Does anyone know of a good tutorial on how to set this up. I have a midi fighter twister I’d like to control my digitakt with. I can find videos of folk who have achieved similar functionality, but now where that shows how to set it up on the DT. Cheers 
Welcome to the forum!
I’m sure there are videos somewhere but I can describe the basics here.
The Digitakt is designed to be controlled by MIDI Control Change (CC) messages. A list of the sound parameters and the associated CC messages is given in Appendix A of the Digitakt’s manual.
To send a message to a specific audio track on the DT, each of the 8 tracks can be set to receive on a different MIDI channel number.
The MIDI channel numbers for tracks 1 to 8 are set in the DT’s SETTINGS > MIDI CONFIG > CHANNELS menu. It seems reasonable to set channel numbers 1 to 8 for tracks 1 to 8 respectively.
You need to ensure that the DT is responding to the CC messages by activating RECEIVE CC/NRPN in the SETTINGS > MIDI CONFIG > PORT CONFIG menu.
Therefore, as an example, if you wanted to control the filter frequency on track 4 of the DT, you need to send it MIDI CC message 74 on MIDI channel 4.
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Brilliant, thanks for the detailed explanation.
I followed your instructions and it works perfectly, thanks. Do you know if there is an updated appendix A somewhere with the CC parameters for the new firmware?
Cheers,
Elektron updates the manual each time they add new features. You can always download the latest version from the support page on their website.
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Thanks, seems I had an older version. Any idea which midi Channel the delay, reverb and compressor are on? I don’t seem to be able to make them work.
Sorry for all the questions, your help is much appreciated.
Whether old version or new version, I suggest you read about the FX CONTROL CH setting in the SETTINGS > MIDI CONFIG > CHANNELS menu (manual, page 66).
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I am trying to do exactly the same thing and cannot for the life of me, get the digitakt to respond to any midi input. I am trying to use MIDI over usb. I’ve studied the manual inside and out.
I am using the following midi controllers:
- Midifighter (classic)
- Kontrol Z2 DJ mixer (Native instruments)
And a macbook pro
Using a program like MIDI Monitor I’m able to see that all these controllers are happily sending their messages around, including the digitakt. But when it comes to receiving input, the Digitakt seems stubborn. I’ve followed all of @PeterHanes recommendations and am stopping short of thinking my device has an issue. Unfortunately I don’t have a regular 6 pin Midi cable and some gear, otherwise I’d try that.
Any thoughts?
When you have your MIDI controllers connected to your computer via USB you’ll need software to route the MIDI data from your MIDI controllers to the USB MIDI port of your Digitakt. Any DAW will be able to do so.
Then it’s unlikely that your Digitakt has an issue.
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Wow - I need to look into this differently then. I wonder @pamaracas if you can elaborate how you physically connected your midi fighter and digitakt? Did it go through USB? Did you use a DAW to coordinate?
I wonder if there is a mixer than can be a Midi host and send MIDI to the digitakt without needing a laptop/DAW?
Hi, the issue is most likely that the Digitakt isn’t a USB host. I have my digitakt and my midifighters plugged into a raspberry pi that has been programmed to be a usb midi host/hub. The raspberry pi acts as the host between the devices. You can’t just plug the devices directly together. Here’s how to set up the pi if you’re interested. I love using the Pi in this way, you just power up and plug all of your USB Midi devices into it and they all talk to each other. Raspberry Pi as USB MIDI Host - Eunjae Im
Look the forum for “midi hub”.
I personally use the MIO4, it makes things way easier than using the laptop.
sounds a bit like: every 10th music session I’d have to fix some problems for 40 minutes in linux 
I’d rather use something different.
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This is the answer. You can plug a DIN MIDI cable straight into the DT from a controller, but you can’t plug a USB cable straight in. You need a dedicated MIDI-USB host (host, not hub).
Amazing - thatks @pamaracas - works perfectly as you suggested. Thank you. I do some DJing and use traktor - I have a kontrol Z2 battle mixer and I am starting to incorporate my digitakt into my sets. So I think if I have my laptop anyways (with traktor) I can use that. But If I want a standalone digitakt and midifighter jam, i’ll use the Raspberry pi. Thanks!
Hi,
I just got an Ottobit jr specifically to effect the DT. I also have a Midi Fighter twister and it only now occurred to me that if there were CCs to control all tracks at once for the DT’s filter frequencies, sample bit rates, and the overdrive, I’d essentially accomplish the same effects with the midifighter plus a midi host (such as the raspberry pi one mentioned above)
So, I would need to somehow assign all 1 through 8 midi channels per knob on the controller.? Is that possible?
You could just assign all the tracks to the same MIDI channel
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Amazingly simple solution! Thanks for that!
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I’m not sure that would work as the CCs are dictated by the DT (i.e all of the filter COs for each rack have the same CC (74) and you can’t change them. So one knob would control all filter COs). You can however set each individual knob on the twister to a specific midi channel and CC so that would would. I would however recommend using channels 9-16 as the other channels on the twister are hard baked to various other functions like leds etc and you get all sorts of crosstalk.
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Thank you, I suspected I might run into some problems with all of DT sample tracks on the same midi channel. Since I use 9 through 16 for external sequencing and the twister needs some channels for its own functions, I think I’ll have to abandon the idea od using it to control múltiple DT tracks per knob. Cheers!