Problem with midi tracks : Digitakt + MiniFreak

I have sounds assigned to all 8 drum tracks on a pattern. I also have all 8 midi tracks assigned to different Arturia MiniFreak patches via 5 pin midi din.

In stop mode and not grid recording: I can play back and forth between drum sounds with no problem but once I play a midi track and switch to another one, the first one is unavailable until I press PLAY and STOP.

If I press midi A and then press B => the A Freak patch will play and then B patch will play, but now when I hit the A trigger it plays the B patch. => if I now hit the C trigger it will play a new Freak patch and A, B and C triggers all now play the new C patch => hit the D trigger and A,B,C and D triggers all now play the D patch, etc. Why can’t I just play midi tracks like sample tracks? Boom, bang, bong, bang, boom.

If I press PLAY and then STOP, it resets the tracks but each time I press a midi trigger the same behavior repeats itself. Doesn’t matter what order I press track triggers. One and done until PLAY => STOP.

I’ve tried searching the manual and have also searched through this forum and Google but haven’t found an explanation anywhere. I did learn a lot of other cool stuff along the way though.

Help, please.

The Digitakt’s midi tracks are sending program change messages only the first time they’re triggered, and note on messages thereafter. Multi-timbral synths receive midi on different channels per sound, and Minifreak can’t do this that I’m aware of, and won’t be able to play more than one patch simultaneously.

You can parameter-lock different patches to different steps of a single midi track, or parameter-locking the PC message on every active step of the sequencer should send the program change messages, but I don’t think this works for playing in notes live. Sorry not to have better news, though someone else may have ideas.

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Yup, the only way around is to trigger the MIDI on a step with the program change plock, but (for the Microfreak at least, I’m guessing the Mini is the same), you could try add the PC plock on each step as it changes reliably on 16th notes. Worth a shot anyway.

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Yes thanks, this workaround crossed my mind too after posting. Especially if what OP wants to do is play live from different MF patches, filling each with “yellow”/trigless trigs with the program change locked onto them should be a suitable workaround and should be preserved in recording.

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Honestly this never crossed my mind until OP asked, could be a lot of fun!

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Thanks for all the responses. I tried putting PC plocks on all 8 midi tracks (each to a different Freak patch) on all 16 steps of a pattern. I get 1/16 note playback of the last patch played. Same behavior as before.

I’d really like to be able to live record multiple freak patches just like I do with the sample patches.

I can’t believe nobody else wants to do this. I guess you are doing it, but with multiple units. So hook a brother up. What’s a good bass synth that’s not much bigger than a deck of cards?

Sorry it didn’t work out. It sounds like you may not have placed “yellow” (fn +[trig]/p-lock/trigless) trigs? Not positive that will help, though. I still don’t think I fully understand the use case of using multiple midi tracks if the MF can only play one patch at a time. Parameter-locking patch changes on a single track is how I’d approach playing multiple patches on a single synth.

Sampling MF sounds into the DT also an option, but I hear people love the Typhon, which is the smallest-footprint quality bass synth I’ve heard of. (0-coast would probably be cool with MiniFreak, too.)

Thanks for your responses and sorry for being so slow. I’m a music major and just finished this semester and am getting back to studying the Digitakt for the Summer break.

Here’s what I’d like to do:

Press midi trig A => play MiniFreak patch 001
Press midi trig B => play MiniFreak patch 002
Press midi trig C => play MiniFreak patch 003
Press midi trig D => play MiniFreak patch 004
Press midi trig A (again) => play MiniFreak patch 001
Press midi trig B (again) => play MiniFreak patch 002
Press midi trig C (again) => play MiniFreak patch 003
Press midi trig D (again) => play MiniFreak patch 004

In context, I’d like to be able to live record & play MiniFreak patches exactly as I can with the sample trigs.

I’ve tried adding trigless plocks on MSB/LSB/CC and cannot for the life of me make this happen.

In the example above, I press A and the assigned Freak patch loads and plays. When I press B the assigned Freak patch loads and plays but pressing A does not reload the assigned patch and instead simply plays the B patch. After pressing C, both A & B will only play the C Freak patch. Press D and A,B,C will all play the D Freak patch. The only way to be able to play a previously loaded Freak patch is to press play and stop on the Digi which resets things.

This makes no sense to me. Why am I able to readily switch back and forth between sample trigs but not midi trigs? I’ve tried using trigless trigs and get no results.

Apparently the Digi will only do what I want if I have 8 different synths connected up?

Okay, assuming the point is being able to pull up selected patches while playing along live, rather than recording into the sequencer (this is a really unusual use case otherwise—if you’re putting things into the sequencer, parameter-locking PC’s on a single track is the way to go), then here’s a way I just tried that works:

For each midi patch track, in grid mode:
Func + Page to make the track the minimum number of steps.
Func + [TRIG 1] to make a yellow lock trig on the track.
Holding that yellow lock trig, select the program/patch # you want it to play.
Repeat for each track.

This gives you lock trigs that continually fire off your desired program change.

To play, leave all of these tracks muted, and from the mute page (green or purple trigs), you can unmute one at a time to have it send your program change message. You can leave it unmuted (then re-mute before selecting another), or double tap it upon selection so you’ll only have one button press to call up your next patch.

There are midi controllers that can be programmed to send PC messages with a button press (I like the Xjam), or iPad/iPhone programs like TouchOSC or Mozaic that are also designed to do stuff like this without elaborate workarounds.

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I’ve never resolved this problem and simply gave up on using the Digitakt to sequence my miniFreak in favor of simply using the Freak sequencer.

