Digitone - easy software change to support "kits"

Elektron Gear Digitone/Digitone Keys
#1

One problem when using DN is keeping sounds in sync across tracks.

Devices like AR manage this with Kits.

There’s a way you can sort of “fake” kits using DN, but the ergonomics are bad.

You “simply” set every single trig on the track to have a sound lock pointing to a sound in the project’s sound pool.

You can “flush” changes out to every pattern by overwriting the sound in the sound pool with the updated sound. Every pattern will now have the updated sound.

Some changes that would help with this workflow:

  1. Trivial change: Add a way to set a sound lock on every trig on the track in one fell swoop. At least this avoids most of the repetitive button pushing and knob-twisting.

The best workflow here, I think, is to have a “master sound track” where you edit the sounds, and then when you get it sounding the way you like, you push that sound to the sound pool.

  1. Non-trivial change: Add a way to make the “track sound” point to a sound in the sound pool, rather than a copy of the sound owned by the track. This could be implemented in a few ways, but the important thing is that you can edit the pool sound from any track and hear the changes without having to erase your sound locks or flush the sound out to the pool. The workflow here is significantly better than the workflow above, but I would imagine it would require some changes to the data model, so probably more difficult to implement.

There are a few strategies that could make it simpler to integrate with the existing data model, such as a copy-on-write strategy, but the ideal UI would be as described above, IMO.

Any thoughts? Does anyone else wish they could synchronize sounds across DN patterns in a more ergonomic way? I feel like a lot of people don’t use chaining on DN nearly as much as they otherwise would, specifically because it’s so difficult to keep the chain links’ sounds in sync!

#2

Personally it doesnt bother me. I just copy paste. Would I use kits if digitone had them? Yes.

However, it seems to me whenever I read the octatrack section of this forum, theres always a new thread where the user cannot understand the use of Parts AKA Kits. So would kits on digitone introduce the same confusion or is that just an OT thing? I dunno. I have an OT and I’m fine with it, so who knows.

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#3

In the Digitone Feature Requests thread, I proposed ‘Pattern Grouping’. This would really be for all Digi-boxes though and I’ve already submitted a feature request. Never got a response though:

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#4

That is also a good idea!

#5

I was thinking the same. Both ways have their advantages, and both their drawbacks. Overall I prefer the Digi way, as I like to have variations between patterns, and on the Octatrack, parts caught me out more than a few times with unintentional changes.

One neat method might be a kind of “control all,” only you get to choose which patterns it applies to. It would be like selecting patterns for song mode, and then any changes you make to sounds apply to all selected patterns.

#6

This is precisely what I proposed with ‘Pattern Grouping’. Read above.

I think it keeps with Elektron’s design language, doesn’t require piles of additional resources, and solves a pretty big issue that people have with the Digi-boxes.

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#7

is a good tip for “kits”

#9

Kits worked really well with my Mnm

#10

I started on the Digitone and picked up an AR. I remember thinking what’s up with all this kit nonsense. I’m sure it’s super good and beneficial to have all that extra control but in the end DN was so much easier!

Yes, you can copy and paste tracks on the DN.

#11

Copying and pasting track settings on the DN scales very poorly, especially if you like to modify sounds after composing a multi-pattern melody. I like to listen to the entire melody and mess with the sound. Basically impossible on the DN. You have to iterate on a single 64-note pattern, manually copy the changes to the other patterns, go back into chain mode, and hope it sounds good.

I started with AR, and after learning the data model (iirc from a @cuckoomusic video), I think it makes a lot of sense. I can see how it would trip up people who don’t understand the data model, but it’s so worth it to spend like 10-20 minutes learning how to use it.

My original proposal is basically somewhere in the middle. Each track defaults to having an owned copy of a sound, but you can set it to having a shared, referenced copy of a sound.

#12

I’ve never had any issues but I’m not too well-versed with all these glorious tools. My bad for any misinformation.

#13

I did read it, but I guess I wasn’t paying attention! Or maybe I was paying just enough attention catch onto your idea subconsciously and then pass it off as my own. :neutral_face:

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#14

That’s pretty smart!

