Introducing Digitone

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#1406

People are getting into FM again because they’ve realized that merely sampling old FM synths sacrifices a lot of liveliness/responsiveness. Sampling in general has limits.

And also FM delivers certain flavors and behaviors not available in pure analog synths. People who have never played FM synths might disagree, but if you’ve never played one, you won’t really know for sure if you’ll want it in your music or not. Listening to demos is not a substitute for direct experience.

OTOH, if what you’re perfectly happy and productive with what you have now, you can cross Digitone, Volca FM, etc. off your shopping list and save yourself some money. GAS can be fun, but isn’t always good.

#1407

yes, like said before… It’s better at least for me to have a listen to the DN with hands on to know if i need it

#1408

Be sure to twist knobs and stuff when you check it out. :wink:

3 Likes
#1409

THIS! The modulations one can do with the DN set it head and shoulders apart from ”contemporary DX” -style synths. I bet MNM users know what I mean.

3 Likes
#1410

Buidling FM stuff on Nord G1 was fun but tedious. Digitone has the structure already set up… load up some marimba patches and you’re all set!

#1411

@phaelam @psyclone001 Hey fellow Operators, I just ran Digitone through my OTO Biscuit last night…

OH MY GOD.

Sooooo good. So delicious. I think the Biscuit has a permanent home at the output stage of the Digitone.

6 Likes
#1412

Haha, did the same thing. I was using parameter lock sound bank changes with the Oto’s step filter…percussive madness!

#1413

Nice! I’m curious to see how some MIDI LFO action might work with the OTO’s filter…I wonder if it interpolates the incoming MIDI data to make a smooth filter sweep…

2 Likes
#1414

Yes I modulate Biscuit via midi all the time.
Analog filter sweeps perfectly

3 Likes
#1415

Yeah I knew it would be a perfect match.
The SRR and analog filter of the Biscuit is my goto when creating sine wave FM on my Nord G2.
A little SRR on the sine waves fm can’t be beat.
It’s a perfect match, and if I bought a Digitone SRR onboard would be my first feature request.
It’s an essential effect with pure sine FM tones imo

1 Like
#1416

What are you using as your rack there?

#1417

apologies for the impatient self-bump here, but enough of yall own a DN now to help clear this up - do none of the key & scale, chord, or track transposition features work on midi tracks? is a significant factor in my consideration of ordering this additional elektron box. ty

#1418

I can test this tonight, that is, unless someone beats me to it :diddly:

#1419

much appreciated!

#1420

Ok, so bear with me, this is the first time I’m using MIDI tracks with the DN.

So I tested and I can get a volca keys to respond to notes on the seq. However, I cannot seem to be able to play the volca keys via the DN trig keys?

The only way I can play the volca keys from the DN is if I enable trig keys to INT + EXT and set the AUTO CHANNEL to the ch # the volca keys responds to. This way, I can not only olay the trig keys, but I can play the scale/chord mode as well, and the chords and scales are transmitted. However, if I then engage realtime rec mode and play these chords, nothing gets recorded to the MIDI track??!

Something tells me I need to RTFM… there has gotta be a setting that I’ve missed somewhere.

EDIT: Duh, of course nothing is recorded to the MIDI track if trig key dest is only EXT! It needs to be INT + EXT…

2 Likes
#1421

Ok, so now I changed the trig key setting back to INT, and again I cannot play the volcakeys with the trig keys? But the playing records just fine into the MIDI track in realtime rec, I just cannot hear what I’m playing… And the MIDI tracks also record all the scales & chords in realtime rec! Its just very annoying that I cant hear the notes play until they are recorded into the seq. Either this is a bug or I am missing a vital config setting, buried in some menu somewhere…?

EDIT: Maybe trig key dest needs to be INT + EXT? Will investigate…

EDIT2: Setting trig key dest to INT + EXT kinda works… but now I am transmitting the notes even when my active track is not in the MIDI mode! This must be because my internal track 1 is configured in the MIDI channel settings as channel 1

Summa summarum - the scales and chords work with the MIDI tracks. I need to check that transposition still, and am out of time until later… will get back to you on that.

EDIT3: Transpose is working as well, and transposes the sequence after it has been recorded OK.

EDIT4: Oh, okokok I think I get it now. The DN, and guessing DT too (?), have a new/different MIDI config workflow than the big boxes when it comes to MIDI tracks. By futzing around with the settings, I was ultimately able to come up with a setting combo that allowed me to both play the trig keys (with chords&scales), as well as record everything to the seq and have things working as expected.

5 Likes
#1422

thanks so much. when doing semitone transposition, do the recorded notes stay within the key and scale you’ve set up for that track? or is it a chromatic / post-quantize transposition?

#1423

the recorded notes get transposed once you set the semitone value and press YES. I’m not a 100% sure but I think it works almost the same as in the A4, with the exception that you need to press YES after setting a xpose value to apply it.

#1424

The MIDI tracks and trig keys are a mess right now. I’ve got an open support ticket about it and it’s being worked on.

That covers the current steps I had to go through to get the trig keys to play an external synth that I could sequence with no problem, but couldn’t trigger manually without a lot of configuration, and that should be fixed in future update.

1 Like
#1425

I dreamed my Digitone backorder shipped from zzounds yesterday