I am looking for a way to record percussions in decent quality, preferably with my digitakt.
I have learnt from the forums, that the zoom hx could do the trick. Do I need an dedicated microphone for drums/percussion if I go along this route? Can someone give me advice which ones are good? How does this solution compare to dedicated preamp+mic solutions? Thanks in advance
What are you planning in recording? Full kit? Or conga’s/shakers etc? Do you have a desk or access to mics? You can buy dedicated sets of drum mics but the cheaper ones aren’t too good from my experience. Much better to use one or two decent quality mics if you can? Another factor if you’re micing the full kit is spill. You might find you want to gate the mics to reduce spill as best you can. Then you need stands… some acoustic treatment will do a long way too…it can start to get pricey depending how slick you want the recording. Can you get away with recording individual drums and building up the parts either in the DT or in a DAW? Might help if you’re tight for mics/stands etc. No spill issues either. There are some good tutorials on mic ing kits etc, I’d recommend starting there.
If you’re happy to record parts individually you could get away with something like an SM57 or similar, a stand and I’d suggest a compressor/gate or a VST for recording just because I’m old school! You could use the zoom to record with the inbuilt mic. Give it a go, I’ve nit tried using mine for drums yet but with an eye on levels and placement you might get good results. If not, plug in a mic!
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I want to record one percussion instrument at a time. Mainly Djembe, Conga and maybe some shakers or something. Since the Digitakt is not great for long samples/ loops i would record into audacity or ableton and use ableton for playback.
I don’t have any microphones yet. The only thing i have that might help is a dj-mixer with microphone input, a Rane TTM57sl. I don’t know about the quality of the mic preamp though. Also with the zoom or the battery-powered digitakt in contrast i would be mobile and could just pack my stuff and look for a place for recording that offers good acoustics.
Has anybody tried the zooms for percussions? Maybe paired with an SM5? The zoom h6 for about 500€ looks like a good option for me.
What about a Boss RC-505. Obviously this is something completely different, but it is in the same price range, has micpreamps and would offer some more creative options. Can this device plus SM5 deliver acceptable results or is this only for jamming and playing around?
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I’ve only used my 505 with a guitar but it’s sounds good to me. My H5 sounds good on it’s condenser mic but as I say, not tried it on any percussion yet. Given the choice I’d suggest you’d get better quality results from the Zoom as it’s a dedicated recorder where as as good as the 505 is it’s essentially a guitar pedal.
Plus with the zoom you can get going straight away then upgrade to a separate mic when you see fit or funds will allow. Heck you could even invest in a nice channel strip and go line out into the Zoom then.
You don’t have another audio interface, that’s why you want to use the DT for sampling? I had the smaller rc202. Pretty fundevice, decent mic preamp, but not great. If it’s pristine audio quality I would look somewhere else. But for building loop layers of percussion it should be a really satisfying workflow 
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The digitakt works fine for loops and long samples, I’m not sure why this myth keeps being propagated .
In your case recording a loop or chain of different drum hits would most definitely fit the digitakt workflow. Start and end points can easily be plocked ina sequence. And using the zoom as your mic should eliminate the need for any other equipment.