Hi all, I am still new to Elektron gear, got a Digitakt 2 about 6 weeks ago and am loving it. I also have a Roland TR-8S but much prefer the workflow on the Digitakt 2, so much so, I am going to sell the TR-8S. Before I do though I want to sample a lot of the native sounds into the Digitakt. I have watched tutorials on how to sample but wanted a bit of advice please. My plan is to sample all the drum sounds from the TR-8S as One Shot samples into the Digitakt and just do 1 sample of each sound and I won’t add any effects or alter any of the parameters and just capture the original. Does that sound like a good idea? I haven’t purchased any samples from anywhere before but was reading about a Samples from Mars pack that they include the clean unaltered sound file for the 808 kit for example but also include other versions e.g. one with a load of distortion and other varieties. Should I try and sample different versions of the same sound?
Also just had a look and I can get all the drum samples that they have for $39 in the Black Friday Sale, that’s 49 sample packs. That seems like a good idea, would you recommend just buying that and then not having to worry about sample my own TR-8S?
You won’t get anything better or fresher or whatever out of your TR-8s what you already have in your tons of sample packs.
But:
You can craft your own kit on the Tr-8s, instead of using precrafted stuff that you might not like.
I would keep the TR-8s alone for that, but I wouldn’t try to sample all whatever exists in it out of it.
Thanks, I don’t have the sample packs yet, just wondered what others thought in terms of purchasing them instead of sampling everything out of the TR-8S.
I am selling the TR-8S so if I don’t buy the sample packs from Samples from Mars I would need to sample everything or at least everything that I think I might need before I no longer had it.
In terms of kits you can create custom kits on the Digitakt 2, so as long as I have access to the samples of all the Roland drum machines, I could create whatever kits I like on the Digitakt. I appreciate that I would playing a sample on the Digitakt 2 vs the ACB sound generation on the TR-8S but would I be losing much in terms of sound manipulation options? I know the TR-8S is quite a deep machine, I just much prefer having access to 8 parameters at a time and find it easy to navigate around the different menu pages.
My #1 tip would be to record the longest version of each sound, since you can adjust the decay on the Digitakt. As an example I only use open hihat samples on the Digitakt since I can shorten them to closed hihats.
Additional similar tips include other processing features that you can leave for the Digitakt:
-keep the original samples clearn. Don’t add overdrive, bitcrush or sample rate reduction to the sounds on the TR-8S since you can add those on the Digitakt
-don’t add filtering to the original samples since you can filter them on the Digitakt
-including reverb on the original sample could be personal preference, and could be dealt with by reducing the decay of the sample on the Digitatk, but again you can add reverb in the Digitakt itself.
I just thought of another reason for tip #1 (keeping the samples as long as possible). If you pitch the sound down on the TR-8S, then if they have a somewhat long decay you can pitch them up on the Digitakt without causing the sample to become too short.
What i mean: fiddle on the tr-8s, jam a bit - and THEN refine that kit in your dt2.
If you can’t imagine that would be fun its the wrong approach for you.
One thing you have too with your tr-8s is fm drum (bd, sd, etc. etc.) Lot of options.
I recently started to use the tr-editor, its fine for tweaking. It’s computer gui, yes, but also fast to click a kit together.