Greetings everyone:)
Before I start please keep in mind that this is my first post on the elektronauts forum… so, if
you all already know what I am about to say or if this topic is already posted here… somewhere, pleeeease don’t kill me with words;)
Alright, here we go:
I use the digitakt now for 2 Months and, aside from some strange restrictions of the unit itself (only one LFO per track, no ARP at all, no way to get samples off the unit, no song mode, blablabla…),
I really like this little beast.
The only thing I found rather weird is the way the samples are managed. Now, to be clear, I think 64 MB of RAM is more then enough to deal with, specially because all files are mono… but I was looking for a way to use the RAM more efficient to get the most out of the unit. And I found one, by pure accident:)
Here’s the problem I ran into:
I created some Projects which used all the sample slots, but I only used about 50% of the RAM overall with each Project… such a waste of space:(
Soooo… I was doing the math: having 128 sample slots means that I can save up to 16 kits (all with 8 individual drum sounds) into the 64 MB of RAM… which is ok, I guess.
But It also means that the maximum sample size for each track is more than 512 KB… a lot… specially when I comes to using only one shot samples… in mono.
In other words… would be cool to run out of RAM first, before running out of slots.
How to achieve this? Easy, by using bigger samples:)
Here’s the solution I came up with:
Instead of using ONE sample slot for every one-shot sample, I decided to create larger „library“ files I can load into the slots (like, a BD “library” e.g.)… and this is where the cool part starts:)
The „library“ files I created where all build the same way:
I used Logic to do this, but - of course - every other DAW works the same.
1.) Create a project in 120 bpm. Add an audio track. Make the hole thing 16 bars long.
2.) copy all the samples you want to use into that audio track…
3.) STICK WITH THE GRID! Meaning, every new one-shot sample starts every second quarter note
4.) render the file and transfer it onto the Digitakt.
5.) Assign the sample to a track, give it a leght of “4”
For some weird reason, now the sample matches the internal scaling of the Digitakt quite well…
Now you can hold down the „STRT“ knob in the Assign section and turn it so it skips 4 „steps“ forward, and -ta,da,da,daaaaa- matches the starting point of the next one-shot sample within the sample „library“…
so instead of having ONE one-shot sample in each track you now have 30 one-shot samples… in each Track… and still only using one slot per track.
This is very useful when you play Iive… no menu diving at all:)))
Hope you’ll find this useful…
