@jshell You’re describing my experience as well.
One other thing is that I was really disliking the Volca FM editing (while totally digging the sound).
Digitone UX has been extremely pleasant, DN is surely one of the most straightforward FM synths !
Yeah. I ended up using Dexed as an editor, and transferring patches over to the Volca, but then it kind of has to be plugged into the Mac all the time, which for me is not the point of using hardware (I might as well just use Dexed). I also got tired of the limited polyphony, so sold mine. I’m kind of missing FM hardware though, so eyeing up a Digitone or Reface…
1 Like
This has been the main reason for me to buy Elektron gear since the MD: a dedication to offer something different & new, as opposed to jumping on the “vintage train” people seem to love so much. Digitone is no exception, I’m super glad to be able to navigate the seas of FM with a seasoned captain (and his subtractive crew) who makes sure we only hit those nice waves. On the other hand, I found the waters I roamed with the Volca FM someone lent me to be somewhat treacherous at times but as always, I would’ve probably found that entertaining if that is what I was after.
Ain’t no good or bad, there’s just personal preference.
3 Likes
But when you go at Digitone specifications Hardware, you can see
" - 48 kHz, 24-bit D/A and A/D converters"
And about sound quality, Digitone is troubling my mind because it clicks or pop whatever on some presets especially on bass notes.
Yeah, cool Hardware and sounds nice but Elektron have to fix some bug because this machine cost more 700€ and it’s unacceptable compared machines who cost same or less.
Yes, the conversion is 48kHz, 24-bit - but the internal resolution is 96kHz, 32-bit. There is a big difference, and being able to run DSP algorithms at internally higher resolutions have great benefits to the end quality. (e.g huge headroom internally for processing, running at fast rates and ‘free’ anti-aliasing when downsampling to 48kHz. It would not sound anywhere as pristine if the engine itself ran at 48/24)
As for your clicking, I was forwarded the support case (since I know the sound engine well) and will look into it ASAP - the clicks are most likely not bugs, and I will help you in how to avoid them. Sorry for taking so long to get to it, I don’t do support anymore and have a lot of things on my table - but I’ll try to answer it tonight.
12 Likes
@ThomasMvller and you’ve now got a message with some aid for your clicks. 
As for the sound engine - it rocks! But some things are very hard to deal with, and this was a worst case scenario. A very low Hz note with few harmonics in a steady repeating pattern with infinite sustain. Doesn’t get much worse than that for the poor buffers. You’re basically directly triggering a discontinuity in a continuous signal, which is what is causing clicking.
Luckily you can get around it in two quite different ways.
Either:
a) Set Amp Env Reset to OFF, and Operator Phase Reset to OFF for all.
or (if you want your timbre to be consistent per trig)
b) Assuming that we are triggering this tone each quarter note, set the note length to 3.88, landing on just before a whole quarter note and change the Amp envelope Release time to a low value (depends on the sounds content, but I’m getting good results with 5 - 13)
This will fade out the sound rapidly just before hitting the next note, which will remove the click and cause as little silence in the output as possible. Note that if you’re outputting a pure sinewave at very low Hz, some clicking will probably remain unless it is completely silent before the transition.
(But if you’re going for the sinewave approach you should use option a)
The reason as to why is that most (all??) hardware deals with things on a frame size basis as oppose to most DAWs and plugins that operate on a per sample basis. But that’s a bit besides the point, this can happen in any system - for example have a look at this visual representation of what is happening with the signal:
Ouch!
That’s not very nice. What we want to do instead is:
At the transition, ensuring that the quite brutal discontinuity - in this case a transition from non-zero to zero - doesn’t occur.
So as you can see, it’s not strange that it’s clicking. Most (good) plugins interpolate between samples (in envelopes for example) often avoiding issues such as these, but regardless the scenario is tough to handle.
20 Likes
Often you don’t want that, but sometimes you do want that because the clicking can sound good and work very well rhythmically.
1 Like
Well, of course - but it wouldn’t be very helpful in this case 
Ryoji Ikeda, anyone? Yes please!
11 Likes
Professor Mattisson is currently holding office hours.
1 Like
Why would you want infinite decay on sine wave bass?
That’s probably not a good idea in any context where you’re playing notes repeatedly (as opposed to a drone).
Finally! It works !
Thank you for your advice and specifications, I understood that DN is more complex and specific than appear.
4 Likes
Awesome! Happy to oblige. Have mercy on that sub bass now. 
1 Like
Here’s a classic explanation for people who complain about clicks in digital synths (Elektron support clearly isn’t the first to have to deal with this…)
6 Likes
Thanks, this is very good info.
Octastep
1 Like
Makes me want to buy a Waldorf synth, great write-up.
Would the Brian Eno patches, work on the digitone? Anyone know?
The Digitone does not read DX patches. You would have to reverse engineer the DX patch.
2 Likes
Does it matter if the DX7 has 6 Operators and the Digitone has 4?
It depends on what the operators are doing and how close the emulation is required.
1 Like