Introducing Song Mode on Digitakt, Syntakt, Digitone & Digitone Keys

Fill automation won’t be recorded, though it does seem there’s an issue with latching fill, but I haven’t tried it out.

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I haven’t updated yet, but my guess is that if you only receive transport control on the slave unit, you should be able to have different songs going at once.

it has never been saved when fill/page was pressed

Yes indeed. I assume you can have different song structures on different machines if you don’t send Program Changes from the “master” machine. But I wonder (still haven’t tried, not much time) what will happens when “master” machine sends PC and the other machines have different songs with different patterns programmed.

I will try ASAP to explain my experience.

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I really miss this “song lock”

It wasn’t metronome, my Digitakt was acting super laggy while updating and as a result, the project seemed corrupted. I know what the metronome is, it was a distortion that was cutting through all muted tracks and when the song was playing, distorting the patterns

Found another use for song mode: the variable row lengths make it easy on Digitakt to resample and remix perfect loops (especially external synths).

The basic idea is you can unmute a track for a two-bar song row, mute it for a one bar row, and then unmute it. Ending the sample at the new bar beginning makes a 3-bar loop, and sample time 0.00-80.00 is a perfect 2 bar loop. I did a video on it to explain in depth and how to cover the silence with bars of freeze delay, too.

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Hi everyone,

Im super excited about the song mode but I want to ask you for advice:
I want to Use song mode simultaneously ond digitakt and digitone, what would be the optimal approach?

using program change per pattern or having song mote set on both machines and starting them together?

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not sure if this has been discussed but looks like there’s a temporary workaround for the FILL latch, pressing PAGE and double tap on the REC button will hold the fill until PAGE pressed again.

tested on my DN and it worked

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I would say try both methods and see what’s most convenient for you.

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Weird. Stange coincidence to have 4 beats with one with more volume…
I hope you won’t have that bug again !

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Super stoked that there’s any version of song mode now on the new little boxes, but where the hell is the cue point option?! I know that the dynamic track length and individual track meter options may be a bit messy to manage from a counting/computing angle (thus the probable omission of this feature) but man, the nearly granular ability to write a whole track, soup to nuts, mutes and all in the Machinedrum OS was a lifechanging tool both for pure composition and for staging live performances.
Maybe I’m getting cranky and looking a gift horse in the mouth here, but maybe there’s a way to add this feature if not in the “per track” scale mode, kind of like the classic/extended switch worked on the MD? Here’s to hoping!

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Welcome.

Could you elaborate ? What do you mean by cue points ?

Elektron machines with song modes can be controlled with SONG POINTER POSITION (edit : apparently not for DIGIs yet), which means you should be able to play any step of the song instantly…

Talking about MD MAP EDITOR ?
I don’t get the relationship with Classic/Extended feature…

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Thanks for the reply! INCOMING RANT.

RE: All things I complained about but didn’t give full or accurate detail behind because I’m just an enduser, followed by further clarification.

-SONG POINTER POSITION, This only seems to be accessible if the machine is being driven by an outside MIDI tracker/ sequencer/ DAW/ OtherElektronDeviceWhichStillDoesn’tDoWhatI’mLookin’For, etc., and therefore does not apply to the newly added song mode, (Please, If I’m missing something, I’ll humbly bow to your expertise!)
-CUE POINT… I’M SORRY I mislabeled the function, It’s a feature in the MD known as [OF]fset, which is overly described below, in hopes that maybe I’m just a dolt and there’s actually a similar function that I’m just unaware of?***SEE BELOW!
-CLASSIC/EXTENDED feature reflected by the MD/MM … I guess I’m just bargaining with the Elektron gods about how to switch between the “Extended,” version of new boxes, with complexly timed, trig conditioned patterns with the 14-step, 3/2scaled individual track settings, and the “Classic” Only-Up-To-64-Steps-Per-Pattern-On-All-Available-Tracks standard from pre-Octotrak. As previously posted, maybe the complexity of keeping track of, and the re-triggering of each separately metered track in an “extended” pattern, within the structure of the older Song Mode from the MD/MM times would prove to be problematic, and maybe offering a “classic” mode would help alleviate some of the computational snags. or not! I’m an absolute goof with most of this.

