Usually techno consists of a closed high hat in 1-2 variations. Some open hihats in a 1-2 variations. Together with rides and potentially shakers. How do you guys go on to arrange this all on your digitakt? Any special thoughts or techniques?
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Hey! Donât have a DT anymore but had one and still have OT and Rytm; same kind of tricks across them all. Not sure how expert level youâre looking for, I usually do pretty basic stuff but it works fine:
- Parameter locks is more then enough. Use it to change either the decay, the trig level, or filter for example. All are great to sequence variations into one instrument track. For some accented hits I just open the filter; or apply more volume; more decay, or Drive. Or Plock the FX.
- Sometimes I apply a subtle LFO in Hold-mode to one of these parameters. For example a triangle wave if I want a repeating change in sound, or random if not. And I sometimes only choose some of the trigs to the LFO, and some I donât apply the LFO so they keep constant (for the most important accents, or the other way around for the subtle hits in between that I want to stay subtle.
- If both of these arenât enough for me I can always start using sound-locks. (Is that the right name? So locking trigs to other sounds/samples in the Project memory.
PS and if Iâm not feeling like precisely dialing these Plocks in trig per trig I sometimes play in hats for example chromatically in live recording, or twiddle parameter knobs in live recording.
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I find seamlessly loopable hihat noise âsinglecycle waveformsâ pretty useful. Itâs possible to get a good shape with the filter/amp envelopes and the LFO for hat, cymbal or shaker sounds.
When you interchange the source sample, you can get different kinds of flavours of sound.
You can hardwrite a bit of tonal movement into the static loop sample. Which can give the samplestart parameter more effect, depending on where itâs positioned in the hardwritten motion.
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Make a chain with these 4 sample hits. Use it on one track to mimic the hi hat choke effect by p-locking the start point.
Bonus: add some âcomboâ (ch+oh) samples to the chain.
But keep the chain no bigger than 6 sample hits, otherwise DT, with its high start point resolution, can be too fiddly for p-locking the start point.
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All of the above. Plus, P locking delay to individual HH trigs can expand a pattern immensely, also retrig.
Totally depends on what style of techno you like but personally, the 606 hihats and the 909 OH are godlike if used well.
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