Recently acquired a Digitone, which I’m loving, and thinking of adding a Digitakt.
Obviously, both of them can sequence external gear via MIDI. So far, I’ve had the DN sequencing my eurorack and 0-Coast, which is perfect 'cos the 4 tracks of MIDI works well with my Yarns module. The DT would, however, open up the possibility of sequencing a few more of my standalone synths.
Melodic sequencing is lovely and intuitive on the DN. Is it as straightforward on DT too, or are there any limitations due to its drum machine roots? Can I still play in melodies from an external keyboard? Is one better than the other for sequencing simple polyphonic parts?
I don’t own a Digitone so I can’t compare but the Digitakt has a pretty cool MIDI sequencer! You can record a polyphonic sequence from an external keyboard in real-time, quantized or unquantized. You can also hold a trig and play the note/chord that you want to assign, so yeah I would say it’s pretty powerful and flexible!
I do experience some inconsistencies though, when I record something live it tends to miss some notes, but I didn’t find any similar stories on the interweb so I might be doing something wrong.
Very similar. I’ve not used a Digitone but I believe it has an arpeggiator which the Digitakt doesn’t. I don’t know if it can be used on the MIDI tracks, but if it can I think that would be a big advantage.
You are not doing anything wrong, but you need to understand the concept of a step sequencer and its rigid time grid.
Each step (fixed time slice) can only hold a single note. You can move this note forward or backward in its own time slice by microtiming (so you can move two notes quite near to each other), but when you try to record, for example, 3 notes very fast behind each other it will fail.
One of the things I really like about the Digitone (and Digitakt) is the ability to set different scaling for the tracks. Gets around some of the limitations of step sequencers generally. It’s great that you can set the arpeggiator’s speed independent of that too. A shame that the MIDI tracks lack the arpeggiator but I have plenty of other options for that anyway.
The scaling feature alone is making the DN way more fun to use than my old Analog 4 mk1. I’m honestly not missing a song mode with this feature.
DN is nice with the selectable scales. I use it in conjunction with a midi solutions quadra thru and can send midi to 4 different devices at once, all on their own separate channel. Now that track scaling is a feature, you can flesh out long patterns and add more variety to your sequences with probability. Can’t speak for the Takt, but I love the DN. It’s the midi brain of my setup. Completely changed my workflow. Not sure if you have selectable scales with the DT.
Hello mate! I’d recognise that mushroom avatar anywhere.
Loving the look of that sofa rig. Thinking of swapping out my old MDUW+ for the Digitakt. Much as I like the versatility of the MD modelling, I think I’m in love with conditional trigs that bit more.
Maybe it’s because I’m used to arpeggiators being part of a synth rather than the sequencer, but I never expect the arpeggiated notes to get recorded back into the sequencer. Traditionally you always recorded the “source” notes that get fed into the arp. The way it works currently seems normal to me.
Still, the lack of an arp on the MIDI tracks does feel like a bit of an oversight. If you had that then you could, theoretically, re-route the arpeggiated notes back into sequencer and record them. That said, almost every synth I’d be sequencing over MIDI has a built-in arp anyway.
