Monophonic kit possible?

Elektron Gear Digitakt
#1

OK, bear with me.

I’m not sure how to phrase this, so it’s really hard to search the manual/forum. It may even be an easy question- in which case, point and laugh, and I’ll still be delighted with having an answer :slight_smile:

Essentially, what I want to do involves a kit of samples mapped across keys. These samples are slices of a bigger sample. What I’d like to be able to do is play them from an external MIDI trigger source- but have each new trigger “interrupt” the previous one. Imagine, if you will, slices of a breakbeat, for example, where you could trigger those samples in an unpredictable way. I just don’t want them to overlap, as that sounds bad.

Previously, while doing this, I’d just throw down a bunch of trigs on a track, using a longer sample and start offsets, or a kit of slices carefully timed as discrete bits of lego. However, that’s too limiting.

Essentially, I want to break free from this so I can go wild with choppy sample playback- in effect, I want a kit on a track to act as though it was monophonic, so each new “note on” interrupts the currently playing sample on that track- and be able to play this monophonic track over MIDI rather than the internal sequencer.

Does that explanation even make sense? If it does, is there a way to achieve it with the DT?

(I’m not in front of my DT right now, so if that’s what it does by default and I didn’t realise, please do point that out! Permission to point and laugh stands.)

1 Like
#2

as far as i know you can’t spread sample chops chromatically

#3

Essentially, I think I want a kit with chokes, I think- which is a very basic old-fashioned facility.

#4

You can’t do this - this is slicing (which can be done on the OT I believe), or something like an MPC.

#5

You misunderstand, I don’t want slice anything. I just want a bunch of samples (of any kind) across a kit which can interrupt each other. Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned the obvious example of pre-sliced percussion. Imagine, instead, random animal noises :slight_smile:

It’s a feature that steam-driven samplers had in the 90s, often called “choke groups” or “mute groups”. Nothing to do with slicing. Super-basic sampler feature. Just not sure what it’s called in Elektronspeak.

#6

Nope, can’t be done on the DT. There is no facility for mapping incoming notes to specific samples or sounds. Closest you can come is that the lowest eight MIDI notes, received on any channel the DT is set to listen on, will trigger tracks 1 through 8 - but no choke function with this.

4 Likes
#7

Oh plop. Yeah, I’ve done the lowest notes thing, and it works ok- just lack of basic chokes means I have to be very conservative and inflexible with my use of samples.

Thank you, that’s a useful answer. Looks like I’ll end up selling my DT and picking up something Akai, as they appear to have retained that feature over most of their range.

It’s a shame, I love the DT when I’m using it as a baby sequencer (despite the strange lack of song mode/pattern saving)- but as a sound source for my modular? More limiting than a device 1/3 of the price.

Edit:

It could depend on sequencer behavior, maybe if the sequencer sends note off back to back with the next note on, possibly it’s fakeable. Hmmmm… If it is fudge-able, I will try and remember to post the fact in this thread for any other people in a similar situation…

#8

You can do sample locks on a single track they will choke then if on the same track

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#10

That implies using the internal sequencer rather than external MIDI though, right?

#11

If you connect the midi out to the midi in and aim all 8 midi tracks at the same audio track, you can set the sample start and length times for each of those tracks and then the drum kit will choke and you can play each hit with each midi track.

There won’t be great resolution on the start times though.

2 Likes
#12

@FromNaught’s got it :japanese_ogre:

#13

Can be done!