Tricks for structuring tracks without “kits”?

Elektron Gear Digitone/Digitone Keys
#1

Personally I think it’s a shame the Digitone (and the Digitakt, although it bothers me less on there) don’t have the option of using “kits” or whatever you want to call it from the older boxes, where the sound is independent of the pattern. For me this makes it much easier to structure a track across a few patterns to play live, without having hassle if I want to tweak one of the sounds (on the DN I’d have to recopy the sound to each pattern if I change it, and when I switch patterns any real time tweaks will be lost as it’ll jump back to the stored sound). That said, I’ve made my fair share of errors on older machines ruining kits by accident so I can see why they did it. Hopefully we can get an option in future but not holding my breath.

Anyway, so given that, how do people approach structuring tracks just using the Digitone? Are there any tricks I might be missing?

Here’s a simple example: I want to have a kick and hi hat on one track using sound locks, and have the ability to turn the hi hat on or off. On an older machine I could just duplicate the pattern but keep the kit the same, obviously as discussed this has downsides on DN as the sound is tied to the pattern (maybe the simple answer is just to accept the downsides!). On the A4 I could also use the mute trigs thing to mute/unmute the hi hat. On the DN all I could think was making the hi hat have “fill” trig condition, but this means I have to keep fill held (or is there a way to lock it?) (or I could input/remove the hi hats in real time I guess)

I’m only making techno so my arranging needs are basic and I do have other boxes I could add to the mix but I quite enjoy just using one box on the sofa so any tricks people have for getting more (controlled) variety from a single pattern would be great!

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The Digitone is unenjoyable to play live due to the lack of kits
#2

It’s not a shame, it’s way easier without the stupid kit system, you mention A4, well that’s a machine to really let your brains work. With DN you can play totally drunk :smile: With DN you can just copy your pattern and add other things or swap sounds… try that with A4 and you need to copy kit/rename kit/save pattern…

Yes with every Elektron we have to accept the downsides! I personally hate it also when having multiple Elektrons not every machine can do the same sequencer duties, they even use other button combo’s (f.e. MD controll all is holding function, DN is holding Midi button)

No you can do hold page + yes and release page before releasing yes I believe, I do it a lot when programming hats on the fill track

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#3

You could use the hihat as the main track sound, and then sound lock your kick. Then, when you want to mute your hihat, turn the volume down (on AMP page 1, not the track volume). The sound lock for the kick will remain at whatever it is set to in the saved sound.

Additionally, you could also use this to make your hihat pattern more/less sparse, by locking the volume on the hits you want to remain in the pattern when “muted”.

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#4

With DN you can play totally drunk

This is true :joy: I guess the option would be nice but then options lead to confusion eg when you use a friend’s machine and it’s set up differently, so I do get it.

Yes with every Elektron we have to accept the downsides

Totally. Often I can look at these downsides/restrictions as forcing me to commit and get stuff done, which ultimately is one of my reasons for using hardware!

Amazing! I should RTFM more :joy: Thanks!

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#5

This is a great idea! Just the kind of ingenuity I was hoping for :smiley: Thanks!

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#6

I love jamming on my DN in the studio and on the couch, but the inability to change a sound in one pattern and have the same tweaks reflected in the next pattern in a chain makes it unusable in a live situation for me. While it’s great as a sound module for live use, I basically have to avoid sequencing it inside itself due to this ridiculous limitation. ::end rant::

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#7

You can use one kit per pattern on the A4/AK and just work with the button short cuts and performance macros.
No need for brain stretching :slight_smile:
IIRC there’s a sysex file somewhere which contains a project for the A4 in which each pattern has its own kit already saved.

I’d really like to get a Digitone, but without kits…I don’t know…
Sequencing from Octatrack or partially sequencing from Octa would only makes things more complicated, I guess. In comparison, sequencing internally on Digitone and using myriads of p-locks, sound locks and trig conditions wouldn’t make it easier.
Probaply.

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#8

I’m resurrecting this thread. I was going to post a new one but figured it could go in here.

I’ve been working on a new set with the Octatrack MKII sequencing the DN so that I can use each pattern on the DN as a kit. While that’s working somewhat well, it’s still not perfect. I’ve tweaked a bunch of the sounds that are in my patterns, and as I’m playing, I tweak them more. This means that if I want to revert back to those original sounds, I need to save the presets. However, I don’t WANT to save the presets as they would just be slightly altered versions of ones that I already have. With the KITS in the A4, I could load a sound, tweak it to my heart’s content, then save it in the kit instead of as a new preset. This further reinforces my desire and need for a KIT option on the Digitone. I can’t see why it could not be implemented in the sound menu or IMP/EXP menu. The joy of having options means people who don’t like them can ignore them, and those of us that rely on them can finally use the DN to its fullest potential.

