Hi,
I’ve been experimenting with something that might not be typical use but something that should theoretically work but the DT failed me.
What I wanted to do:
- Use an external midi controller to trigger sample playback on a single audio channel but flick between different sample slots
- Use this for performance purposes but also be able to record the sequence of trigs and sample locks on a single channel
Some research:
- DT will respond to midi channel 1 notes C0-C8 with each note corresponding to a different channel. If I play C0 on midi channel 1, digitakt audio channel 1 will trigger
- DT will respond to sample slot changes on CC 19. If I send a CC19 value of 10, DT Audio channel 1 will change to the sample at slot 10
Experimenting with DT MIDI loopback:
To experiment I first plugged in the DT midi out to its midi in so I could see how it responded to a combination of note and cc midi input. So from MIDI A (button 9) on the DT I first setup the channel to play C0 with CC19=10. I then had Audio channel 1 setup on sample slot 1. When I manually pressed button 9 it would trigger the MIDI note and CC, send it back into the DT and hey presto channel 1 played sample 10 and that channel was now on sample 10. Success.
Then I added trigs on MIDI A with C0 on 1/5/9/13 and then set up CC19 with paramter locks for the CC value on 1/5/9/13 to a different CC value on each step i.e. play sample 2 (CC=2) on beat 1, sample 4 (CC=4) on beat 5, sample 8 on beat 9, sample 16 on beat 13. (I know this could be programmed directly in to Audio channel 1 but I wanted to test the ability for it to react to MIDI from some external device).
This is where everything fell apart. The DT would frequently be behind on what sample to play sometimes getting confused between sample slots e.g. slot 1 would play sample 16, slot 2 would play slot 7 (the sample slot -1, makes no sense). It was a mess.
I then monitored the MIDI output of the Digitakt in Reaper to find that it would be sending the note before the cc value. This in itself is a problem, but whatever, moving on.
I then used my novation circuit with some midi mapping via Reaper so that hitting one of the pads on the circuit would send a note and cc value. Seems the circuit has one up on the Digitakt there since it more intuitively sent to cc before the note when playing a particular note/cc combo.
Yet still the DT was all over the place. Getting stuck on one sampe slot, being behind on what sample slot to play.
One last thing that was really weird is that when I did a realtime record on Audio channel 1 to capture what it was receiving, even though the audio heard during the record was completely not what was being played the trigs and p-locks it would save were in some run throughs spot on. So although it played back nonsense, the midi signals it recorded were correct (which shows at least the circuit was sending the right MIDI signals).
Has anyone tried to set up like this? Or are there serious bugs on the DT on how this is handled?
Thanks for any insights!