Noob midi cc question regarding ditto x4 (Solved!)

Thames very much Peter, I appreciate it! Even though its bad news haha

Hi ditto x4 users… i currenly updated to latest firmware… and turn out bad… i really dont need the new features of latest firmware. I updated coz sometimes the ditto stop or freeze… but not to the point i am annoyed. So i realized the usefull of old firmware for me… pls if someone know how to go back in last firmware.thankyou

Hi, it’s possibile to control the UNDO function via Midi CC?? Thanks

Hey Aldo, I’ve seen some of your jam session and I really liked them. They are very inspiring. To say the truth I buyed a Ditto last week because of you and because I found a really good used one for a good price :grin:. I would like to ask you something. What do you mean exactly that you don’t send the clock to ditto? How do you keep everything in time? Some of your guitar loops looks to be longer than the 4allowed pages by the DT sequencer… How do you do that? If you like to share of course…
Thanks

Hey of course! Glad you were inspired by my stuff. :dizzy:

I wasn’t using the clock because it was often unreliable. Instead I was sending CC messages from the Digitakt MIDI tracks to trigger the recording and playback of the loops on the Ditto. That way they were exactly the length I needed. It was pretty tedious and not 100% reliable but it was enough for “home use” I guess! Here is the MIDI implementation chart for the Ditto X4 :

CC3 Looper 1 Rec/Dub/Start
CC9 Looper 1 Stop
CC14 Looper 1 Clear
CC15 Looper 1 Level
CC20 Looper 1 Hold to Store
CC21 Looper 1 Clear Backtrack
CC22 Looper 2 Rec/Dub/Start
CC23 Looper 2 Stop
CC24 Looper 2 Clear
CC25 Looper 2 Level
CC26 Looper 2 Hold to Store
CC27 Looper 2 Clear Backtrack
CC28 Decay “Level”
CC29 All Loops Stop
CC30 All Loops Clear
CC31 FX On/Off
CC85 Parallel/Serial Toggle

You can control all the parameters but to simply create a synced loop you want to use the CC3 and CC22. At the very beginning of your pattern, place a trig that will send a CC3 message with a value higher than 1, and for example 4 bars later, put another trig with a different value to close the loop. Oh yeah and I believe the Ditto is hard-coded to receive those command on channel 4. :slight_smile:

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Hey thank you! It sounds brilliant… I am definetly going to try. So the max lenght of the loop you’re recording is the DT 64steps right?
In the case I need I longer loop couId I use trig condition on the last trigger (the one which send cc to stop rec)? Last thing… Do you have to disable clock send from the DT?

Hey, you can make loops a lot longer yeah, either with Trig Condition as you mentioned or by making your MIDI track longer/slower than the rest of the sequencer (FUNC + PAGE and FUNC + YES to enter Scale Per Track mode, and choose something like 1/4 and 1/8, also set M.LEN to Off). And I used to disable the MIDI clock but not sure if that changed anything. :slight_smile:

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Hey… Very cool. I’m going to try ot right now…
Thanks

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I’ve seen some of your videos because I’ve a ditto x4 and I really liked them, congratulations and thank you for sharing them.
I have seen another video where you use the OT as looper, do you prefer it instead of the ditto?
I have OT and Ditto, and I would like to know your opinion about it (I also play guitar).

Thanks!

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Hey thanks for watching them. :slight_smile:

I would say the OT is more reliable, the Ditto loops tend to drift which will simply kill the whole performance. So yeah OT over Ditto! That said the OT has some major limitations as a looper, and I encountered some weird audio issues too. :confused: I stopped using them and switched to the Aeros Loop Studio which has less creative feature but it reliable and easy to use.