***OKAY SO in Regards to the “song position” or [OF]fset situation:
On the MD/MM Song Mode, each [ROW] of the song program could control the [PAT]tern Selection, have a set number of [REP]etitions for said row, [OF]fset from beginning of selected pattern (ie step 0-64), which allows the composer to select any point in the pattern to begin on per [ROW], in conjunction with [LeN]gth, which describes the total number of steps per ROW in the program, limited by the total # of steps, minus the [OF]fset, for a maximum of 64 steps. Each ROW also offered individual BPM and MUTing options, which could help facilitate some incredibly precise programming and “remixing,” “shifting,” and “absolute mayhem-ing,” of patterns, as long as you could account for a 2-step ROW Minimum grace between rows.

The issue I’m finding is that the DT/DN/ST song modes LACK the incredibly powerful [OF]fset feature previously described. As a result, every new [ROW] in the DT/DTN/ST Song mode forces the tracks to start at step one, and never be allowed to begin at any other step besides the beginning of the pattern selected for the [ROW].
This seems to reduce the “Song Mode” to a pretty basic queueing system with a few limited adjustment options. It does not allow for the user to program this:
ROW of 14 steps of pattern A1 not [OF}fset, no mutes, followed by
ROW of 18 steps of pattern A1 [OF]fset to STEP 19 with tracks 2,3,&7 muted, followed by
ROW of 8 steps of pattern A2 [OF]fset to step 33 with 2&3 muted, followed by
ROW of 2 steps of pattern A3 [OF]fset to step 17 with 1,2,3, and 7 muted,
etc. etc. etc.

There doesn’t appear to be an option to do this with the current DT/DN/ST song modes, and it’s absolutely bananas that they would leave something that powerful out. Please tell me I’m missing something.

Maybe there’s a way, maybe I’ll just chalk it up to elektron restricting each of their box’s “capabilities” to drum up more revenue, maybe I’ll just re-re-re-learn to reprogram and copy/paste all my gosh darn pattern variants to 2-step or 7-step length “variants” so that I can achieve the desired results I used to do with a simple tool, but I dunno, seems like a really misinformed oversight at best, and at worst, an awfully shortsighted hobbling of much-needed-capability previously designed into the legacy Elektron machines.

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The first time I tried Song Mode on my Digitone, I immediately searched for the option to choose the starting step of the pattern. Without any previous knowledge of Song Mode (on the DN or any other device), I instinctively felt this feature should be present. Of course, I was disappointed to find out it was NOT present. My disappointment didn’t last, however, because I’d already used the Digitone extensively for 1.5 years without any Song Mode and gotten used to life without it.

Personal use-case: I program simple songs on the Digitone and record then onto my computer. Frequently, I would like to create an introduction, the last 2 or 4 bars of the song, leading into a full rendition of the song. Now, I already have a workaround for this. I record the piece twice-through, then use the math and table formulas within my projects (scrolling audio/video staff-notation) to automatically start the audio at a designated intro point.

The benefit of Song Mode, for that application, would be, for example, being able to mute selective parts during the introduction, making it sound more like an intro.

This can all be done without Song Mode, of course. Create a copy of a pattern, time-shift all the trigs, adjust the track length, etc., mute tracks, set that as the intro, make a pattern chain.

There is a conspiratorial thread to the discussion of missing features. I tend to think that adding features is “difficult”. For example, it seems almost impossible not to “break” something when adding a new feature. Maybe Elektron didn’t add the start-trig feature to Song Mode because it’s too hard/complicated or because it fundamentally breaks the paradigm of how the box works.

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could you a) sample what you are trying to filter to one track and set an LFO to cover the filter sweep or b) set the same filter sweep LFO for each individual track over each pattern to get the right effect?

The next update will upgrade song mode to a fully fledged Amiga style tracker.

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IIRC Classic revert default settings without plocks compared to Extended, that’s it ? Coming from OT, I wasn’t interested in that feature.

Ah ok, same as OT, its song mode is pretty similar to MD’s.
I also thinks it’s lacking. On OT, I experimented offset from a 1 bar pattern duplicated with different parts, and a neutral scene, then PAGE+YES for page randomization. As a result, randomized pages each 2 steps, morphed with crossfader to normal settings.

So with Digis, it would allow to memorize control all settings each 2 steps more easily. Crappy exemple below. I prefered to record live, because it’s boring to shift all tracks if you start from an already made pattern you want to divide.
Much easier with OFFSET!

Principle of a pattern divided in 2 step chunks…(not sure to be clear).

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Have you managed to get a Digi to follow OT SPP successfully?

Just gave it a try without success. Sorry I assumed it was working on DIGIs too, maybe I’ve been influenced by this :

SONG POINTER Shows the current time and position of the playhead in the song arrangement

OT sends SPP properly (I checked with a midi monitor), Syntakt doesn’t receive it, and doesn’t go to the song begining.
feature-request@elektron.se

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