Hello everyone, so I’m usually really obsessive about this kind of stuff, wanting to find the optimal setup so I can stop thinking about it and I think I now have it figured out for the Digitakt+Digitone+Keystep Combo. I am not taking the credit here, since it is basically a combination of settings that I found from other posts and videos but I haven’t seen anyone do all of the things together yet.
There are a lot of ways to set up these devices, each of which has its pros and cons. The way I have it, you are using the Digitakt as the clock and general MIDI out device, transferring signals to the Digitone. The usual disadvantage of that is a greater difficulty to incorporate the Keystep, since the MIDI IN port of the Digitone is already in use. I’ve seen videos, where the Keystep controls MIDI tracks on the Digitakt, which then control the Digitone but I don’t like that at all, since I want the Keystep to only be used with the Digitone and the currently selected track there, completely independent of what’s being done anywhere else. Furthermore, as most of you know there is no really nice way to sidechain duck Digitone stuff without sacrificing an LFO and even then, there’s no easy way to toggle a single LFO on and off. I’m going to be using the Digitakt MIDI tracks to a) mute Digitone tracks, so you do not have to enter mute mode on the DN, where you are unable to quickly switch tracks, b) relay the Keystep to the Digitone’s auto channel, so it basically ignores the Digitakt at the cost of one MIDI track, c) two tracks of togglable volume ducking for the DN, mimicking sidechain compression (two tracks can still be played over the sidechain at any time), and d) one remaining MIDI track for another device. A bandmate of my partner currently has our Minilogue, but I could sequence it, when we get it back. Finally the audio is going from the Digitone into the Digitakt, so the master compressor/limiter can be employed. Alternatively, one could route both into a mixer or Overbridge + DAW.
Let’s get to the setup. It’s quite involved but you can create a template to easily access it when starting a new project. First connect the MIDI OUT of the Digitakt to the MIDI IN of the Digitone. Also connect the audio inputs of the Digitakt to the outputs of the Digitone. Connect MIDI IN of the Digitakt to the MIDI OUT of the Keystep.
On the Digitone:
- Set all MIDI Config -> Sync settings to recieve, turn off sends.
- Next we want to change the MIDI channels, so we go into MIDI Config -> Channels and set Track 1 to Ch9, Track 2 to Ch10, Track 3 to Ch11, Track 4 to Ch12, Auto Channel to Ch14, the FX Control to Ch15 and the MIDI Channels to off, they’re basically unusable with this setup because of the remote muting so keep that in mind. (Edit: Set Prog Ch In to Ch16, the AUTO mode can get problematic when everything is changed)
- (For sidechaining example later) Go into track 1, then FUNC + TRIG and open the Breath Controller. If there are parameters there, remove them. Set the first parameter to AMP:Volume and turn the knob down to -40 or something, you can adjust that later.
On the Digitakt:
- Set all MIDI Config -> Sync settings to send, turn off receives.
- In MIDI Config -> Port Config set MUTE DEST to INT+EXT. This will make (sadly currently only) global mutes affect both the chosen track on the Digitakt as well as the track with lined up MIDI channels. We have previously set our DN tracks to channels 9-12, so
- In MIDI Config -> Channels, set MIDI A-F to Ch9-14. Auto-Channel and FX do not really matter imo, you can turn them off. (Edit: Set Prog Ch out to Ch16, since the AUTO setting could be not working properly, as I’ve noticed)
- Go into the external mixer by pressing FUNC + LFO x3 and turn the gain up on both inputs. I use the setting 100 on L and on R. Such, my Digitone needs to be cranked up to about 65% to balance with the Digitakt but I admit that I haven’t found the perfect values yet. I’ve seen the number 27 floating around for unity gain but then the Digitone is way too quiet, even when fully turned up. (Don’t know if my Digis have an issue so take my values with a grain of salt and mix it yourself the way you want it). Don’t forget to hard pan the left input to the left and the right input to the right. Finally turn on globality for the external mixer in the Digitakt settings, so you don’t have to set it up again for each pattern.
Now MIDI A-D are muting the Digitone tracks and MIDI E can be used to control another device via the Digitone Thru Midi Port. (Small caveat: If you do not want the mutes to work with the external device, unassign MIDI E from Ch13 in MIDI Config -> Channels)
- Go into MIDI F, press FUNC + first knob and set to channel 14, which is the auto channel of the Digitone. On the Keystep, use the Shift key to change channel to 14, which we have set for MIDI F. The Keystep is now controlling the Digitone as if it were plugged into its MIDI IN.
- Lastly let us set up the sidechain effect on MIDI Tracks G-H. Let’s take MIDI G and Digitone track 1 for example without loss of generality. Dial channel 9, which corresponds to DN1 and activate the breath controller, which is the lower-left-most knob. Breath controls are rarely (if at all) used in DN presets so we can use them for our sidechain ducking. Leave the knob at 0 and go into the LFO of MIDI G. Choose an exponential wave and set depth to +maximal. Set MODE to ONE and DESTINATION to BC (breath controller). You can set the speed to your liking. We now have to use trigless trigs in patterns to have the breath controller be triggered on the Digitone. We have previously set it so that it ducks our volume when activated. We go into recording mode and place trigless trigs using FUNC on the beats we want to duck, then we select the trigless tricks by holding them down and turn on LFO.T on the TRIG page. You can use copy+paste while pressing multiple buttons. If you have the breath controller open on the Digitone on track 1, you will see that when you press play, the breath controller will be hit and the volume of track 1 will be ducked. If you mute MIDI G however the ducking stops, so you can mute your kick and disable ducking when performing live. Of course you do not have to use track 1 on the DN, you can use any two tracks you want!
So this was a lot. If you have any questions about it or if something is unclear, please ask. I hope you found this write-up useful, as insane as it may read. I will keep using those settings for everything I do with those devices now. I’m personally missing the ability to remote Pattern Mute the Digitone. This is currently impossible, so you have to work around that.
At last a photo to illustrate the key bindings. I personally leave the Keystep relay track MIDI F deactivated for aesthetic reasons, so that I can more easily separate the playback tracks from the sidechain effects. It does not affect the transmission of notes from the Keystep.