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Hi! What were the limitations of the OT for you? Just want to know from the perspective of a guitarist

I have both the ditto x4 and OT, but never live looped with the OT. I’m fairly versed with guitar looping too, been using echoplex for ages now

Just wanted to know what was the limitation from Aldo’s point of view

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Hey, the main limitation is the fact that it’s super hard to go back and forth between several loops (to create a verse/chorus for example). I came up with a workaround but it’s quite tedious and requires 2 tracks per loop, which is super frustrating. Also the Pick-Up machines have that weird bug where a click/pop will randomly appear at the end of a loop and stay there until you restart the OT… That was a dealbreaker for me. :confused:

A lot of people will say “just use the Flex machine!” but it’s not the same. These are great for live-resampling+mangling and I use them quite a lot, but they’re not suited for “normal” guitar live-looping in my opinion : the controls are super limited, you can’t erase the loop without some menu-diving, overdubbing requires tedious workaround…

So yeah the OT is amazing for working with loops, but it’s a not a proper looper for me. It’s a very basic looper at best.

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Thanks! I should try myself someday

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Would flex machines with different patterns/parts work? Using four parts(*) on four different patterns, you could easily go from intro to part a, part b and outro or whatever you want to do.

*instead of changing parts it would be possible to sample lock recorder buffers on one track in different patterns.

Yeah that should work but I personally don’t like using Flex machines for looping. :slight_smile:

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I had tried control the ditto with midi trigs from OT (first trig cc3 with some value > 1 and the last trig with cc3 and other value) but by the moment without consistent results. I put trigs with conditional First for only rec a blank loop and then overdub manually from the switches, but double stop ruin my settup (double stop for stop my keyboard connected too in the midi chain). I can’t use double stop because ditto receive midi trigs too…
I tried to put cc3 and cc22 in the same first and last trig but then ditto some times start to rec in loop 1, sometimes in loop2… a mad thing.
I’m going to try again but it doesn’t seem very consistent

Well, after many hours of testing I think I have managed to make it work consistently. The main problem was that the OT midi track apart from the CC you want to send, unless Vel = off in the Playback page, it also sends a Note On and a Note off with each CC (after watching it with midi-ox it was lighter) …
My “Per Track” setting:

-Do not press double stop at any time!
-To start clear previous loops on ditto.
-Sending Clock from OT too.
-Master = 256
-Track1 on channel 9 controlling the korg microX, scale 64 x1
-Track2 on channel 4 (Ditto) with scale “64 1/2”, the first trig for rec Loop1 with CC3 (1:4) and the first trig of 3:4 (CC3 too) to stop recording and start playback (each trig with different values) Perfect 64steps loop.
-Track3 on channel 4 (ditto) controlling loop2, the same as track2 but sending CC22, plus tempo set to “64 1/4” to make it twice as long.
-The trigs of tracks 2 and 3 are in FILL condition.
-I mute one of the two Tracks and activate fill to record, then I mute that track and activate the other one and make fill to record in the other. Then I can continue doing the same for overdubs, or I can use the ditto switches (loop is already synced). :wink:

The trick is to disable VEL (off) in the trig that sends CC3 or CC22, otherwise ditto will go crazy. Also for the loop to be of the perfect length, for example 16 steps, the first trig goes in the first step 1:4 and the last one is not in 16, it is in 17 (first of 2: 4).

Well I’m going to keep playing and see if everything continues stable. At the moment two hours playing, no time lag.

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Thanks for the good info, I m using Studio one 5 to send the cc messages, so far all of them are working well…except I can’t replicate the second press of record (cc3) it records correctly but I can’t figure out how to simulate the second press where the loop plays back, I have tried sending same signal but it doesn’t do anything once it’s recording. I have also tried dropping from 127 to 100 on the second cc3 message but it didn’t work…anyone have any ideas?

After some frustrating experiments I’d like to give my two cents on this matter.

My initial goal was to build a foot controller that fires up CC3 to start recording on footswitch press and CC3 again on footswitch release to stop it. I got up to a point of consistently firing proper CC messages manually but Ditto’s behaviour was not stable, it would miss triggers seemingly at random. I tried odd-even values for CC but it didn’t help.

What helped was adding a 500ms delay after a trigger – for 400ms after sending a trigger new triggers wouldn’t be sent. This way Ditto CC behaviour became somewhat stable. Any shorter delay caused unexpected behaviour to occur.