Recording quality difference between Digitakt and OP-1

Elektron Gear Digitakt
#1

Gentle friends at the Elektronauts forum,

If you’ve got or are familiar with both the OP-1 and the Digitakt - would you say there’s a noticeable difference between the recording qualities of the two?

Let’s say I got an eight bar thing going. I’ll record it into the Digitakt. And into the OP-1. I’m okay with all this happening in mono.

Before I start working the filters, the effects and stuff, and if I just listen to the raw recording of the thing - would you say that there’s a difference between the two, that an average mortal like myself could tell?

#3

No.

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#4

pretty sure the digitakt normalizes samples so it adds a little color to everything. The op-1 from my memory is a bit more “clean”.

You can kind of distort incoming audio by boasting the gain on the op but I’d say the sound is noticeable.

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#5

I’ve also been running the digitakt through the analog heat the whole time soooo that’s probably skewing my perspective but I still think the DT has its own character even before u add effects because of the normilaztion

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#6

Thanks, good to know.

#7

I agree that the working with the DT has a certain feel because it normalizes all samples, but the normalization in and of itself doesn’t add any “character” to the audio like saturation or distortion would.

The normalization can be inconvenient if you want to make multiple recordings at the same level.

#8

This is a quote from a private message, so I won’t mention who said it. I don’t know if this is about the raw sound, but I thought i’d post anyway.

“Went to a mate who has a good old MPC2000xl and did a sound test between the OP1 and the DT… and the DT sounded thin compared to the MPC and the OP who surprisingly sounded almost alike!!”

Personally I prefer the processed Op-1 sound to the Digitakt. The Digitakt actually gave me headaches.

#9

I have no idea about the OP1 but imo the digitakt doesnt process stereo well, sure it normalizes it but the results sound a bit thin/flat sometimes and need to be worked on to bring back to life, often taking them far away from the original sound. The digitakt is a bit like the borg of samplers it assimilates stereo recordings and makes them digitakt, resistance is futile.

#10

Excellent, thanks to you all. This certainly put a spin on things. I was looking for something portable for recording external stuff and then work them deeper in the instrument. I’ve got some experience with both the Octatrack and the Digitakt and won’t go Octatrack again, but loved the sound of the Digitakt. However, the brief experience I had with the OP-1, I felt it had a very nice character to it, once you applied effects and stuff to the recordings.

However, I kind of assumed it was okay at best at recording external sound as far as quality goes, whereas I held the Digitakt quite high in this department, and had more or less made up my mind to go in the Digitakt direction again.

Now, I’m leaning more and more towards the OP-1 for this purpose.

Essentially, this recording device would be where I put my tracks together. I’m aware of the OP-1 limitations in terms of track length and so on, and that don’t bother me. The input quality is the decisive factor. Once the sound’s in there, I know I can make it work. But I want the source material to be as good as it can be, as far as it’s possible with these kind of devices.

#11

You‘ll never find peace, will you?

#12

I’ll always remain curious, though.

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#13

Can you elaborate some more of the workflow you’re looking for? Is this about recording loops, one-shots, creating chromatically playable instruments, or all of these? Why do you need it to be portable? What instruments, objects, found or environment sounds do you want to record? Do you plan to (mostly) wrap up a full track on a single device, or is it about capturing and moving recordings elsewhere later?

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#14

I’m looking for something portable, to where I can record anything from loops to one-shots to environmental sounds, to anything. A couple of use cases:
A jam from my Moog Sub37
A drum loop from my mate’s Analog Rytm
Sounds of water from the river where I live
My kids messing about
Another mate on his guitar
A chord sequence from a Prophet 6 I can borrow for a few days
My wife singing

And so on.

Whatever comes to mind.

In this portable solution, I want to then finish the track with whatever options this solution has. I don’t need all that much, I’ve used the Digitakt and the Deluge for this purpose and they both work fine. I gave up the Digi cause at the time, it was a mess in terms of stability. And the Deluge’s workflow never grew on me.

But the OP-1 would get the upper hand cause I like its internal synth engines, I love to work with the way it records through the tape interface, and its portability is a factor since I literally have no space.

#15

I am looking for something similar, but just for recording purposes. This can be all kinds of stuff, just like you mentioned: guitar, synths, all kinds of in/outdoor sounds etc.

These sounds will finally come to live in the DT/OT/AR.

The Zoom Hn4 Pro caught my eye.

https://www.zoom-na.com/products/field-video-recording/field-recording/zoom-h4n-pro-handy-recorder

I haven’t bought it yet, because I like the tape mode in the OP—1 very much.
But then again just for recording all kinds of stuff I think the Zoom does a better job.

image

#16

It’s an alternative that I’ve contemplated too. Well, not this one specifically, but something to make field recording easier. It came from watching @CarlMikaelBjork excellent OT + piano video - something I’ve thought about now I have the upright in my study/studio and seemed like a nice middle ground to going full out with mics and preamps and the likes. In two minds about the whole thing though.

As for OP-1 - I was always pretty impressed with sampling quality. The built in mic was something else I thought was actually pretty handy/useful too.

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#17

Get both. Better still an octatrack + op1

#18

I have done some brief AB testing and there is virtually no difference at all between the original and the Digitakt sample. I would say there is maybe a very slight lift in the high end once it is sampled. This is sampling at a standard level, not overdriving the inputs. It certainly does not sound thin, there is no drop in bass end at all. Not sure if I can post audio here but happy to PM.

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#19

The new Roland R-07 handheld recorder might be interesting as well. It has all kind of BT integration features and might make it easy to send recordings to other devices.

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#20

You may think it sounds thin because either it’s converted to mono, or maybe what your sampling doesn’t fold down to mono very well - some tracks that are made to be ‘wide’ don’t go down to mono well due to phase issues. You may be better sampling either the left or right channel (this is selectable in Digitakt when you sample). As I’ve written above there isn’t any loss of frequency when sampling in the DT :slight_smile:

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#21

I think digitakt > op-1 in most cases, this one as well. As long as you have power. Everything in the op-1 sounds dirty and glitchy, which is cool of course but i prefer to sprinkle that in myself and have the option of clean. Plus once in the digitakt you can do way more with it.

For field recording i would take an ipad or even an iPhone over both though. Not only recording, but even preparing the recordings,…editing, adding crossfades, applying fx, exporting to dropbox etx.

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