Modding/hacking the Digitakt

[Lameller]

Firstly: I fully realise that I have voided all warenty of my Digitakt and I am happy I did:grinning:

I did the batterypack mod that a lot of people have been doing and I love it. Having my digitakt open got me thinking. There is so much empty space in that box, I wonder what else I could fit in there besides a battery pack.

Long story short; I pulled apart my Volca Beats and placed it inside the Digitakt. It seems like it could work! Of course i would need something to change the voltage of the battery pack from 12V to 9V for the Volca, but that would not be a problem. Next would be soldering the audio out from the Volca to one of the inputs of the Digitakt. Same with the midi. Out from Digitakt to the in-points on the Volca board.

To make it all fit I think I would have to ditch the “controll” board from the Volca and just use the main board with the midi, audio etc.

Why would I do this? To have the beast sequencer of the Digitakt running an analog drum machine of course - but in the same package:grinning:

I haven’t gone ahead with it yet. But it got me thinking; what else could be put in the Digitakt with a midi in and an audio out? Volca Keys/Kick/Bass? Monotron? Something else???

Of course this is mainly speculation so far… But I think it could work.

Anyways - just had to tell someone:grinning:

I’ll leave you with a couple of images of the battery mod and of the Volca beats board inside the Digitakt.

[kite_splash]

slap some vacuum tubes in there electribe style

[Lameller]

Of course:joy:

[canister]

Ploughman’s sarnie and half an apple

[d_hansen]

How would you route the volca signal to the master out of the DT if the DT inputs don’t go through to the output (aside from monitoring when sampling)?

[Ryan]

I did the jelly bean hack. That’s where you open up your Digitakt and stick a little bag of jelly beans in there.

[bwo]

You can have monitoring always on, but it doesn’t really have volume control you need to turn down program volume and turn up master volume to get things to sit correctly.

I assume there might be a way to pop in more +drive storage space.

[d_hansen]

Still blows my mind that you can’t have audio from the inputs go through to the master & compressor like the DN. Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

[soon_come]

Of all the analog drum machines to permanently stick inside your Digitakt, you’d choose the Volca Beats?

[FigittyFau]

Having mixed feelings with this, I guess to each their own…

I would rather squeeze a lemon in my digitakt than the volca beats

[the_duckchild]

because LIFE ISN’T FAIR

[the_duckchild]

also… couldn’t you put it permanently inside your digitakt by, well, sampling it?

[Bankie]

The volca beats is tight.
I am a curious how you will implement have the sequencer, i guess you could just hook up a midi cable internally, and sequence the beats with the digitakts midi track, but IMO it’d be a bit of a PITA as you’d have to set up probably multilple midi tracks on channel 10 as each midi track sends up to 4 voices, i also don’t remember if the instrument volume knob responds to midi so not exactly sure how they you could adjust volume (i often turn down the bass drum just a lil bit so that when i am overdriving the sound there’s room for the other sounds to pop out).

[d_hansen]

I can definitely vibe with the desire to put an analog drum synth of some kind inside the chassis of the DT, as there’s nothing I’d love more than some analog percussion voices with that sequencer and form factor. Even four simple voices would be dope.

The better way for this to happen is for elektron to just make a simple but effective analog drum synth in the size & style of the DT, which is certainly possible given how far hardware tech has come since the original AR and how much empty space is in the DT.

[soon_come]

Yes, that’s the move, especially considering that the Volca Beats doesn’t even have any way to modulate sounds via CV, and very few ways to modulate via MIDI CC (I just checked). Just sample a very long decay version of each sound (kick especially) and shorten it with the Digitakt’s amplitude envelope. Now you can modulate the decay length in realtime or via sequenced param locks. I really don’t understand the desire to put this thing inside a Digitakt, besides saying “I can do this.”

Now if someone could put the drum engine from the Nord Drum 2 inside it…

[Hans_Olo]

Can’t wait to see your Digitakt / Jupiter X Franken-Mod.

[d_hansen]

it’s ideal for control freaks like me who want to get an analog percussion hit to sound exactly right without having to eat up memory with sampling sound variations.

wish the DT had the capacity for dual-layers per voice, so that you can sample the individual components of analog drum voices (noise & harmonics, click attack & body) and mix/modify them in better detail.

[Kuro]

Made me lol much more than it should have. I love some absurd humor.

[Hawk]

Mods like this are always a terrible idea. Much more convenient in actuality to have the beats as a nice self-contained battery powered unit that you can just connect with a midi cable. Knobs, sequencer, all intact. Never understood the desire to make one of these godawful mash-up hackjobs, no offense op. Just sample the sounds from the Beats into the Digitakt!!!

[soon_come]

Sounds like you want a Nord Drum or Model:Cycles. My main beef with needing another machine (or 2+) is you start needing to keep track of power and signal flow, and it quickly gets out of hand if you’re trying to keep a system small.

What would be really cool is a four-voice poly built in to the Digitakt. Sometimes I use the Volca Keys alongside it and it’s really a good companion (I just wish it had 4 voices and was built-in). That would be a cool mod, and would make the Digitakt a more complete workstation.