So someone asked me which one I would pick if I could only pick the Digitakt OR the Digitone -both of which I love- and I chose the Digitakt for a few reasons, all of them relating to how it is to perform on.
If it was possible to mute both synth tracks and midi tracks at the same time as on the Digitakt, it would be a lot easier to perform on. Also, if you could select tracks by pressing MIDI+TRIG, you could do all the muting and track selection with your left hand, leaving your right hand entirely free to turn knobs and press the fill button.
For those who are interested, Here’s my ranty answer to the question:
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The DT has 8 sample tracks and 8 midi tracks, as opposed to the DN’s 4 synth tracks and 4 midi tracks. It’s a lot easier to spread a song across 8 tracks and make interesting changes by muting them. 4 tracks works, but you’ll have to make some hard decisions about how to structure stuff. For example, on the DT I can have one track with a drum loop on it and another with only hihats, then mute whichever I don’t want. On the DN, doing that takes up half the available tracks. What you can do instead is make a whole drum pattern in 1 track, then give the kicks the negative fill condition so you can “mute” the kicks by holding the fill button. Doable, but tedious.
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All audio tracks and midi tracks can be selected and muted on the same page. I’m usually in mute mode when performing, and it’s really handy to have all the track buttons so close to each other. On the DN, there are 4 dedicated track buttons, but to select or mute midi tracks, you have to toggle midi mode. You can’t access both synth and midi tracks at the same time, you have to toggle between them. So no octopus-finger-muting 8 synth and 8 midi tracks at the same time
And you can’t select the tracks on the same page either, you have to toggle between synth mode and midi mode. So no quickly switching to a midi track to tweak stuff and instantly switch back to a synth track and tweak something there. There’s a tedious button toggle inbetween. -
On the DT, you can easily select tracks while in mute mode. To select a track, press TRK+trig to select whatever number track you want. On the DN, the TRK button has been replaced with the MIDI button, which toggles midi mode. If you’re in mute mode, the only way to select a track is to toggle out of mute mode. I still make the mistake of hitting the MIDI+TRACK buttons to select a track, but what happens instead is that it switches to midi mode and then mutes that track. Ooops. Now I can’t rely on muscle memory and have to spend my precious attention on undoing my mistake and get back to where I was, but at that point it might be too late and I missed the sickest transition
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On the DT, you can select most tracks easily with the left hand. It’s hard to select tracks all the way to the right though. However on the DN, you can’t easily select any track, because the track buttons are all the way to the right, while the mute toggle buttons are all the way to the left. On the DT I usually have my right hand on the encoders and slowly tweaking stuff while I use my left hand to select different tracks. On the DN, not only do I have to toggle in and out of mute mode to select tracks, but I have to either move my left hand all the way across the DN to the mute buttons, or stop tweaking parameters so I can select or mute the tracks with my right hand.
I’m actually thinking of making a feature request video where I basically showcase how I’d use the DN if you could select and mute tracks like on the DT
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This is just a small thing, but on the DT, the track buttons blink whenever a trig plays. In normal mode they blink super bright, and in mute mode they blink just enough to see what’s going on. On the DN, the track buttons do nothing in normal mode, and only blink in mute mode. So if I’m playing a pattern, I can’t see which track is playing the arp or bass without holding the FUNC button or toggling into mute mode. Not a big deal, but it’s one extra step needed just to check something that simple
And… yeah, those are the ways I think the DT is easier to make full tracks on than the DN
But wait, there’s more!
The DT has a lot less menus than the DN. That makes the DT simpler and faster than the more complex and slower DN. I think it would be impossible to make the DN with less menus without losing out on a lot of important stuff though. On the DT, you have 5 buttons each taking you to a page of stuff to tweak. Some of them have a double function; press FUNC+page button to access the delay, reverb and compressor settings. On the DN, not only do you have that, but also double-pressing buttons to access a third menu per page. This makes it so that while performing, say I want to add some delay to a synth track, so I press the AMP button twice to access the send settings, but before I realize it I’m just on the normal AMP page, not the send settings page.
I’ve done a ton of similar mistakes because of the double-press to access another submenu thing, and a lot of the time I’m simply too late by the time I get to the correct page. It takes a split second to realize you’re on the wrong page, then another split second to find the right page, but you also have to make sure that that page is the correct one too. Did you single press or double press it? These things are minor, but having to give attention to it makes it a lot slower than on the DT where each page only has one menu and you can rely on mucle memory.
But that’s enough ranting from me, I hope that was insightful @fulltang . Both are awesome, but DT is easier to perform on.