Upgrading to digitone keys?

Elektron Gear Digitone/Digitone Keys
#3

One bug that I have occasionally and other people have reported too is sensitivity of buttons (like you hit the LFO button and it triggers twice). It’s annoying but not a deal-breaker for me. I’m hoping a FW update addresses it.

The keys are wonderful, on a par with my Moog Grandmother, plus offers aftertouch; much nicer than my Novation Impulse’s keys. There are only 37 of them so if you’re thinking of using it as a controller that is something to bear in mind. It’s not as flexible for playing keys as a larger controller keyboard.

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#4

Thats an issue i have with my desktop too!
Very annoying

I believe I read about bugs specifically appearing on the keys version

#5

The multiple outs is worth the price difference alone if you’re not an overbridge user.
Sell your Digitone for the upgrade.

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#6

Not so fast there Skippy!

I would like to know more about the bugs first. As my digitone is 100% reliable apart from the double triggering issue

I’m pretty sure I’ve read multiple times on this forum: “Yeah, it’s an issue with the Digitone Keys only.”

#7

Oh, I didn’t realise that it was an issue on the desktop too. well let’s hope Elektron get it together with a fix. Must be a debouncing issue in the code, I think.

I’ve seen people complaining about crashes when connected over USB. I’ve had that too, but I’m pretty sure it’s just a case of a MIDI feedback loop via USB; after adjusting my settings I can’t recall it happening again.

#8

I haven’t experienced anything that I would consider a bug that interferes with my music making. Occasional midi weirdness as mentioned above, but nothing I don’t get from from my Digitakt where it also can sort of become unresponsive after being connected to other hardware. A quick un/replug of the USB and its back to the races.

This is very infrequent, weeks go by using it every day without issues, and I believe those issues have more to do with having my DKeys as part of a system. It’s not anything that ever interferes with making music at home. I don’t play live shows like I have in the past.

I cherish my DKeys as a Midi controller/sequencer for other equipment along with its own sound capabilities. I can point out a half dozen other nice pieces in my bedroom studio I’d get rid of long before my DKeys. Never is my timetable for getting rid of it.

One thing to remember when only having 37 keys is that the Digitone buttons can be set to various octaves independent from the piano keys, so I’ll often do simple chords with my left hand on the buttons in a lower octave while noodling the piano keys in higher octaves with my right.

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#9

I love my Digitone Keys but the OS is not quite perfect yet.
I’ve got to know what will cause it to freeze and i am able to work around it for the moment.
You should probably have a read through this topic.

Support are aware of the issue and they are working on an OS fix, but it’s not here yet.

I would still get one though!

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#10

Out of curiousity, does the double triggering of the buttons happen to the Octatrack MK2 as well?

Still undecided whether to get the DN Keys + Digitakt, Analog 4 MK2 or Octatrack MK2.
The OT with double triggering button problem would make me completely bananas

#11

My DNK is unusably laggy and approaches unresponsive in Overbridge Mode. Every time. I run the the independent outputs Into an adat and leave it in MIDI usb mode. It’s a great controller, I have the double button push as well but almost always blowing into that button fixes it so I think it’s overly sensitive to dust or hair perhaps. Fixing the interface/parameter change responsiveness in OB mode would make it a 100% recommendation for me. As it is, I still consider selling it at times…but figure maybe in 2025 it’ll be updated. Or perhaps the Big Sur rewrite will do it. But, it’s frustrating. My Digitakt works absolutely flawlessly in OB mode on the same system, for reference.

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#12

I’m mostly just annoyed that I’ve typed that exact or similar thing probably 2 dozen times in the past year, and still zero acknowledgment of the problem or a coming solution. Makes me want to not buy an A4, which was my next plan.

#13

I swapped my Dn for a Dn Keys. I LOVE my Dn Keys. I LOVE having 4 outs to plug into my different reverbs, filters, and my space echo. I love the extra control and how i can control my other synths with the extra controls.

I have never had a problem with or bug with button presses. Lately I’ve been thinking about going back to a Dn because i love sitting in bed and unwinding with music, but I can’t do that with a 48-key synth.

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#14

Grab an ELZ_1, awesome 4 OP FM & much more, great bedtime synth and the sequencer is very cool, not Elektron level but super fun to program a few patterns and then play along with, the sounds it makes are very charming & organic.

#15

funny you should mention that. I did buy a Sonicware Liven, which i LOVE. (i love all my instruments)

but i also just ordered a Juno-2, so if i like that enough i may feel comfortable moving the Keys back to a regular groovebox format.

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#16

Just buy a bigger bed. :smiley:

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#17

I recommend! I had a Digitone and wasn’t too excited about it, sold it, but then around the latest firmware update I found a good deal on the keys version. It’s a totally different instrument. The separate outs are crucial in my opinion and the keyboard really opens it up as an expressive instrument, feels like a polyphonic Buchla to me!

A few downsides. I don’t know if these are specific to the keys or if they occur on all DKs. 1) The encoders are WAY too sensitive. You know that Elektron feature where if you press AND turn the encoder it jumps forward or backward much more quickly? It feels like that’s on all the time. 2) Some of the sequencer buttons I have to press twice to get them to stay lit sometimes, but that might be my imagination.

#18

I got the Digitone and upgraded to Digitone Keys. It felt like a massive upgrade between the nice keyboard, extra controls, and being able to push a button and have it act as a midi controller. I love the keys version.

#19

Out of curiosity, can anyone in the thread confirm any knob change lagging on the keys version in overbridge mode? I just finally submitted a support ticket and have spoken to others here before about it, but it’s unusual to have a thread of mostly DN keys owners in one place lol, and it’s so weird that some users have the same issue and others do not. Everything is current (firmware/OB) and my Mac is running the latest 10.15.7.

I think the Digitone Keys is actually a fantastic instrument and value, especially now. I paid $1300 for it and I’m not even mad about it. Hopefully support will work to resolve this issue because it seems like the DN keys didn’t do that well (especially considering that price drop!) and doesn’t seem to get any unique resources/attention over the regular DN, but it is my firm belief that if these bugs can be resolved, that it will quickly become a classic rivaling Monomachine status in coming years, and will deserve to! Especially since it wouldn’t surprise me if they quietly dropped it from the product line in the next couple years.

#20

Can confirm, when rocking overbridge the unit itself lags hard when using the knobs. Controlling from overbridge it doesn’t lag really if I remember right.

#21

Thanks. Interesting, I will try that. Never really used the plug-in. In that case, I suppose a work around could be potentially controlling the plug-in via a controller instead of tweaking on the keys itself, for those times I need to multitrack while tweaking things live. Would lose control all, at the very least. I’m not even sure it would work. Did you ever contact elektron about it?

#22

That’s strange. I can multitrack from my DK using Overbridge mode (no plugin) with no change in responsiveness.
It feels just the same as using it standalone.
I’m using an old 2011 MBP running Sierra and Ableton 9 if that has any relevance.
I wonder what’s going on there?