The Elektron documentation thread

It should also be in the filename of the PDF. Pretty much standard practice. Just easily very confusing otherwise.

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Not a bad idea at all. I’ll keep that in mind for the future. Thanks!

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The CV section of the A4 Mk2 manual needs a bit of review/work (& also on Device UI first, no need for that TRS icon) - the Mk2 has separate CV outs and does not use TRS to combine two …

09

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Yes, Indeed, there are some stuff that needs to be fixed. I will have a look at it when Im back from vacation.
Thanks!

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The AF MkII manual (v1.35, July 2018), page 37, section 10.1.1, first paragraph, refers to the [BANK GROUP] key which doesn’t exist on the MkII.

That paragraph should be rewritten.

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In the Digitone manual it‘s not clear to me in the filter section how to use the 2nd page. I guess it means when filter on page one is off we are using a 6 dB 1 pole and 2nd page comes into play? Could be a bit better explained. I always thought it was on top.

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Hey, I’m currently reading the Octatrack MkII manual and just noticed a small typo on page 128, it says “psuedo-stereo” in lieu of “pseudo-stereo”. Thought I would put this here! Cheers :slight_smile:

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Indeed it should. It will be fixed in the next version of the manual. Thanks!

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Yes I guess that could be explained a bit better in the manual. The Base-Width filter and the Multimode filter are placed in series with the Base-Width filter before the Multimode filter. Both filters are always “on” (affecting the sound). I will do some adjustments in the manual. Thanks for the feedback :slight_smile:

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Good catch! I’ll fix that. Thanks.

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[MOD EDIT: @eangman, this are suggestions for Digitakt manual (OS 1.11)]

I’ve gone through the manual and made some notes on possible corrections (typos) or wrong information and possible suggestions to clear up confusing sentences. I saw a similar post for the Digitone and thought I’d do this one here. Most of these are suggestions to reword because I needed to re-read them a tonne of times before I got the gist of what was being said.

9.2 SOUND BROWSER
Press [FUNC] + LEVEL/DATA to open the SOUND BROWSER
— Suggestion to say “+ turn LEVEL/DATA” . Other instructions will say press button and because these buttons are pressable, it’s not 100% clear to a new user (I was thrown off for a bit on this initially. I kept pressing the knob wondering why it wasn’t working.)

10.4 RETRIG MENU
If the retrig speed is greater than the duration of a sequencer step, trigs are created with additional internal steps (i.e. steps with retrig enabled).

— Suggestion — If the retrig rate is greater than the…

The control is called RATE and I figure keeping terms consistent would be easier to follow. With regards to the rest of the sentence, I found it very confusing upon first reading it. The part in parenthesis seems unnecessary and the use of the word “greater” isn’t super clear. Is 1/8 greater than 1/16 or is 1/32 greater than 1/16? In one direction the numerical values of the denominators are greater but the musical duration is smaller and vice versa. At the point talking about creating additional internal steps, I have no idea what that means (even after reading it a bunch of times and experimenting with the device). I still can’t think of a better wording yet.

10.9.1 PER PATTERN MODE
SCALE controls the time siganture of the pattern.

— Suggestion — SCALE controls the speed of pattern playback in multiples of the current tempo. I’m not sure I would say time signature here, even though that may be a side effect of changing this parameter.

A 2X time signature setting is useful for increasing the base resolution…

—Suggestion — A 2X scale setting is useful for increasing the base resolution…

10.9.2 PER TRACK MODE

CH.LEN controls for how long the active pattern plays before a cued or chained pattern begins to play. This setting is important when, for example, you set M.LEN to INF. If you do not make any CH.LEN setting, the pattern plays infinitely, and the next pattern is thus not cued. However, if CH.LEN, for instance, is set to 64, the pattern behaves like a pattern with 64 steps regarding cueing and chaining.

—Suggestion— This section might be the most confusing part of the manual for me. It seems to be too wordy and causes confusion. I think it’s because CH.LEN and M.LEN are dependent on one another and you talk about M.LEN before describing what it does. Suggest including what the CH part means (Chain? Change?). A possible rewording would be:

CH.LEN (Change Length) controls for how long the active pattern plays before a cued or chained pattern begins to play. By default a cued pattern change happens at the end of the pattern (CH.LEN set to OFF) but this value can be longer or shorter depending on your requirements (2 steps to 1024 steps). A value of 2 means the cued pattern will change after 2 steps of the sequencer, whereas 64 will change after 4 bars. 1024 is equal to 64 bars.

M.LEN (Master Length) controls the number of steps the pattern plays before all tracks restart. This is noticable when using polymeters for different tracks. A 13 step polymeter with M.LEN set to 16 will play steps 1-13, and then 1-3, followed by resetting to 1 and starting over again. An INF setting makes the tracks of the pattern loop infinitely, without ever being restarted. Note that this setting also affects for how long the active pattern plays before a chained pattern starts playing. The CH.LEN parameter can override this by setting a value other than OFF.

11.3.1 TUN - Typo, should be TUNE

11.3.4 SAMP
…You must to load a sample from the +Drive…

—Suggestion— You must load a sample from the +Drive…

11.7.2 MULT
Multiplier multiplies the SPD parameter by the set factor either by multiplying the current tempo (BPM settings), or by multiplying a fixed tempo of 120 BPM.

—Suggestion — rewording this.
Multiplier multiplies the SPD parameter by the value shown. BPM value indicates a tempo synced amount and a value by itself is fixed at 120 BPM (independent of pattern BPM).

LFO speed (measured in whole note values) generated y combinations of the SPD and MULT settings. - This chart is incorrect for MULT settings of 4, 8, and 16.

