Digitakt can do a lot more to the samples than the XY. But the XY has polyphony, and multisampling, and a keyboard, and a battery, and a speaker, and an FX loop.
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I own the DTII, the OP-XY, and a bass. Some points that might be critical in your decision:
LOOPS: DTII can capture loops that are synced to the project tempo. If you want to record a looping bass line to a programmed beat, slice it up, and further manipulate it, DTII is more suited for that. This can be done on the OP-XY, but you need to adjust the start and end points of your recording manually, which takes time. Or just record phrases that don’t loop, but just retrigger at the start from the sequencer. This is what I do and it works well.
ONE-SHOTS: The OP-XY is more suitable to capture a more natural sounding respresentation of your bass guitar with the multisampler engine, as it can record samples across multiple octaves and pitch shift the notes in between. The DTII only uses one sample and pitch shifts it up or down, which starts to sound very wonky very fast with a bass guitar sample. With either device, both will sound rather artificial if you choose to go the one-shot route.
SEQUENCER: I wouldn’t say the OP-XY sequencer is better for everyone, it’s just very different in comparison to the DTII. You’ve got 9 independent patterns for every instrument track and every aux track. You can combine any combination of these patterns in 99 scences. This is imho much more flexible than how it works on the DTII. On DTII you have more pattern slots available, but each pattern holds the sequencer data for all 16 tracks. If you want to check out if the hihat ryhthm from pattern 2 would also sound good in pattern 3, you have to manually copy it over. OP-XY handles these kinds of explorations much nicer with the arranger. It also records strums and allows polyphony on a single track and you can overdub notes. On DTII, only one voice per track and old notes are replaced by new ones when you try to overdub. On OP-XY, you can use the aux tracks (brain, punch-in FX, tape track, send FX tracks) to further manipulate the audio tracks. No such things on the DTII, aside from the control-all function maybe, and solid delay, reverb and chorus send FX (non-sequencable). Keep in mind that the brain track on the OP-XY doesn’t work as intented, if you want to use loops of your bass guitar lines. It will just pitch your whole loop up and down and it won’t be in key and time anymore. It will work as intended for one-shots (sampling single notes). OP-XY has step components, DTII has conditional trigs. They are kinda similar, but kinda different.
I think both instruments match nicely with a bass guitar, but some of the things I’ve listed may be showstoppers for you.
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and the brain, and the punch in fx, and the step components, and crazy tape, and send/return loop, and everything I mentioned above can be sequenced and saved with scenes…
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very comprehensive overview of these 2 device with regards to bass guitar integration. thank you so much. Whilst i will be using effects pedals that distort the guitar somewhat I dont like the sound of the pitchshifting on the DTII, i still want the guitar to retain some organic sound…so this could be the defining factor for me
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But: is there any way to record samples on the XY without holding down a button? This was a pain point I ran into when trying to record guitar.
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It’s a pity there’s no way to arm the sample record.
(I don’t think). I know there’s a threshold at which the device will start the sample recording, but AFAIK you still need to hold the record button.
Yes, shift+M1 while on the sampling screen will engage threshold recording. So it will only start to sample when the volume exceeds the threshold level defined by the white encoder. No need to keep the recording button pressed.
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Press shift and the record (M1). It will start recording when the the threshold is hit.
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Is the Shift+M1 thing in the manual somewhere. I must have missed it.
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nvm
Those are scenes, which are combinations of patterns. There are only 9 patterns per track.
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I don’t see it in there. It only says to hold M1 until the threshold hits.
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A few assorted features I’d like to see:
- Automated multisampling
- Playback from current sequencer page (maybe Bar+Play?)
- A “player” for playing the chords of your current scale/one that lets you assign chords to keyboard keys
This is what drives me 
about the TE manuals, there’s so many things missed and overlooked. These are really complex devices and there’s so many key combinations and features everything should be clearly outlined in the manual; especially at the price point we’re paying.
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It will probably make it in there eventually – it’s pretty clear that the manual was rushed along with the firmware.
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Is this not what the maestro thing does?
It only takes a single chord, which it will transpose.
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Okay.
I really think that OP-XY would benefit greatly from the ability to edit/modify the punch-in FX. It’d be great to be able to do things like changing the syncopation.
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I think there are different devices.
DN2 is (at least for me), the sampler. But is not so portable, and only manage samples. But the sound design, stability, power makes it a beast.
OP-XY is an all in one device. Has everything (synths, samples, great sequencing options) but is not focused in any, so the options for sampling are more limited. But is fun to use, and it’s portable.
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