Elektron Digitakt

[Guest Chesney]

I think it dawned on them how much of a hassle it is to intergrate hardware and software on multiple platforms seamlessly and spent way over their budget and timeframe doing overbridge so maybe hoped to recoup a little. Which is fair I think but probably not in the eyes of the consumer.

I'm happy just syncing up elektrons old school by ear and tweaking live. The idea of overbridge is amazing but it's way too many options and planning for me, I like to be quick and off the cuff almost.

[acid1]

[Silent Member]

Looks pretty good (but it's kind of ugly).

Edit: removed video because I got beat.

Edited April 19, 2017 by Gocab

[acid1]

I really like the screen, the whole start + length vs start + end on sample playback, the ease of sampling externally, chromatic mode, obviously trig conditions.

 

I still believe if this thing was stereo and had CV support it would be killer.

[auxien]

Doesn't sound bad, the effects work for it well. It's pretty much like expected, just a digital Rytm minus the pads mixed with the basics from the OT. I think it's probably a good decision to have it all mono given what it is...but the rushed/unfinished nature of this is kinda sad to see, and the release should be funny. Could be good for some people. 

[sheatheman]

now that i have an octatrack, the only thing that appeals to me about this is the screen pretty much.

 

it's funny when you read the forum, people are reacting to this vid like it's an amazing granular synth, but the octatrack can already do granular stuff, plus scenes, plus custom fx.

 

the digitakt seems kind of like an ableton drum rack with 8 simplers in it. the simpler can do amazing granular stuff, and you can snap to zero point crossings if the pops annoy you (they don't annoy me).

 

yeah, the digitakt seems like a more curated version of the octatrack. elektron boxes are already about sweet spots, but the digitakt is like, the sweetest spots of octatrack sweet spots in an idiot-proof interface

Edited April 19, 2017 by sheathe

[sheatheman]

 now that i'm trying granular stuff (after seeing this vid) on the OT, it's pretty amazing.

Edited April 19, 2017 by sheathe

[auxien]

Yeah, and thinking about what Cenk was saying at the end with the external instrument control with all the normal Elektron sequencer stuff could be useful for a lot of people. The polyrhythmic stuff and conditional truths that the OT can't do would be great for controlling other synths. I've no need for it because I use Ableton to control everything and can emulate any of that and more, but for those who want to stay hardware with their setup it's obviously a decent choice.

 

Personally I think there are some other sequencers that are more interesting near that price range, but they're not also samplers of course. The DT has some stuff going for it for sure.

[xox]

not a big deal! even the mduw can do granular stuff

[modey]

yeah, people on elektronauts talking like they don't know how to use retrig for granular stuff..

[sweepstakes]

Yeah the "granular" shit is kind of a farce. You can even do it on the Monomachine with clever use of envelopes, delays, etc.

[modey]

Gotta say though, it does sound quite lovely, and the chromatic mode seems to be a lot better than the hack that is the octatrack's chromatic mode. Still not enough for me to want to sell the octatrack :D

[xox]

i see it as an invalid, semi-product, at best. like we should be thankful it has an audio out on it

[Guest Chesney]

For someone new to elektron it's a banging machine. For people with octa's and MDUW's it's purely a fanboy purchase. The micro timing, probability trigs, chromatic etc are really appealling but not enough to buy it. For me, every box I have can do have these extras and give me way more options and character.

[sheatheman]

OT chromatic mode is interesting. The pitch parameter is like warp in ableton, but the rate parameter is old fashioned speed. I'll have a synth sound pitched really high, then turn the rate to 32 or 16 to drop it an octave or 2. The warp algorithm doesn't sound very good past 12 semitones, so that's why the limitation is there. I don't know of any other platform where speed and reverse are combined in one knob.

 

The digitakt probably works like the majority of samplers and simply pitches it down or up by changing the speed. Reverse is simply on/off.

Edited April 20, 2017 by sheathe

[modey]

If you turn timestretch off on the OT though, it acts like old style repitching. And I still haven't figured out if there's a way to go more than one octave up without editing the file externally. Or if there's a way to set the rate faster than 100%.

 

edit: the main reason I want to pitch things up high is to use single cycle waves and have some actual range to them.

Edited April 20, 2017 by modey

[kcinsu]

I scoffed when I first heard about it, but after playing with a Rytm, and realizing that this has MIDI seq with all of the trig conditions and different track lengths, I am changing my tune.

