right now i’m using an Elektron Digitone and Roland Alpha Juno 1.
they’re not connected in any way (yet - haven’t figured it out) but the sounds compliment each other beautifully.
i’m interested to know what you guys have paired with your Digitones & if the DT is controlling your extra gear. i’ve considered some effects or smaller synths like the Modal Skulpt.
is there a piece of kit that pairs amazingly with the DT in your experience ?
What’s funny is that the reviews of the Alpha Juno 1 from back in the 80s stated pretty much the same thing. For example:
“The lush analogue sounds of this Juno are a perfect counterpoint to Yamaha’s cleaner FM sounds, and the velocity and pressure response make the JU-1 and DX7 ideal companions - that’s what MIDI does for you!”
I would plug in the Roland to the DN so that you can use the keyboard to play and input note data on the DN. You just need a midi cable from the Roland MIDI out to the DN MIDI in.
Alternatively if you dont play piano then you could invert the connection and use the DN sequencer to sequence notes on the Roland. Just depends what you want more, being able to play the DN with a keyboard vs being able to sequence the Roland with a elektron sequencer.
My brain is Ableton so my DN is only sending clock data to my other gear.
Other kind of gear you might be interested in are either drum machines or samplers since you already have two synthesizers.
killer, i’ll try to sequence the Juno via the DN.
adding a Behringer Model D & Keystep; i hope there’s a way to sync all 4 units via BPM.
Right now I have the Digitone being the master clock unsing one of the DIN sync ports, everything except the clock being filtered out by my midi interface. I have a Pioneer Toraiz SP16 sampler, a Toraiz AS1 analog monosynth (=1 complete Prophet6 voice in a small enclosure), a Waldorf Blofeld, and an Animoog running on an iPad, and some hardware FX units from Eventide and Strymon: eveything is patched into a Soundcraft Impact mixer so everything can be routed everywhere in any order. Two of the eight SP16 outputs go into the Digitone inputs so I can add some extra effects on a chosen sample-track (or set of these). I chose not to wire ALL the SP16 outputs to the mixer because this is a live-rig, not a home studio. (I use a bit of the Soundcraft’s onboard Lexicon processors, but sparingly, mostly a bit of reverb on the AS-1). I don’t want to over-complicate stuff, it’s already almost overwhelming as it is.
The midi routing/filtering is being take care of by a iConnectivity iCM4+ midi interface. I have a PC laptop that only handles systemwide program changes and runs the software editors for the different hardware boxes, which is convenient during the preparation of a gig but is not really neccessary on stage (I’m looking for an iPad or Android app to handle those systemwide programchanges instead of the laptop).
The controllers I use are a Novation SL25 Remote, a Yamaha MFC10 pedalboard, and I’m expecting a Roli Seabord block to arrive in the mail any day now.
I’m primarily a guitar player so I also have my guitar pedal board that can be routed anywhere via the mixer (it has a TC Electronics Ditto4 Looper which is clocked to the rest of he system.) The whole set-up (except the pedalboards and mixer of course fit in a single flightcase and is permanently wired up. My rig was designed for touring.
So I have a bit of every essential sound-producing tech available in a compact set-up: sampler, huge analog, wavetables and FM. The Digitone sequencer is really powerful (I regret that it doesn’t have enough resolution to record aftertouch though…) but I’m a bit underwhelmed with the sounds. On it’s own with a decent amount of delays and reverbs it can make some really great sounding stuff (there’s a Dataline demo that really blew my mind and made me pull the trigger!) , but it struggles a bit when mixed with the other elements of my set-up. I used to have a beefed-up DX7 way back when, and find that the Digitone sound engine lacks (unsurprisingly so) complexity unless we use a lot of distortion and delay.
But like someone else said I don’t remember where: when you buy an Elektron triggered by a Cenk demo you’ll spend a year full-time to figure out how hell he managed to do that in 10 minutes. So nothing is lost, up to me to do my home-work!
Mother 32 into Digitone is a beautiful thing.