I own a Digitone Keys and love it, but can see myself eventually succumbing to the lure of the Digitone 2.
Besides using them in a basic way in tandem, or using the Keys as the controller for the DN2, are their other ways to combine them that I have not have considered that would warrant keeping the Keys.
While I love the playability, knobs and easy mapping of the Mod and Pitch Wheel on the Keys, I’m not sure I could justify keeping them both.
I am in the same situation. I have been keeping an eye out for a bargain DN for a while, because the DNK is awkward and can only be played in certain places in my apartment. Ironically, there are now many bargains, but because there is another, better temptation. No decisions yet, though. I will not get rid of the DNK, because I have no better keyboard (even though I could use another octave of keys) but one of the things that occurred to me was that I had wished the DNK’s control knobs could be macro knobs instead of only being assigned to a single parameter, and now they can, but on a companion DN2, by means of the PB/MW/AT/BC setup. Of course, this will work on an added DN1, also, and I have a Faderfox UC4 that can be put to the task as well, but it is one such synergy, and there are probably more.
I am in the same boat, keeping the dnkeys as it’s my only keyboard, and maybe later add a dn 2 (and sell a lot of gear). One good use would be to use the keys only for polyphonic fm, thus not restricting the voice count on the Dn2.
But wait I don’t need a Dn2 
You realize the knobs can control anything you want right? They have two modes, the normal mode where they control what they control, or you can assign them to anything… not multiples but the wheels can do that.
I would think twice about selling a dtk, all you guys that have one might have one of the few synth’s that will become sought after in the future…
I get the feeling they are not gonna do another keyboard… I could be wrong but they never sell and are much harder to ship and wearhouse etc… since they are not a private owned company but are owned by investors now I would be surprised if they ever go in that direction again… I doubt we will ever get anything as funky as the dtk again… it is such a weird thing.
I have a Digitone Keys and unless you already have one there is not going to be any difference in integration with how you use any other dedicated MIDI controller. 37 keys are not enough for me for two hands but YMMV.
But only one thing each. They’re not macros.
I’m not selling my DTK, and I agree it’s unlikely we’ll see another.
The wheels can control four things each though… can’t you use them for that?
The mod wheel, yes, though many presets make use of it. Pitch bend is spring-centred, as you know, and more awkward for this purpose. Also the wheels are way over to the left of the DN chassis, not right over the keyboard. But these are minor points. You are probably correct that with a DN2 at hand, DNK may be best used in MIDI controller mode, and there are other MIDI controllers out there. I was just trying to think of more creative ways to put the two together, given that I have one and am contemplating the other.
Just to confirm:
Could the Mod (and Pitch) Wheel on the DK be used to control upto 4 parameters on an EXTERNAL synth - such as the Digitone 2, or anything else you wish?
that would depend entirely on the external synth.
No. Not in the way you are thinking about it. When the Digitone Keys is in ext control mode it behaves like any other MIDI controller. Mod wheel is going to communicate over a single CC. If, on the receiving end, like Digitone II, you have a mod setup configured for the mod wheel that is assigned to 4 parameters, then it can control those.
Ah, gotcha. That makes sense.
So, fundamentally the DNK would send a SINGLE CC message from its Mod Wheel to the Mod Wheel of the DN2 - which could then be mapped to 4 parameters (thereby giving the user control of the 4 parameters using the DNK mod wheel.
Nice.
Exactly. Mod wheel has a fixed CC in MIDI protocol (I think it’s 1) that will be understood as mod wheel by most (every?) synth as mod wheel. If a synth allows you to map stuff to mod wheel, it will thus respond to that. Same for breath controller, which is always MIDI CC 2 (I think). DN has macros for mod wheel and breath controller, which means you can use any MIDI controller that allows you to set MIDI CC to 1/2 to change up to four parameters each. Means you can also use every Elektron with a MIDI sequencer for that. There’s also some MIDI controllers that allow you to say a certain knob/fader will send aftertouch, but that depends on the controller, since aftertouch doesn’t have a fixed MIDI CC afaik. Pitch bend isn’t that useful for macros, since it’s always also mapped to pitch on DN (and then you can define four more parameters on top of that). I don’t know how DNK handles these things when sending but these were useful infos to me when I started messing with MIDI controllers and macros.
Just looping back to this idea:
I gather there would be no way for the 8 encoders on the right top of the Digitone Keys to (automatically) map to the whichever Digitone 2 track that is selected?
ie. to be able to control:
• Ration A
• Ration B
• Harmonics
• Level A
• Level B
• Mix
• Cutoff
• Reso
…and have the Digitone Keys be able to control those parameters for whichever track is selected on the Digitone 2?
Electron devices have a MIDI “auto” channel.
MIDI received on that channel goes to whatever track is selected.
Details are in the manual…
This! It’s the same for all kinds of MIDI controllers. You can basically use any controller that allows you to map specific CCs to knobs or faders and set a MIDI channel on which these are sent to control almost every DN2 parameter, check the MIDI CC charts at the end of the DN2 values.
Edit: Maybe it’s easier than what I just wrote if DN Keys control mode just automatically sends out the CC value of the knob you’re using, I don’t know and you’d have to check the DN Keys manual for that.
Old suggestion before edit:
What will probably be the most tricky in your situation is that you will need to set a MIDI channel on which MIDI will be sent out of your DN Keys. That will require you to go to a MIDI track on your DN Keys, there you will be able to set it to a channel that you then choose as auto channel on DN2. You will also have to manually map the CC values of the DN MIDI track to those encoders you want to use. It means it will be more work than you probably expected, but it also means you’re more flexible because you can map any combination of parameters to the encoders. Also: don’t sleep on performance macros for Breath Controller, Aftertouch, Velocity and Pitch Bend on DN(2), you will find videos on that by @DaveMech or @djst.