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#9

A lot of people don’t use kits or will use them

To add all those option the Digitone would be more expensive in the A4 range. That is not what they want. Why pay more for a unit when you don’t need stuff.

But you could copy your original pattern on your digitone. The DN saves your sound per pattern. So it works like a kit. And your are sequencing from the Octatrack. This means you can leave the current pattern on the Digitone. Therefor the sound remains the same. If you want to change it and if you like your new sound just copy the pattern on your digitone and paste it elsewhere. Reload your sound on the first one. Then you have two variations of the same sound. You could even copy the sound to the T2, T3, T4 buttons and you have 4 variations of the same sound in one pattern. Put them on the same midi track and mute and unmute them for variation.

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#10

A whole lot of work that could be washed away with a proper kit browser, but this has already been discussed ad nauseam.

@slicetwo
It’s unfortunate, but I’ve found the best way to embrace the kit browser-less Elektrons is to do as much as you can in 1 pattern. Set all the parameters you can, use fills and p-locks as much as you can to get that 1 pattern brimming with possibilities. And save your copying of patterns to other patterns until the end.
This will save on time spent copying any additional tweaks you make in one pattern to the others.

This doesn’t make up for the frustration that happens when you’re tweaking a sound in a live arrangement and then the moment you switch patterns that sound is not exactly where you left it off in the previous pattern.
And for this reason I just try to keep things to 1 pattern thanks to conditionals, track scale, and fills.

Good luck!

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#11

O sure it would be better. But the question was more that he was afraid he had to save multiple sounds for every variation. But that isn’t thrue. He just could copy the pattern. Or I miss something.

But your solution is the best way indeed!

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#12

What you’re missing is that after a session of practice, the sounds are now different, and in order to make sure they go back to the proper settings, I’d have to have saved the presets and then reload them. Unless you can save multiple patterns in a project, then it doesn’t really help to save the pattern. I just checked the manual and it mentions the active pattern being saved, so I’ll have to see if the whole thing can be saved later.

I don’t think it’s fair to say no one uses KITS. I use KITS. @AdamJay said he’d like kits, and there are a bunch of requests for it in the Digitone feature requests thread. Just because you don’t use them doesn’t mean they’re not wanted.

#13

@slicetwo I did not say no one uses kits. I know there are a lot of people who uses them on the A4 or Rytm. I did myself when I had those machines. They have there flaws asswell. But that is not the point.

But if I understand correctly, you start with day Pattern A1 with a loaded sound. Which is your start point. So you have one saved version of your sound. With your Octatrack you sequence the sound, so you can go beyond the 64 pattern length and change your sound. Then you want to save the new sound in a new kit? My solution was to copy pattern A1 to A2 on the Digitone. Those are now exact the same sound as your latest tweak. Then go back to your A1 pattern and load your initial start sound. It is just a work around.

On the A4 or Rytm it works more or less the same. If you change pattern to another kit it is as abrupt as on the Digitone.

#14

My setup is that each pattern acts as its own kit. A01 is used for a different song that A02, A03, and so on. While I’m jamming on A01, the sounds get changed, so in order to get them back to their initial settings, I’d have to have saved the preset of their initial settings. If I could save sounds directly to the Soundpool, that’d be fine, but I can’t. I have to save them to the +Drive sounds, instead.

Basically, let’s say I loaded Bass01 into track 1 on A01. While crafting the song, I alter Bass01 so that it fits with the actual song itself. Now, if I want to have THAT sound saved, I need to save a new preset called Bass01_2 so that I can revert back to that. If I had a kit, I wouldn’t need to worry about saving Bass01_2 because it’d be saved directly in the kit, instead. Now, I need to double most of my presets just to save them in the state in which they were altered to fit the song. It just seems silly. At least with the OT sequencing, I don’t need to worry about my filter sweeps getting cut off between pattern changes…

#15

WTF?!?! I have to try this with my AK, never thought It was possible to avoid trig mutes in this way. Amazing man

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#16

You just need to save the pattern. If you make a func+no to reload the pattern, it should do what you want, as it reloads sequence data + sound data.
Unless I misunderstood what you are expecting.

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#17

I also think saving pattern and after changes func + no could work. But remember you loose the change you made and go back to the original saved state.

I agree that it is weird that you can’t overwrite the current sound as it is in the sound pool.

#18

True. But if it is with performance in mind, you have another layer with copy/paste : make the change you want and make a func+copy. You can then tweak to your taste and reload to the previous state with func+paste, and return to the original sounds with func+no.

#19

So you can only save one pattern at a time temporarily. That doesn’t help me, unfortunately.

#20

I certainly prefer kits, people who say they don’t like it or think they are no good have probably not ever used an elektron with kits or spent the 5 minutes that it takes to learn how to use them.
they also don’t understand that you can have the exact same kit per pattern workflow
by pressing a couple buttons which is also desirable sometimes.

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