Sure thing:
I hear a lot of drums that just sound very thin/tinny - that instant “this is a drum synth” awareness. If you’re doing something like electro 100% of the time, it might not be an issue, but comparing it to something like organic drum breaks you can tell something’s missing. That something is usually related to either 1) a lack of complex harmonics (some of the native machines can do this well, some I end up layering with other hits on an additional track) 2) lack of variation in the individual hits (this can be fixed with lfos and/or parameter locks modulating decay/filter cutoff/tune/etc. to create a human feel) 3) lack of reverb (compared with sampled drums, you’re missing the room ambience, which provides extra body) or 4) not implementing swing or micro-timing adjustments as necessary.
On the other hand, I also think it’s sometimes useful to have that thin synth layer when I just need a little extra presence from my Digitakt samples without muddying the mix. In which case, everything above is usually tossed out of the window - I just layer the thin hits where I might be lacking a certain tone or transient in the sampled drums.
I hope this helps!
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