Total newbie questions on digitakt

Hey y’all,

Long time bassist and guitarist here, and I’ve just started delving into the synth/drum machine world for inspiration and idea creation and to just switch things up a bit—having loooots of fun so far.

Anywho—I just ordered a Digitakt yesterday and I am very excited to get going. Will be pairing it with my korg minilogue and volca drum. Here are my newbie questions that I have searched but couldn’t quite decipher:

  1. I already have an sm58 mic with an XLR—>TRS 1/4” cable. Would this cable work to record samples (for the digitakts unbalanced input), or would I have to get an XLR—> TS 1/4” cable for this purpose?

2a. Since I have mostly instrument cables for my bass and guitar stuff I’m a little in the dark re: stereo connections for the digitakt outputs. I have a few things I will be “playing” my digitakt through—a fender passport PA system, a bass amp, and a focusrite 2i2 audio interface. The passport PA system has one stereo channel—in this case would I use 2 separate TRS 1/4” cables to connect to that channel?

2b. I love setting up a beat on my volca drum and plugging it into the second input on my bass amp to practice along to and to come up with so g ideas and bass lines. Can I plug one trs cable from the digitakt left output to my bass amp? Will the stereo effects (reverb, delay) sound totally fucked in this mono situation or will it be “fine, but different.”

2c. Same question goes for my audio interface as for my bass amp. If I want to record my digitakt, is the best way to do it is by plugging two separate trs cables from the digitakt outputs into the two outputs in my audio interface? Or is there a way to only occupy one of the inputs on my audio interface? I ask because the interface only has two inputs and it would be nice to plug the synth in there as well at the same time.

  1. What would be the repercussions of using instrument cables from the digitakts outputs? I have tons of instrument cables lying around but no TRS……

Hmmmm I think that’s it for now. I’m pumped to spend some time with a drum machine with more complexity compared to the volca drum. I’ve had a lot of fun with the volca drum and I actually love the sound and the sound design options on it, but I’m ready for a drum machine with a bit more depth (super excited for sampling!!)

Peace!

Welcome to the forum! There’s quite a lot to decipher in there. But from what I understand from a couple of read-throughs, your instrument cables (mono, TS) will be best for going into and out of the Digitakt. And your problem of having the synth and Digitakt sharing a 2-input audio interface can be solved by having the synth go into Digitakt (where the synth signal can be mixed, effected, etc) and then have two TS cables from the Digitakt right and left outputs go into the two inputs on your interface. This will also keep the stereo parts from reverb, delay, panning, etc intact. I’m not too knowledgeable about using TRS cables so I’ll let someone else speak about those things.

Thanks for having me…elektron people seem to be a good bunch!

Awesome!—thanks so much for your tip re: hooking up to my audio interface…. Seems like a super simple and clean solution within my existing setup

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If you’re planning on expanding your setup, you should probably look into getting a mixer (or an interface with more inputs).

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Ah I forgot to state—my passport PA system has a powered mixer with 3x mono channels in addition to the 1x stereo channel I mentioned in the original post. I think this should be adequate for my needs at least in the immediate future. Just looking for advice on knitty gritty details for connectivity….

That being said—I can definitely see this synth/drum setup spiraling out of control into an addiction and getting some
More in-depth equipment within the year ; )

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