I recently got myself Digitone (after having great time with Digitakt ), and I’m just starting to experiment with making music on both devices.
I connected them in what seems to be the standard way (from what I saw on Ivar/Miles videos and on this forum). So DT out -> DN ins and DT midi out -> DN midi in. DT midi sends to DN, etc. Then I set DN master audio levels and panning. I’m listening music on DN headphone jack.
This night I was working on simple loop on both devices, and wanted to pan some of the sounds when I noticed that I haven’t set the master panning settings on DN on this new project yet. I did this while music was playing and I noticed that level of centered kick/bass that were coming from DT got much lower.
I can “bring them back in mix” by using track level or overdrive, but I was wondering is this normal behavior or am I doing anything wrong? I suspect that this has something to do with how the centered signal is transmitted via stereo cables and hard left/right panning on DN, but I am a new in all of this and wanted to check out.
regardless of what device… hardware/software etc… if you have everything panned to the center it’s going to sound a certain way. all the frequencies can ‘reinforce’ each other… so you can be adding to the bass or the highs or whatever is happening in the part you’re working on…
so, when you then pan some of those things off center… that won’t happen anymore… so instead of say… some synth part adding to a fundamental of the bass or kickdrum… it stands on its own…
this is just physics.
but, also, listening on headphones is always a bit deceiving imo even when on really good headphones.
chances are, if you listened on speakers, your bass or whatever was too low in the mix.
maybe try it on speakers and see how it sounds.
i don’t own either of these devices btw… but i’d suggest using an external mixer or overbridge and taking each sound out on its own track…
not as a rule but just to experiment and see how things sound when they’re not all mixed internally and playing through headphones.
keep in mind, all punch from takt comes from the simple fact it’s mono…
all it’s stereo information comes from pannings and fx…
and while hosting takts main out via tones inputs, u should handle midi sync the other way around, since u wanna keep tones midi input free for some keyboard option sooner than later…
Hey @ignatius and @reeloy, thank you very much for your answers!
I did a bit of research based on things you mentioned, and now it makes sense that it is behaving like that
Regarding the midi keyboard I already own Keystep, and I’m planning to use it with combo by setting up channel on DT to forward midi to DN (found out about this on YT). For now I mostly use keyboard to record lines, I’m not using it in live setting.
Thanks for this. I too seem to have similar issues about volume differences between the two machines and have been trying everything to see if I can find out what is happening, will have a look again at the panning and see how that effects things. Cheers.
Since DT latest firmware update I swapped the routing to DN out>DT IN. A couple of reasons: per project ext mixer settings, DT compressor that works on the inputs too, ability to sample DN directy and a little control over de DN signal using the chorus width setting that sounds about right on a lot of presets.
The only thing i’m missing sometimes is the DN’s master drive that effected the input too. Luckily the Heat on the end of my holy tripleness makes it up.
I’m very new to hardware in general and Elektron specifically. I have owned a Digitone for a few weeks and am thinking about adding a Digitakt.
Like the OP, I have noticed other users taking audio from DT and putting it into DN. Why? Surely the main reason to use them together is so DT can sample DN, no? I know very little about sampling, so maybe I have the wrong idea.
It’s only recently that the DT has a master mixer- so maybe most of that advice is old… I’d be interested to see if any elektron pros flipped the routing recommendations since the update.
Until 1.30 update Digitakt had only mono audio monitoring and no external mixer meaning whatever sound you’ve made on Digitone (or any other stereo synth) it will be summed up into mono loosing its wideness. Plus you couldn’t apply delay and reverb to the inputs. At the same time Digitone had external stereo mixer with chorus, delay, reverb and overdrive so people used it as a mixer, FX box and audio interface for recording via Overbridge.
With 1.30 update Digitakt received stereo mixer with delay, reverb and master compressor which many find more preferable to have at the end of the audio chain.
), and I’m just starting to experiment with making music on both devices.