Yeah i see it now, had a bit of a blind spot there i couldnt figure out. I love its sound, i cant say i really needed it, but thats why i got it. Cant wait to use it with patterning and ob!
Sorry to be the dork, but 1ms back and forth jitter between any given 16th note is totally audible, and when you have sequencers that jitter less than 1-2 SAMPLES per 16th note at that samplerate (Cirklon, Deluge, MPC-4000) you can definitely hear the perceived “tightness” as very much improved. I’ve owned all of them, and yes you can hear the Digitakt as being more sluggy between hits. I believe this is MORE audible when it’s being started as a midi clock slave. And if that clock is ableton, then you’re in even more trouble since that’s famously unreliable already. Does this mean I don’t like the digi? No, I love it. But I sort of hope that they would improve the midi timing in a firmware update. Synthstrom did improve on the timing drastically, in firmware 1.2 or something.
1 Like
When I read about MIDI jitter and unstable clocks I ask myself whether it makes sense to buy a dedicated master MIDI clock like the E-RM Midiclock+ and distribute the clock signal via a Kenton MIDI Thru device to Ableton and all connected Elektrons, synths and pedals.
I made this thread years ago so it’s interesting to revisit.
I have been using the ERM clock now for years. I don’t mess with Overbridge anymore because it runs like crap on the Mac M1. So what I do is send clock from my ERM to my gear and record in via patchbay. I mainly use the Octatrack and Rytm now. For the Rytm I record multiple tracks in at once via the Indi outs.
If I still had my digi, I would probably just make 2-3 busy sequences on it, record 8-16 bars of each track, one at a time and then arrange in Ableton. I prefer doing that over using the song mode. Super fast workflow for me.
I used to distribute the clock through a Kenton, that will work, but will add a little latency so the synths usually got my Kenton feeds. But the E-Rm has 4 separate outs already and personally I don’t have a ton of hardware on my desk all running at once. So 4 for me, is typically more than fine. I would suggest connecting drum machines to 3 outs and a Kenton thru to the last one.
2 Likes
One man’s ‘tightness’ is another man’s ‘mechanical’. One man’s ‘looseness’ is another man’s ‘grooviness’.
We can measure the lengths of atomic particles. How does this help the shipwrecked thatch a roof?
This is a timely post. I’ve been thinking about getting an ERM.
Out of curiosity, what made you ditch the Digitakt?
The test was done on firmware version 1.10 (July 2018) which is quite old by now. I wonder how the Digitakt would fare in a new test. Elektron may have improved it, or made it worse 
ERM is amazing honestly, expensive but I have been using it for years since I got it. Saves a ton of time plus it can clock a ton of gear if needed.
I got an Octatrack and it made the DT a bit redundant for me. I use a RYTM and OT as a combo sometimes and it’s pretty insane since I can make full tracks with that combination.
1 Like