MULT 4, SPD 64 should be 1/2
MULT 8, SPD 32 should be 1/2
MULT 8, SPD 64 should be 1/4
MULT 16, SPD 16 should be 1/2
MULT 16, SPD 32 should be 1/4
MULT 16, SPD 64 should be 1/8

13.2.1 TIME
The chart doesn’t match up with the values shown on the Digitakt for the dotted values. I don’t know if the DT is right or the manual is right.

Time 3 - 1/64. will show 1/32. on DT
Time 6 - 1/32. shows as 1/16.
Time 12 - 1/16. shows as 1/8.
Time 24 - 1/8. shows as 1/4.
Time 48 - 1/4. shows as 1/2.
Time 96 - 1/2. says 1/1.

13.3.4 GAIN
…the shelving frequency set by the FRQ parameter…

— Suggestion — …the shelving frequency set by the FREQ parameter…

13.3.5 HPF and 13.3.6 LPF - what’s not mentioned here is the fact that this controls the sound being fed into the reverb effect. Took me a bit of time to figure out why there was a HPF/LPF AND a Shelving filter. One is pre, one is post. Suggest mentioning this for the HPF/LPF sections, that this affects the frequency spectrum being fed into the reverb unit. To only affect high frequencies, increase the HPF amount to remove the low frequencies from muddying up the reverb signal.

13.4.1 THR
This setting sends info the Gain computer that calculates the amount of compression.

—Suggestion— I think removing this sentence would work better. You already mentioned that the “Threshold control sets the threshold of the compressor. A lower threshold means a larger portion of the signal are subject to compression.” This is pretty standard “Compressor” terminology. The part about sending info to the Gain computer just adds confusion.

You also mention sending info to the Gain computer for parameter 13.4.6 RAT which is also not required.

13.4.7 SCS
Sidechain Source decides what audio source the compressor analyzes when it performs sidechaining. Sidechaining is the process when the compressor uses the output of an audio source to control the overall action of the compressor.

—Suggestion— I’m not sure “sidechaining” is a proper word? Maybe a rewording such as:
By default, a compressor analyzes the same audio signal that is being compressed. Sidechain compression will analyze a different signal (for example, a kick drum) than the one being compressed. *SCS controls the signal being analyzed by the compressor. The values are LR (default) which are the master stereo outputs, or T1-8 for selecting individual tracks for analysis. The signal that is being compressed is always the master output.

13.4.8 SCF
Sidechain Filter filters the signal from the sidechain source before the compressor analyzes it The paramter… — Missing a period after analyzes it.

14.2 SAMPLING AUDIO
7. Make sure to select a audio track as active track)

—Suggestion — Make sure to select an audio track as the active track.

14.4 ASSIGNING A SAMPLE TO A TRACK FROM THE +DRIVE
5. Press **[FUNC] + [GLOBAL SETTINGS] to exit SETTINGS menu.

— Correction — This button combo saves the project. You only need to press [GLOBAL SETTINGS] to exit SETTINGS menu.

14.5 SAMPLE PLAYBACK
4. LOP Loop Position — LOOP Loop Position

15.2.3 REPLACING A SAMPLE

Missing Step 5. to exit the menu. The only way I’ve been able to exit this menu is by pressing [NO]. If that’s the proper way then suggest adding:

  1. Press [NO] to exit the sample replace screen.

That’s all I came across in my couple of readings of the manual. Hope this helps!

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Lot of good stuff here :slight_smile: Thanks for taking your time to write it down and letting me know. I wil go through it all and change/adjust where needed.

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Thanks eangman. Can’t imagine having to write an entire Elektron manual! Kudos to you for all the hard work :slight_smile:

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If the chosen value starts to blink that indicates the value exceeds the length of the pattern. The pattern will then play as if PLEN would have been selected.

P.74 of OT mk2 manual, part 12.10.1

Guess the point should be a comma…
Previous sentence is not very well written neither.

I am know in the process of re-rtfm cause it was the very first and it’s pretty challenging… There are many things I overlooked, it seems. Might have a few details to point out…

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Full-time editor here; the full stop should not really be changed to a comma in this case. It could be swapped for a semi-colon, but in a manual it would be better for clarity’s sake to keep these as two short sentences.

But:

“If the chosen value starts to blink that indicates the value exceeds the length of the pattern.”

might be better written as

“If the chosen value starts to blink it indicates that the value exceeds the length of the pattern”

and

“The pattern will then play as if PLEN would have been selected”

would probably read better as

“The pattern will then play as if PLEN had been selected.”

That’s just how I would edit those sentences in my day job though.

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OK, I think my eyes just fooled me on my tiny phone screen. My bad.

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So easily done - I would hate to try editing on anything smaller than a large-ish monitor!

Digitone manual on p. 21 states

8.5.2 MUTE MODE
You can use MUTE mode to mute any of the 8 sequencer tracks. Unlike CHROMATIC mode,
it makes no difference which track is active when you enter MUTE mode. All tracks are accessed simultaneously.

The last part is misleading as it feels like you could mute both an audio and a MIDI track simultaneously. Which you can’t, afaik.
@eangman? What do you think about this?

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Analog Keys manual, page 40

Only arp offsets can be locked.

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Yes, its a bit misleading, and I now also see that I forgot to write how to access the MUTE mode. Oops…

The text will be updated to read:
You can use MUTE mode to mute any of the 8 sequencer tracks. Press [FUNC] + [BANK] to enter the MUTE mode. Press any of the [TRACK] keys to mute the corresponding track. Press again to unmute. Press [MIDI] to access the MIDI tracks. The color of the [TRACK] key indicates the track’s mute status. Unlit keys signify muted tracks. Lit keys signify unmuted tracks.

Thanks!

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