 

I'm not a huge fan of the analog part of the rytm... the sample stuff is fun, but it takes too long to set up. The digi makes it all fast, gives me everything to rytm has for samples, and bonus I can sequence my Nord drum with trig conditions.

 

Fuck, I don't know... that's damn tempting.

[Guest]

yo been to Superbooth today and played with it..

see that Elektronauts thread for impressions.

 

was skeptical before today, but it's pretty killer!

Not mindblowingly complex, but the whole UI just screams 'play me!'

major step up in looks and touch..

 

Proper granular & stereo samples would have been cool but eh..

 

So I didn't get to really start from scratch aka use own samples, but with whatever was stored in there, some pretty funky things came out. It sounds clean and snappy. Sample editing feels scalpel-like, quite nice.

 

and it has the return of the MD's control-all thing! Holding the track button & tweaking params on all tracks, instant success, big satisfaction.

 

only thing I don't like a lot is the sampling.. it's kinda modal, you invoke it with a menu. You cannot sample into RAM buffers / tracks directly like in the MDUW. You sample, then you decide if you wanna keep the sample, save it, use it. No weird-ass programmable feedback buffer things like the MDUW has.. would have been great.

 

edit: sequencer is pretty much exactly like Rytm, including retrig. Sound parameters are almost identical as well. But sounds different, and a lot of the params are hi-res.

Edited April 20, 2017 by Guest

[sheatheman]

If you turn timestretch off on the OT though, it acts like old style repitching. And I still haven't figured out if there's a way to go more than one octave up without editing the file externally. Or if there's a way to set the rate faster than 100%.

 

edit: the main reason I want to pitch things up high is to use single cycle waves and have some actual range to them.

There is! That's what I'm saying. I'm going to make a tutorial

 

Edit: I'm not going to make a tutorial but all you do is, instead of having your single cycle wave be tuned to C3, pitch it to C6 or something. Then turn the rate knob down to 32 or 16 which drops it by one or two octaves. The chromatic mode locks the pitch relative to whatever the rate is set at, but you can lock the rate too. 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 are all octaves for rate, but anything below 8 sounds pretty lofi.

Edited April 20, 2017 by sheathe

[xox]

if money is an issue when i'm thinking about buying a piece of gear then i know i don't need one and when i'm looking at digitakt all i see is $$$$$$$$$$.

i didn't see any of the $ when i was buying mduw+mnm and it costed me almost 4 of my monthly salaries! ...well, i thought about buying a pair of good speakers instead for a bit...but it was just a brief thought :)

[Braintree]

Looks like a pretty nice piece of gear given it's nearly half the price of the Octatrack. It looks like an accessible piece of Elektron gear if you don't own any yet.

[modey]

There is! That's what I'm saying. I'm going to make a tutorial

Edit: I'm not going to make a tutorial but all you do is, instead of having your single cycle wave be tuned to C3, pitch it to C6 or something. Then turn the rate knob down to 32 or 16 which drops it by one or two octaves. The chromatic mode locks the pitch relative to whatever the rate is set at, but you can lock the rate too. 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 are all octaves for rate, but anything below 8 sounds pretty lofi.

 

yeah, I've done this, but like I said, it needs to be done in an external editor, right? And the OT's native interpolation will make the lower tones sound muddy when pitched down. It's not that big a deal though, since I've saved two sets of waves—one pitched up three octaves, and one at the original rate. And having said all that, I'm pretty much using the nord for all synth duties and the OT is taking care of other sounds.

[sheatheman]

No external editor is needed. Just record a wave at a really high pitch. Of course, you'll have artifacts, but that's the name of the game unless you are multisampling.

 

Back on topic, the higher resolution of parameters on digitakt seems nice. One of the elektron reps at namm said "we will have more announcements than you could ever imagine" or something along those lines. I bet there will be at minimum a third box in the same form factor.

Edited April 21, 2017 by sheathe

[sheatheman]

It's so funny to read the elektronauts people complaining about granular pops. You can tell they've never used a sampler in that way before.

[modey]

No external editor is needed. Just record a wave at a really high pitch. Of course, you'll have artifacts, but that's the name of the game unless you are multisampling.

Ah, ok, I was thinking about it from pre-made waves, like the AKWF collection. Resampling all 4300 of those would be a pain!