Hi I’m writing some phrases with the midi and my reface dx, all great but when I record the audio it’s a pain to cut the 4 bar loops exactly, anybody knows how to have perfect 4 bar loops without having to find the begging on the 5bar loop
I think 5-bar loops might be the best way to sample external gear on Digitakt stand-alone?
I have a utility MIDI track set to play 4 bars, mute one bar, and start a 6th, then “use” positions 0-96 of the sample as my loop. A bar is 24, eighth notes are 3, etc. And the 96-120 bar is usually a usable “tail” of the sound for a pad or effect.
In my quest to make it a baby Octatrack, I also had another midi track set up to play a 1-bar freeze delay buffer over the silences, and it works great, though I haven’t found myself remixing on the fly as much as I’d thought I would.
I’m curious if others have come up with other sampling methods for external gear on DT
I made a video about this that I’d been intending to replace (I’ve improved on the method and due to having long COVID the explanation is a little disjointed): https://youtu.be/wOsOY8MSnmQ
The simplest way to just capture 5 bars and use 4 would be with Song Mode:
Row 1 Play the sounds (arm recorder beforehand), length 64
Row 2 Mute those tracks, length 16
Row 3, play them again.
You trim to the beginning of bar 6 (shown in the video for capturing a 2-bar loop), then set up a template audio track to slice as you like.
To get more elaborate (like with the delays and such), I’ve found that using midi tracks rather than song mode is much more straightforward.
I usually sample larger sample than what I want. Say 5 bar (or 4 bar and a little more)
Then I put a trig on the first step with infinite trig len and start the sequencer.
Adjust the tempo and the tuning until you get a smooth loop.
Go to pattern 2 and put a kick or a snappy sound on the first step.
Go back to pattern 1 (where you adjusted your loop)
Go to sampling page and sample to MAIN L+R. Put a threshold high enough to not run the recorder when you press yes.
Press yes to arm the recorder.
Press Play, and change to pattern 2.
The loop will run then BANG! and silence.
In the audio editor, cut the bang sound and you have your perfect loop.
You can use my trick to quickly chop your sample then