#15

You can but let me detail two scenarios for you that kits/parts or my proposed, ‘Pattern Grouping’, would facilitate:

On your Digitakt (or DN or ST), you create a drum pattern on 1. You then copy that pattern to 2, 3, and 4 to program variations. You then decide to shorten the decay on the kick and maybe cut a bit of the low end with the base/width filter or you tighten up the hats because everything was a bit too messy. Now you have to copy all of those parameter pages from pattern 1 to patterns 2, 3, and 4. You do this for every parameter page that you made changes on. You then decide that maybe that kick needs to decay a bit longer. Rinse and repeat every time you tweak something.

You have patterns 1 through 4 programmed exactly as you want and you’re in the middle of a performance. You’ve high pass filtered using ‘control all’ because you’re going to pattern change to 2 that has your breakdown on it. You change to 2 and that high pass parameter change doesn’t line up with what you just did on pattern 1. You can’t copy and paste anything in this scenario because you’re performing.

Kits and parts address this because changes are made to elements that are assigned to each. In addition, kits can be saved and recalled so you can load them up into any new project.

Now, implementing kits/parts on Digi-boxes ‘likely’ isn’t possible because of the additional UI elements, memory requirements etc.

Personally, I don’t want to be able to save a kit for recall in other projects. This could be somewhat accommodated with properly named ‘Sounds’. However, I do want my parameter changes to propagate between patterns for the two reasons listed above.

‘Pattern Grouping’ would require exactly one new UI element (pick any number of pages to accommodate this) and not much more than adding a field to a table/hash/array.

I assume that when you request a pattern change, the state of all parameters is saved to a table/hash/array of some sort and the new pattern’s table/hash/array is loaded into memory just before the pattern actually changes. If you group patterns together, they only need to save to and recall from the same table/hash/array that they are assigned to. I don’t think it would really be much more than that.

Don’t want to group? Great! The default is ‘None’. Want groups? Assign two or more patterns to 1 of 16 (or more, depending on memory constraints) groups so these parameter changes persist amongst the group.

This is a feature request that mimics behavior from flagship devices, solves a pretty big issue that constrains songs to one pattern (without some copy/paste gymnastics or performance accommodations), and doesn’t require a pile of resources that these Digi-boxes likely don’t have.

It is just a massive quality of life improvement for these devices. It’s also one that borrows from their big brothers (sisters :slight_smile: ) and doesn’t stray from the Elektron design language.

I’d really love to get some feedback or response from Elektron as I’m pretty passionate that this would be a feature that would be embraced by a large amount of the community. I’ll likely re-submit this feature request to try and get it on their radar again.

#17

Precisely why I said:

This feature maintains the status quo but accommodates the many, many people that make multi-pattern songs.

#18

I’ve never thought about it like this, but the new takeaway from this thread for me is a very good idea indeed: Some kind of way that (in my ideal world) defaults like the Digis do with each Pattern their own thing, but a way to lock a group of patterns to one pattern’s current settings which then creates a kit for the group.

Or some other way. But it’s cool to realise it doesn’t háve to be ór the Analog Kit structure ór the Digi structure. Some optional system in between could be pretty nice.

#19

Precisely! It would be kit/part behavior but without being able to save an actual kit for recall.

It would be very much akin to the Digi-boxes’ ‘Song Mode’; It’s not quite the ‘Arranger Mode’ of the Octatrack or the Analog series but is its own similar and highly functional version. :slight_smile:

#20

Now I have read your long post in the other thread, it’s not quite what I had in mind, although I think your version is a lot more powerful.

I was thinking that you would group patterns on the fly, exactly as you do now to make an ad-hoc pattern chain. Once you have grouped those patterns, you’d hold down a modifier key, and any changes you make are applied to all the chained/grouped patterns, and only those patterns.

Thus, if you wanted a shorter attack hats on P1-P5, you’d hold down P1, tap P2 through P5, and then hold the mod key and tweak the attack.

It could go wrong, of course. You might have already gotten the attack just right on P3 and forgotten, and this would ruin that. But the advantage is that you don’t have to remember what patterns you grouped together. It’s exactly the same as control all, only selective.

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#21

To be clear, you can copy tracks on the DN.

It may not be the exact way you’d like or expect but you can copy tracks on the DN.

Have a great night!

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