings.
I tried also max. volume in every amp setting I can find,
but just to be clear, the issue start AFTER recording.
sounds very nice and transparent while it plays ‘through’ DT, then when i record, it seems like it “does” something to sample and sounds different.
Record both into your DAW, normalize them (since it’s the same sample, it should be more or less actually result in the same volume) and compare there.
Your Digitakt is recording the original signal correctly, the other recording has the gain set too high, so frequencies were cut off. See that transient at the beginning of the DT recording? That is lost in the other one and DT will not add these kind of things.
I suggest you read a bit about gain staging and then you’ll be able to record things just like you want them to be.
How is the synth recorded into the DAW? How do you do the clipping?
If you want to keep this exact sound, you have to replicate that and feed that into DTII.
(Or, record into your DAW and then transfer that to the DTII.)
~
Before that, you can try to see if you like the sound if you overdrive it on the DTII. Upping Velocity makes it more overdrive. And you can change Filter Routing to peak the filter into overdrive. (Maybe even add a bit BRR.) This will most likely sound way better anyway. So many possibilities!
ok. this was kind of extreme example because I wanted to find out if DT can be as transparent as possible when recording. and it seems like it is NOT,
both OT, DAW (ableton and bitwig as I tested) and even my little TASCAM just record as it is, even if it’s clipping like hell, then it’ll just distort the signal as it can handle.
but this vanillaizing of sampled signal is not welcome for me, if I wanted clean signal I’ll just grab any sample pack and load thousands of them. If I wanna go crazy, and clip all over then it should be allow me to do that as OT does. I imagined DT as some crazy, intuitive, creative and unconventional box and it seems like I expected too much.
time to go back to my OT xdxd
BUT, just in case, if someone can suggest some work around or little trick so that I can record “extreme” signal into DT as it is, then please let me know thanks!!
DT is the transparent one.
DT doesn’t do “vanillaizing”, because DT can’t magically add things that are not there.
But your other gear removes things that were there.
I’m completely on your side when you like this specific sound. But you should know why things are like that, to make informed decisions
Also try out what I wrote above, Overdrive, Filter into Overdrive, Filter Resonance (also try the EQ Filter) and BRR. This will give you so many options on the DTII itself.
for me, gain staging didn’t help as this particular sound is aheived by max. overdrive on my synth. if I gain stage pre record, or attanuate signal in any part of the signal chain, it just kiils the character of the sound. so as you suggested, DAW–>edit–>to DT or replicate such character with DT’s internal filter and overdrive might be a compromise. thanks for suggestions
It would be interesting to find out where the clipping is created.
Nobody suggested to change the settings on the Synth itself (I hope ).
I assume the clipping is created at your Audio Interface …