I have, however, recently found a potential use for the Digitakt MIDI tracks. I just received a Sleepy Circuits Hypno video synthesizer and will be experimenting with MIDI control of the unit after I spend another evening orienting myself to the manual controls and various video sources (internal waveforms, USB files & live camera input), on the Hypno.

Monkey Drivers

Hey how did u get on with using hypno and digitakt ? What’s your configs im really struggling to get hypno to work with digitakt. Any help appreciated. Thanks :pray:

These 2 boxes compliment each other very well.

I use the Digitakt to sequence and glitch the Eyesy but not to mix the Hypno. Things can get really busy on the Hypno in a hurry and it takes a minute to put the brakes on the various motions. I can roll through all the Hypno buttons + knobs (and DT midi track LFO’s) and get it all stopped but it makes me look like a hotknobber.

I use an Arturia MicroLab to load Hypno presets manually. My video clips range from 5 seconds to 6 minutes long. I can let the longer vidi’s play all the way and a lot of the shorter vidi’s can just loop while the Eyesy sketches around percussive rhythms. I usually change Hypno presets every 2-4-8-12-16 bars, depends on the length of the video clip / Hypno preset. I’m a keyboardist and have no problem playing a note on the MicroLab now and again to change presets.

FWIW, I’ve saved a zero motion Hypno preset using one of the 3 front panel presets. This is my PANIC button and it gets me back to a known state. You may still need to stop some DT midi track LFO’s but having a Hypno panic button makes the process of putting on the brakes a lot faster.

I use a Moog Mavis to manually cv glitch Hypno video while adding tones to the tunes. It would be nice to be able to automate mixing and glitching Hypno video, but I find the DT workflow too complicated for the task. See this post for another TLDR rant.

I’ve been searching for a small bare bones midi sequencer about the size of the Hypno but have had no luck. Anyone? Bonus points if it has cv outs :exploding_head:

I use the Hypno solo but prefer the Eyesy in a duet.

===

Check back. I’m writing another TLDR on how I used the DT with Hypno and to describe my experiences. It’s going to take a minute…

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Digitakt + Hypno setup:

Go to the DT SRC page. You’ll see a bunch of X’s. Press FUNC + the top left knob, release the FUNC and twist to set the midi track to channel 16 (Hypno midi channel is 16 and it’s unchangeable). You’ll need to do this for each of the midi tracks you want to use.

Go to the TRIG page to access Hypno presets beyond just the 3 on the front panel. This is where you set note values to recall Hypno presets. You can plock different notes on different DT pattern steps to change Hypno presets but don’t (at first). If you start with a particular preset and then use the LFO to glitch it (there’s only 1 LFO per midi track) and then you plock another preset on a different step, the LFO may not look so good on the 2nd preset. Just use a single video clip / preset for each DT midi track (most of the time) and ensure the LFO for that track is doing what you want.

A note on repeating DT patterns and tracks when using multiple Hypno presets. If you place multiple different note / presets on different midi tracks and then play / repeat the pattern multiple times, the preset changes will only trigger once and won’t retrigger again until you stop and restart the pattern. For example, use midi track 9 to trigger a Hypno preset on the kick (beats 1 and 3) and use track 10 to change presets on the snare (beats 2 and 4). Press play and the Hypno preset changes will start but they’ll stop on the last trigger. The audio portion of a sequence will continue playing but whatever triggered on the last midi track will continue showing with no new preset trigger changes. The last midi track LFO will also keep doing its thing. In this case, you must plock all TRIG page note changes (preset changes) in order to have them continuously retrigger through multiple pattern repeats. This is important only if you plan on playing multiple repeats of a pattern and want the Hypno video to keep switching.

Go to the AMP page to set the Hypno midi CC’s you want to glitch [see this Hypno midi implementation chart ]. There are 8 DT knobs so you only get 8 CC’s per midi track. You can use plock’s for more parameter changes but don’t. When things get too weird you’ll never figure out what you did. You can access more CC’s for the same video clip by triggering a different midi track on the same beat (or a different beat) with different AMP page CC’s while using the same TRIG page preset selection. Use the different midi track LFO’s to make CC values move.

To manually twist and glitch using DT knobs, go to the FILTER page and FUNC + press each knob to activate them. Twist and turn and anything that happens will be based on the corresponding CC entries you made on the AMP page. Again, you can plock any of these parameters but, see previous warnings.

It’s easy to get confused while playing live. Pay attention when switching tracks and know whether the DT is in step or live recording mode (or not). If not, you can hit a midi track to immediately switch to that Hypno preset. Any sequenced changes will still occur when a pattern is running.

You can mute audio and midi tracks globally and per pattern. If something goes bad live you can mute the midi track until you fix it. It’s also easy to accidentally switch pattern when you think you’re switching tracks :scream:

I never had much use for Digitakt midi tracks until I got the Eyesy and Hypno. I still only use the Digitakt for the Eyesy but might mess around a bit with Hypno (just changing presets) and leave the glitching to the cv outs on my Mavis.

Practice makes perfect and sometimes happy accidents!

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After trying a few options, I’ve gone back to sequencing Hypno presets with the Digitakt (just preset swaps). I’d rather not glitch Hypno video with midi and have ordered a Kenton Pro Solo to glitch Hypno video with Digitakt midi to cv.

The best Hypno solution was staring me in the face the whole time.
I use Digi midi tracks 9-12 for the Eyesy and 13-16 for Hypno (mostly…)