Digitakt & Automation

Elektron Gear Digitakt
#1

Hi,

i got some beginner/philosophy of use questions regarding the digitakt. I’m currently working on a track and by nature of how I’m used to work, I keep bumping into the 4 bar limitation. E.g. the last thing I wanted to do was add a delay feedback swell over 8 bars and then pull it down. If I want something like this to happen on the Digitakt, I guess I am incentivized to do it performatively and not programmatically? Also with how the encoders respond, I actually have problems pulling the value to 0 satisfyingly in time because even if I hit func when doing it I still need to clear the value 100 bump. (I feel like I should add a faderbank). Theres also some other things in regards to automation, like I didnt find a way to remove all automation on a copied pattern easily. All this makes me feel that I’m approaching the device with a too ‘daw trained’ mindset.

I’m interested in your take on this. How do you use automation with/on the Digitakt and do you have any tips in regard to that? Anyone run into the same experience of running into roadblocks regarding the ‘performance’ nature of the box?

P.s.: I also keep running into the problem of wanting to modulate something i can’t assign the LFO to (like delay feedback :D). Any workarounds for that?

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#2

  1. Use trig conditions to have the delay swell happen when you want if it’s just effecting the send of an instrument track. If you want to automate the delay itself, you COULD do midi loopback.

  2. You can press the encoder while turning it to reach 0 faster.

  3. When you copy a pattern, if you want to delete the plocks, you can go into live record mode and hold NO and press the knob you want to erase. You have to hold it down the entire bar length of the loop. Peep the manual for more info.

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#3

You can’t use trig conditions on parameters though, right? They just dictate whether a step plays a note or note.

#4

about 2, good tip! about 3, yeah but if I have like 5 pieces of automation, i have to listen to 12 bars to get rid of it. about 1 does this solve the problem to create a ramp over 8 bars? can i record automation across patterns? I guess I could write 1 automation then set the start point of the second loop to the same value and write a second automation and yeah get it to 0 with a plock. Do you do this? I feel like it would be more productive of figuring out how to do it performatively at this point.

#5

trig conditions work for everything afaik

#6

Correct, but you use trig conditions and microtiming.

Step 1 - TRIG 1:2 and no delay Plock
Step 2 - TRIG 2:2 with delay plock and microtimed to be at -23 on the scale.

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#7

Yeah. There’s going to be a lot of new ways of working as you figure this out. I’d say I’m fairly proficient in my Elektron knowledge and I still learn new shit regularly.

#8

That’s how I do it now. I was hoping I had missed some other way to do it!

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#9

haven’t messed with the DT in awhile, but i accomplished stuff like this via overbridge + automation in ableton in the past. this may not answer your question if you want to do this solely with the hardware.

#10

Trig conditions are for Steps, P-Locks are for Parameters on a Step basis.

#11

oh alright, i just had it memorized as per step edits. in the end you hold down the button and do the thing either way.

#12

Also, a Trig condition is a P-Lock. :rofl:

#13

Right.

What the manual says is sometime far distant from what the community uses I discovered.

According to Model:samples manual (and I guess the others are consistent)

Every kind of Lock is a Parameter lock

“Note Trigs” (which is also p-lock) lock a note and maybe parameters

“Lock Trigs” lock parameters but not a note (and they are often called “trigless trigs”)

“Conditional locks” are just another parameter added to some kind of lock. Or they might be a p-lock all on their own.

I suspect, though it’s in the manual, if thread like this started talking about “note trigs” or “lock trigs” that might be ambiguous.

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#14

right. i understand its important to clear terminology so people can talk but its still a bit funny to have this terminological hierarchy. its all just time slot based parameter and file changes. i blame elektron tho :>.

#15

you cpuld also divide the track time by 2 or 4 - FUNC+PAGE

#16

This is a good tip I’m banking that one. I accidentally recorded a bunch of plocks on some RYTM tracks by having live record on and it caused me a right headache! I did learn that you can use the compressor as an audible instrument even with all the tracks muted though, which was nifty, if a little confusing at the time :sweat_smile:

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