Does anyone make pop songs on the Digitakt? Have always felt pretty inspired by early Grimes/Atlas Sound that make experimental synth/sample kind of based pop music but struggle with finding a good workflow for structuring pieces into a typical song structure. Would be interested to hear from anyone is making vocal-focused music on the Digitakt!!!
The DT is a sequencer and sampler. What you make with it is totally up to you. Does the workflow and capabilities of the device match what you’re looking for? If so then perhaps it’ll work.
Personally I wanted to get away from the computer and the DT fit the bill for being the center of my setup in both capabilities and price.
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Sorry if it’s not clear I actually already own one and know how to use it I was just curious if anyone was making music like this on it and what their workflow is like!!
Ah okay. Good luck then!
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I make some fairly shoegaze/dream pop inspired music on my octatrack. I find it perfect for arranging simple weird sounds into poppy structures. I tend to sample my OB6, Digitone and Modular and start from there.
It’s entirely possible to do it on a DT.
I’m fairly sure Grimes first album (before she became a massive pop star) was made with a ton of crappy pawn shop keyboards and fx. I really liked that album, it was so well produced and arranged by a then unknown bedroom musician
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Sounds dumb but for some reason haven’t really thought much about resampling synths back into Digitakt even though I used to do that all the time with my SP404 and then layer a bunch of effects but more because I hated the sequencer, lol…Going to experiment with feeding synth output through a couple of pedals today and resampling !!!
I love that album!! Interesting to know, strong Broadcast vibes from many of the songs
She used the sp404 a lot, at least live (it’s in all her early vids). Her new stuff is way too overproduced for my taste but those old albums are awesome. They have this lo-fi, ethereal, strange element to them that just worked. If you want to stay elektron I honestly think you might be better with octatrack it can get a bit more lo-fi and “crunchy”. Plus stereo sampling so you can sample some pads.
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At the risk of blatant self-promotion on the wrong spot, I’ll admit it: we do that.
The Digitakt provides the drum part to our pieces. We record a single-take improvisation in which I play the Digitakt and my bandmate plays the Bass VI. After that, we layer more improvisation using synths and guitars. Finally, we add vocals— all of which are made from lyrics taken from cut-ups. It’s all done at home on a Tascam multitrack recorder. It’s all DIY. We call it experimental pop.
There have been a few tracks in which we used the Digitakt to record a loop from a guitar, Bass VI, synth, or drums. Either way, the loop isn’t the focal point or the main use of the Digitakt: it’s all about its ability to function are a really dynamic drum machine.
This is basically my niche I guess. I have a Digitakt, A4, small modular lunchbox, and Bitwig that I use to make “electronic power pop” or something lol.
My workflow is very pattern-focused. Digitakt acts as the brain for everything. Usually I split up sections of the song into patterns (so like A1 - Verse A2 - Chorus A3 - Bridge, etc.) with percussion/ambiance/found sound duties all coming from the DT. Everything else is sequenced by DT with MIDI. Then I’ll hit record and play the pattern switching game, while recording some scratch vocals.
Then I’ll do guitar stuff over it and any additional pieces. Finally my REAL vocals. I’d say the Digitakt really lends itself to structured pop, given its nature as a “drum computer”. I’ve been working on a recent project that required a bit of creativity in terms of pattern length for certain song sections, but I think the Digitakt only ever gets easier. Honestly, I can’t imagine making that stuff I’m doing now without it. The ability to have 8 different samples per pattern allows for some INCREDIBLE juxtaposition between song sections. It’s a great box. 
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my pop song
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Love it. Your videos are one of the main reasons I picked up a Model Samples and got into hardware/Elektron gear so thank you!