Midi fighter twisters with Digitakt

Elektron Gear Digitakt
#1

Hi, I have succesfully set up my digitakt with my two midi fighter twisters and have programmed all of my favourite parameters to work with the knobs. I am using a raspberry pi that has been set up as a headless usb host and it works great. The digitakt is set up so that any changes I make on the digitakt are seen on the midi fighter and vice versa.

Everything is great, unless I change patterns. If I change patterns the new midi information for all the parameters in the new pattern are not updated to the midi fighter. I can’t see the settings just by looking at the twisters and there is a audible ‘jump’ in the parameter when I change them if there is a significant difference between the two devices.

Does anyone know how I could set up the digitakt to send all the new midi parameters when I change pattern etc?

Many thanks,

2 Likes
#2

You cannot.

2 Likes
#3

The only Elektron box that can send all parameters to a midi controller is the Octatrack. :slight_smile:

3 Likes
#4

Thanks for the confirmation. It’s a shame.

#5

I’m really surprised by this. This seems like baseline functionality for boxes that deal with multiple patterns.

#6

I’m no longer surprised by what features Elektron leaves out of their boxes.

#7

Could you try enabling global FX/MIX for the project? At least you would have a bunch of useful controls to break out to the twister that would be consistent across patterns. Disclaimer that I didn’t try this myself.

Downsides being limited to just effects and mix settings and no unique settings for any given pattern, also likely a mismatch after changing projects.

I would actually prefer support for relative midi on the digi boxes, but that is another story.

#8

Just ask for midi dump CC in the topic below and pray :wink:

#9

Hi, good idea. It should be relatively straightforward to make it work.

#10

After a few days of trying to get the midi fighter twister to work with the Digitakt I thought I’d write up all that I’ve learned so that anyone searching on this topic in the future has the info.

I would not recommend buying a twister to work with the digitakt. With the current limitations of the Digitakt and twister the experience is frustrating and unpleasant.

It is possible to map digitakt parameters to the twister. The two devices speak to each other so changes (to track parameters) made on one device are reflected on the other. However for some reason the digitakt does not send midi feedback for the global parameters (compressor, reverb, delay and mixer). This means for tracks you need to go through all the menus and tweak the knobs on the digitakt everytime you turn on the device or change pattern/project; there is no midi parameter dump from the digitakt to update the twister (the octatrack has this function on cc 61). For global parameters there is only one way communication so you have to tweak the knobs on the twister for every parameter when you turn on the digitakt, and if you change parameters on the digitakt they are not reflected on the twister.

Finally, it’s not possible to make the switches on the twister work in a satisfying way with the digitakt. The twister has animation and brightness CCs baked into some of the midi channels that cannot be turned off. As the digitakt uses all 16 channels for its 8 audio and 8 midi tracks whatever you do there is cross talk between the two devices causing strange led changes when you hit switches.

My wish list of updates would be for Elektron to include a midi parameter dump similar to the octatrack and enable midi feedback for the global parameters, and for DJTT to update the twister firmware so you can turn off the animation and brightness CCs. If this happened then using the twister(s) with the digitaky would be delightful. For now I’ll plug them back into ableton.

I now plan to focus on what the digitakt can do and not what it can’t. Thanks to everyone on the various forums who helped me try and make this work.

8 Likes
#11

Thanks for the write-up! I also have two twisters, which I’m looking to use to control octatrack parameters. I got a raspberry pi to act as a USB midi host.

The big buzz kill for me has been the inability to remap knobs on the fly, like faderfox controllers can.

There’s a project called Muffin to write an alternate twister firmware. You may want to submit a feature request there. I already filled one for on-device knob assignment editing (~bxzn/Muffin#12: On-device knob assignment editor — sourcehut todo).

1 Like
#12

This project is great ! I sold my twister because of the absence of firmware updates (program change, editing start/end values …).
It could be make me buy another one :yum:

#13

The Muffin project seems to be abandoned. Too bad !

1 Like
#14

Thanks for this update.

I have a Twister (for use with software), and was wondering if it could be used to control the DT.

Would a Faderfox be better suited to this sort of thing?

such as this one: Faderfox PC4