How solid is the Digitakt clock for audio out? Plus a swing question

Elektron Gear Digitakt
#1

Hi, my question is about the digitakt clock and how solid it pushes out it’s audio. I went in track by track into ableton 10 and I just manually started each soloed track and then lined them up. It appears to be real solid but I wanted to make sure as I am working in a USAMO and having some issues. Does anyone see fluctuation recording straight audio into their DAW (no midi sync to add jitter)?

Of more interest is I tested my kick with the pattern swing down to 50% just to make sure I was getting it on the grid. I then went back to the pattern swing on 55% and used that for more song. When I lined them both up, I noticed barely any difference. I found that interesting as I can see the swing more in the hi-hats.

I need to test out more but I am ordering if the Digitakt swings the kick track less than the hi hat one? I ran out of time to test this and figured I’d post while I’m in way from the studio to see if anyone has noticed the same.

When I get a chance I will record hi hats in straight and see if I can get them lined up on the grid. I spent a bunch of time on getting together a workflow to record my drums and I could be going nuts at this point. Lol.

Jitter or Minimum Swing greater than 50%?!?
#2

During your “swing test” did you have kicks playing every step? swing only affects the second half of the beat with percussive sounds. if your kicks were only on down beats, you’d hear no diff

#3

No, I had some on some steps I would be swung but I will try a more scientific approach. Straight hats and kicks on every step.

#4

I rushed this post a little and din’t phrase it well. The one thing I am wondering is if you give the digitakt a steady clock from a MIDI source like an ERM or USAMO, will the digitakt put out solid timing when you record it? Or are you all dealing with any jitter there?

It is clear that if you can simply make the digitakt start on the exact right time, and it is not slaved to any MIDI, it puts out very steady clock. I should be home later and can try my swing test, but I suspect that the swing will be the same for the kick and hat. It would be quite crafty if the swing was different for different drums slots though, so I am curious to check.

But also, the more important thing to me is to find out the best way to record the machine. I feel like the best way is to get it to start right with the DAW and then put out it’s audio and not rely on a MIDI clock, but maybe I am wrong there? Maybe Overbridge will solve all of this one day…who knows.

#5

According to Innerclock systems litmus tests the Digitakt has 32 samples of audio jitter when running on the internal clock at 48 kHz in 120 bpm.

Source: https://www.innerclocksystems.com/litmus

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#6

Very cool info thank you!

It seems like the Digitakt is a little less snappy than other machines. I am guessing due to it’s FX processing? Who knows.

One thing I figured out that has been a huge help - when you start a recording in Ableton, the Digitakt can drop the first 1-2 beats, even if syncing from a USAMO box. So what I do is have a pre roll in Ableton and then the first pattern playing on the Digi is a blank, one bar pattern, which I can quickly switch to the real pattern(s).

This has made my life so easy, as I don’t have to line up tracks by hand after. There is also minimal jitter.

This will allow me to try my little swing test out tomorrow. I am finishing up a track and have not had time. I micro timed all my high hats, so it is imposible to tell how much the Digi is swinging them - I just went by my ear and the feel I wanted.

But I will now be able to have the tracks all starting on time so there will not be any guesswork. Ill just run straight 16th kicks and then another track of 16th hats with a pretty strong swing and see how it goes. Ill use the stock sounds so hopefully the start points will be pretty similar.

#7

Damn, that’s pretty disappointing and surprising.

#8

Quick bump. I think I am just waiting it out for Overbridge currently. Not a better solution in sight. I got a USAMO but I can’t get it to work reliably enough in ableton 10. The digitakt doesn’t always start…etc.

Does anyone just use the external instrument plugin in Ableton and record audio in with that? It seems to sync fairly well. The jitter shows less on the DT when the USAMO works, but I don’t even know anymore…lol. Drives me a bit nuts.

#9

Id very much like to read something that tells me something about the practical implications of this…

2 Likes
#10

Yeah, would be interesting to find some scientific tests how much jitter a human can detect. But practical implications? Not sure there are any really.

Interesting to browse the Litmus tests anyways. One thing to notice is that the Innerclock Systems litmus tests is this:

Maximum Jitter as reported in the tests below is the largest rhythmic timing error measured between consecutive sixteenth step events over a continuous sixty second capture period.

So their test if fair and good and all but it only takes one gap of 32 samples between two 16th notes over one minute to get a test score of 32 samples. I guess one needs to see the raw output data to know if the other jitter is evenly distributed over 1 to 32 samples or if there’s some normal distribution of the data points where for example 80% of the other are within X samples.

Since I have a sync gen pro 2 I have a calibration plug-in from innerclock systems that helps out with the task of measuring the record latency. This plug-in also shows average jitter values, but I can’t remember what numbers I was getting for the Digitakt, but I think it was lower then 32 samples.

#11

Well, my understanding of this is poor - but with regard to practical implications it is self evident, i believe, that the DT is a modern digital system - after all it does not exhibit old timey artifacts. As i crudely understand it, even if the DT had 32 samples of jitter every second, that would still be something like 0.06 % of the total samples taken at 48khz. Now, 32 samples was described as disappointing - and that peaked my interest (and forget if my percentage over is total nonsense, i really have no real clue), because i assume there must at least be a standard then, that however theoretical, describes 32 samples skewed at a millionth of a millionth of a second as technically bad. No reason to follow this up if its no fun :slight_smile:

#12

A lot of the above is over my head. However when I record into Ableton I do not clock sync between Ableton and hardware. As either way there is going to be clock fluctuation from whichever is the Slave. So I just set all bpm the same maunually and record. Then just drag the audio into place.

#13

32 samples is < 1 millisecond (.667ms @ 48k). This short amount of time is virtually imperceptible to the human ear.

5 Likes
#14

Agree. None of this is making huge difference for me. My parts loop nice and clean. If I was getting bad loops or it felt off, I would be worried, but I have none of those issues.

#15

ashford-simpson-solid-as-a-rock

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#16

Again, i might be totally off - but when i try to read up on this jitter stuff, real audible timing discrepansies are not mentioned as an effect. Jitter will occur in the audio conversion (so will exist presumably whatever you sync from and might be caused by both interface and wire) and if audible it will be as distortion. ?

#17

If jitter is bad the effects are audible. Thats the whole reason people hate it. You can only fix it by quantizing your audio or having a super steady clock.

Jitter is shaky midi timing. You cant just drag a waveform over and fix it because the entire take has slightly unpredictable timing - hence the term jitter.

#18

I appologize, ive been wasting your time - in the op youre talking about audio - must have been clear to everybody but me that you meant midi jitter, not audio jitter. Sorry bout that, friend.

#19

Original poster BassesAndPads asked about how solid the Digitakt pushes out it’s audio. Innerclock measured this jitter to peak at 32 samples at 48kHz. This is the “internal sync” section in innerclock systems litmus test results.

Then innerclocksys shows the numbers for “external sync” and this is when the device is slaved to a steady (jitter free) midi clock. Digitakt gets the same audio out jitter result of 32 samples at 48kHz.

The separation between internal and external sync in their tests is about showing how their product(s) can help some devices to get a steadier sequencer, and of course also showing that some devices wont get rock solid even if given a perfect clock signal. (Some are quite bad when slaved to external clock.)

#20

Its no problem at all. The entire subject is a bit confusing anyway. Main focus is getting the feel and timing of the digitakt into the daw with an accurate 1:1 translation.

I really like the sound of the digitakt convertors. The drums are easy to mix in the daw and the transients are nice and clean.