I have an Analog Rytm MkII and a Digitakt… the main difference between them in my mind is in the midi handling… Digitakt wins hands down on this, it’s a central workstation where I can use samples and sequence midi.
If I (or you!) want beats/drums, with sampling, the ARmkII wins every time.
I’d also add that I rarely use the ARmkII on it’s own, it’s always amongst a set up with other hardware. I use the Digitakt on it’s own 70% of the time.
Absolutely but the OP didn’t ask about those. I haven’t read the whole thread just responsed to their question.
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I would love to hear a comparison between DT and Rytm with using same samples. The Rytm’s filters, distortion and compressor do tempt me.
There’s not a lot of difference between them when it comes to using samples… what differs is how you treat them afterwards, and the Rytm has way more performance tricks up it’s sleeve.
It’s just that with the Rytm, the samples are not the main focus, they are alongside analog sound engines, but it can be used like a Digitakt.
Sorry I have to fix the beginning of the thread as later on my budget rose and now im considering it, but im leaning a little less towards it as I don’t really plan to perform much and dont need analog drums, leaning toward using the digitakt and akai one together, the akai mostly for more melodic sample making when I want to make polys with my mono synths etc.
So yeah I think I have settled on both the Digitakt and the Akai One - The Digitakt to mostly use as a drum machine but also taking advantage of the character of the sampler and effects to make a bunch of samples, and then using the MPC to make polyphonic instruments out of my mono synths, the think the both of them should work well together.
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I know it’s tempting to get both, but if I were you I would just get the Digitakt for now, and wait to see if you actually want both.
I got a Model:Samples and because I didn’t realize how much I could do with it, I got an OP-Z soon after. I wish I hadn’t. There was plenty in the Model:Samples to do what I need, and I probably would have gotten a bass synth for my second machine instead of a groovebox (the OP-Z).
You’ll get so much out of a Digitakt, and then you may decide what you really want to go with it is a bass synth or a Digitone or whatever. Or maybe an MPC (although I kinda doubt it).
I know how eager you are because I was, too, but if I could start over I’d slow down and take the time to learn one thing before getting the second thing.
The main reason I am sort of thinking about the two together is because having a more fully featured sampler and being able to multisample my own instruments are things the digitakt can’t really do, especially playing sampled instruments polyphonically. The other nice thing about the MPC One is that it fills in the gaps with stuff the digitakt can’t do like time switching. The MPC doesn’t make sense as a dedicated drum machine but it does make for me to be able to explore sampling more than I could otherwise. That said im not in a rush to get either, but I was able to find a digitakt locally for 600 so im gonna start with that.
I use a MIDI scripting app on my iPhone/iPad called Mozaic which distributes notes on MIDI channels 1-4 which gives you polyphony on the Digitakt. This method uses up 4 tracks but I set up a dummy pattern then resample chords made this way. I’ve also considered MPC One as it does the things the Digitakt can’t but the touch screen puts me off, I may as well just use Beatmaker 3 on my iPad. I think if I were to go down the MPC route I’d go for a 1000 or maybe even a 500.
I’ve also found the limitations of the DT to be quite inspiring. It forces you to be creative with resampling and takes me places I wouldn’t have gone to if I had things like polyphony and stereo sampling. I don’t think you can go wrong with either machine and the combo of the two would absolutely give you everything you need.
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with the sample freeze, autosampler, performance modes, layering, etc… the mpc one and the Digitakt are a match made in heaven, I wish bm3 could do half the things the mpc one can do but at the same time like you I’m not overly enamored with the touch screen in this context, but the mpc one on the other hand has a ton of tactile controls and you don’t really have to use the touch screen if you don’t want to
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So an update, I grabbed the digitakt and I love it. I’m used to having more tracks on drum machines so 8 feels like a small amount but its fairly easy to cheat with pulling extra samples like you would with a sound pool on the digitone. Doing fills feels fairly unintuitive but I will work on it. One thing I am disappointed about and I really hope the developers will consider improving is making it easier to write in 3/4 as no matter what you do the steps wont line up, it would be great to be able to get 12 steps per page as opposed to forcing each page to have 16 steps regardless of the time signature. Makes it a lot more difficult to quickly rip off the Cocteau Twins lol. Other than that I am enjoying it a bunch so far. Sampled the shit out of my moog werkstat 1 for analog drums and got some great results, ill see if I can post them up here for free as a thanks for all the help.
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if Roland had of came out with an sp like this before I first got my digitakt I would of lost my mind, have no idea how other SP users can even resist the digitakt… I still use SP’s but still
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