Should I sell this thing?

Elektron Gear Digitakt
#1

I’ve had the Digitakt for about 6 months now. I love how intuitive and easy it is to create music, and have a bunch of tracks waiting to be recorded.

…and that’s the problem. I’m fed up waiting for Overbridge so I can multi-track record my songs. I can’t back up anything, or see what samples are unused at a global level to free up space on the drive, so I’m stuck.

I’m now more tempted than ever to cut my losses and sell the Digitakt on and put the money towards a Vermona Perfourmer. Am I being rash?

This is a genuine question by the way. I don’t really want to sell the Digitakt, but I also don’t really believe that I’m going to be able to record any music in a good enough way for a good few months at least - and it’s become a real creativity suck. What do other people in a similar position think?

1 Like
#2

my first drum machine/ sampler was an mpc500. And I use to record one track at a time into my daw and I made so much music with just that device alone.

Don’t see why you couldn’t use the digitakt the same way until overbridge comes out. OR sell it and get to making and finishing music.

I think it just comes down to if the digitakt is really keeping you from making music or are you just bored and want another instrument to play with? They’ll all get the job done.

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#3

How are you planning on recording the Perfourmer?

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#4

I can understand the disapointment about the ob delay. But it is as it is. If you love your DT keep it. Simply record track by track and move on.
People made songs with elektrons long before ob was announced

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#5

OB WILL come out at some point, though. If you love it now, then you will REALLY love it once OB drops.

I suggest being patient and really be able to use the machine to its fullest capacity.

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#6

I understand the frustration, the issue about unused samples bothers me way more than lack of Overbridge. It’s never really worked for me on my Macbook running Logic X, so I’ve learned to live with out it…old school :slight_smile: As has been said in previous comments, since you are only dealing with 8 racks recording them individually should not be too much of a problem, keep the DT, hopefully these issues will be solved soon.

#9

If you love it, I think it’s worth keeping… & like someone else mentioned since OB is so important to you, you’ll love it even more once it gets it. Just a thought, but do you play anything live? Maybe try playing your songs out live, recording only the master. Gain skill & knowledge while waiting for OB. Make a little “Before OB” beat tape filled with live songs. Try getting creative with it. The best music is made by feel… just play, go by feel, have fun & all though doing things yourself takes more time you might appreciate the music you make more.
Or like someone else mentioned, record each track 1 at a time. If you’re going to finish the beat in a DAW anyways it shouldn’t take much time to record like 4 bars of each track…8 tracks shouldn’t take more than 5 minutes. You can even do a little live playing while recording each track, then chop it up & keep the good parts. You’ll come up with stuff you would have never thought of.
There are so many options…

1 Like
#10

Record one of your songs from the stereo outputs only. Post it here. Let us know what you’d done with the song by means of Overbridge, that we can’t hear now. And we’ll go from there.

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#11

There is sysex backup for everything but samples currently. I know not a full backup solution but at least if you decide to sell it you can save patterns and setting just in case.

I’ve seen a lot of people say they need multi tracking to get music off the digitakt but I would think that individualy tracking stuff would be better than losing work.

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#12

Just hang it on the wall and look at it as unfinished piece of art just waiting to be completed. If sell it you’ll probably regret it when overbridge gets released the day after :joy:

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#13

No.

Just a little patience. Keep on going. :slight_smile:

#14

To me this is quite simple. If you love the DT, you will stick with it, apologize for its shorcomings and work around its issues… Or do you not love it anymore? Was it all just a gear-crush, and now that the honeymoon is over, you’re feeling… not into it anymore?

OTOH Losing 6 months of work is not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things… But losing killer ideas or great songs is. So the value of the data within is not so much in the time you spent but on the actual content itself. Without hearing said content its quite hard for anyone to place value on it.

At the end of the day, you’re the most important instrument in your rig, everything else is replacable. But a good fit with an instrument is crucial for getting the most out of your output. Do not act unconsciously and too impatiently when choosing those tools.

1 Like
#15

Is that really necessary?
Seems a bit passive aggressive…

I can give you an 2 examples:
EQ - since the DT lacks EQ, having the multitrack is needed to apply EQ to track
Fades - since you can only fade 1 track at a time, multitrack needed for volume fades of 2 or more tracks

I don’t know why users here get angry at people that need OB, is it because Elektron boxes are primarily used by the DAWless scene?

Recording from stereo outs is not the same as having 8 individual tracks, this isn’t the customers fault. People bought this box because of OB functionality, and it isn’t their fault that Elektron have screwed them over

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#16

OB is def gonna come out the day you sell it.

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#17

I think you’re reading too much into that post. I understood it as ‘make do with a stereo out recording for now, then analyse those recordings and think about how you’ll tweak them once you have overbridge’. Not an unreasonable suggestion.

#18

I agree it’s not unreasonable in the way you presented it :+1:

But it was written like:
“Post it here. Let us know what you’d done with the song by means of Overbridge, that we can’t hear now. And we’ll go from there.”

Might just be a language barrier or cultural difference. Just seemed rude and unnecessary tone to me.

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#19

Of course stereo out is not the same thing, and it’s not the customers fault. I think it’s mostly common opinion that Elektron screwed up OB (so far) and advertising of their latest products.
But what should we tell the OP. “Man, you are right, no overbridge sucks, sell that damn thing”. He likes the DT. So, we should make suggestions how to handle that situation nobody but Elektron can change right now. So first options that come to mind: Record the stereo of the whole Song, or mute and record track by track… Better than selling, if you are creative with it imo

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#20

I add one point that I think gets people waiting for OB frustrated. People keep saying record track by track to DAW.

But:
These are performance oriented devices, cntr-all, busFX. You cannot track a 4-5min performance piece by piece.

Also do NEI trigs work when neighbor track is muted?

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#21

Thanks everyone for your replies. I’m really looking to be convinced not to sell the DT - which is why I posted. Not to bitch or complain. I’ve done enough of that about OB already :slight_smile:

If you want to skip the individual replies below, the TL;DR is that I’m up for giving track-by-track recording a go. It’s a shame because it means I’ll lose the ‘performance’ style recording that appeals to me about the DT, but it’s a decent tradeoff in the meantime. If anybody has any tips on how to do that (other than recording loops and arranging them in the DAW), let me know!

Haha, this is my fear! Maybe I should sell it so that OB will come out for everybody else. A charitable sacrifice…

By live, do you mean live as in performance, or live as in - recording live? If the latter, then yeah. That’s how I’ve been using the DT so far - and I don’t really want to lose doing that by recording track by track, but if needs must :slight_smile:

I’d be using it as one instrument in an ensemble, rather than for composing a whole track (i.e. using it just for melody - not for bass, rhythm etc as well, like with the Digitakt) - so it’d be a different question.

My issue so far has been that I’ve been playing the DT ‘live’. I’m not opposed to recording track by track though - I do this already for a lot of my other music. I’m just not entirely sure how best to go about it with the DT. I’d rather not record 4 bar loops and then arrange them in the DAW, as I find that pretty tedious… but maybe that’s just what I’ll need to live with for now.

For those of you that do record track by track - what method do you use? Do you record loops and arrange them in the DAW, or do you chain them all up on the DT somehow and then record each track through in sequence?

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#22

I just have all but one track muted, record in DAW, mute and unmute through the 8 channels.

Then chop out the loops from the one larger recording