Creating sample pack for Elektron gear

Hi all,
So I’m building a library of sample packs and want them to work on Elektron gear. Is there a specific format that works best for samples created to use on the main Elektron Digi boxes and others like Rytm, Octatrack and Analog 4? I’d love to share these.

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I can’t speak to the Octatrack or the Rytm. The Analog 4 doesn’t use samples. But on the Digitakt, you’re going to want to think about ways to avoid using too many sample slots and ways to avoid running out of space on your plus drive.

To save on sample slots, I would recommend making sample chains out of your one shot samples and then using the slice mode to trigger them. For this to work you’ll need to have groups of 4, 8, 16, 32, or 64 samples equally spaced apart so that they’ll each be triggered on their own slice.

Speaking of the slice mode, if you want to use any loops then you’ll want to make sure that everything lines up to the grid otherwise your sample slices are going to be off.

Also, you can transfer long samples into your plus drive, but remember that you can’t zoom in on a sample after it’s been saved.

As for saving space on the plus drive, I like to speed up my samples before I record them. Then I’ll pitch them down on the machine. It saves on space and I think it sounds nice.

And if you mean format like the particulars of the sounds you want to transfer, I’m not sure you need to worry about that. On the Digitakt you use a program called Transfer to send samples back and forth from the computer. I’m pretty sure the program will just convert the sample.

Hope that helps

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thanks I will experiment with bitrate and file formats. Goal is sample pack that runs on Rytm, Analog 4, Digitone and Octatrack as well as work in Ableton Live and Logic. I get requests for modular sample packs from friends and folks so figure would be great to develop a bunch of new sample packs to share.

Octatrack is 44.1 16/24bit.

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thanks would this also work for Analog 4, Digitone and Rytm MK2?

Are you making the packs for yourself or are you planning on selling them?

OT uses 44.1, newer devices use 48kHz.

Mk2 Analog Rytm -

Dunno if that’s necessarily the same with other devices. I believe if you try to load 48kHz files into an OT it will just play them slower than expected.

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well for myself and friends to test how good they are and if quality to sell in the future

Also OT is stereo, DT, AR and M:S are mono, no samples in A4.

Yeah it’s a bit of a pain but you might want to either create separate packs for the different categories of device, or just include all the files in the pack but in curated folders so the user can more easily choose. If you were just doing percussion sounds then they’re probably fine to keep in mono, but for textures/chords it’s nice to have the option of stereo, and if you make mono versions of those you’ll want to check for mono compatibility to avoid weird phasing issues.

Also I would probably make the sounds available as seperate files plus as chains that you’ve put together. And for the chains you may want to do a couple variations of the same thing like as kits/variations like what’s being talked about here - Sample chain approach

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Specs are all in the manuals

The only reason you can’t make it work on Analog four is that there is no native sample player, so RYTM, Digitone, M:S, and Octatrack should all be ok - Analog four you could create patches and sample them to be used on devices with sample playback, or share the patches/sounds you’ve made with other A4 users. That’s the only reason you can’t directly address Analog Four with the sample packs, it will be unable to play them. Otherwise this should work fine, nice job.

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