Hi,
newbie here, I’ve just got back on the horse of making electronic music and I’ve recently bought a Digitakt and I am in the process of trying to figure it out. What i’m trying to do to get started is to use it just as a sampler/ drum machine and use the Beat step pro to sequence it rather that it’s own internal sequencer, as I’ve already got a few songs written into the bsp etc. so i’ve set all 8 audio tracks of the Digitakt to the same midi channel, 10, which is the drum channel on the bsp, but I can’t seem to see how to limit the samples just to one key of the keyboard so they don’t all trigger at once.
I’m used to old Akai samplers and it’s called “Span” with those. hoping someone will understand what Im waffling on about! thanks in advance
Have you gone into the Control Center software yet to tweak the Beatstep Pro’s note values? That stuff is all user customizable so I would start there.
To control the DT tracks chromatically (one note per track) you have to send the first eight notes (by half step) starting from C0 on your controller (C0 = Track 1, C#0 = Track 2, D0 = Track 3, etc)
You also shouldn’t set up each channel to receive MIDI, but use the Autochannel.
Any other notes sent to the DT on the Autochannel will play whatever track is currently active chromatically. What you’re doing is telling every track to listen to the same MIDI channel…so they are all obeying and playing the notes the BSP sends on that one channel.
Maybe this would be a way to do it (not sure if I understood your question correctly):
In the Arturia MIDI Control Center:
Connect the BSP
Go to Device Settings
Scroll all the way down to “Drum Map”
Here you can assign a dedicated MIDI Channel to each Drum Pad and also set the Note number.
Example:
Set pad 1 - 8 to MIDI Channel 1 - 8
Set the Note Numbers for the pads 1 - 8 all to 36 or whatever root key should be played on the Digitakt.
On the Digitakt:
Go to Settings, MIDI Config, Channels
Set Track 1 MIDI Channel to 1, Track 2 to 2 and so on (they might be that way in default project already)
That way you should be able to fire the samples in one key without hearing the other samples play at the same time, I think.
PS: In the DT MIDI Channel settings - set Auto Channel to off or maybe to 16. That way the BSP won’t play 2 Tracks at once, e.g. if you edit 1 Track.
I think you can also set the “User Channel” in the BSP Device settings to 16. Then you can enter the Control Mode on the BSP and play the DT’s Auto Channel from there.
ah ok thanks. thanks for these ideas. I don’t think I’ve worded my question very well though really…
can I not use the digitakt just as a module and say; midi keyboard note C3 = bass drum D3 = Hi Hat 1 E3 = clap etc etc upto 8. all on the same midi channel ?
I’m afraid I haven’t found a way to do this with an ordinary MIDI keyboard. I guess the DT’s tracks have just the option to receive from CH 1 to 16 or OFF. Setting them all to one channel would probably result in all tracks being played at once with the same notes.
On the other hand, having the track’s MIDI channels separated allows an ordinary MIDI keyboard to play a track chromatically. Useful for melodies and using a track on the DT as a synth.
The way with BSP device settings / “Drum Map” would make them play like a “one shot” sampler.
Is this what the dude in this video does maybe the same?
Each “pad” on de DT is listening to a user definable midi channel and a note number. Besides that each DT “pad” wil repond to midi messages recieved on the set iDT autochannel. The pad reponding to the autochannel is the selected track, so better to turn off auto channel to begin exploring this setup.
As mentioned above use BSpro editor to set BS pad 1 ( of the drumtrack) to channel 1 midi note C 2 or whatever you like (don’t use very high notes because you will probably hear nothing ).
Repeat this for all 8 DT tracks so pad 1 = channel 1, pad 2 = channel 2 and so on:
on the DT setup t1 to receive midi 1 and so forth.
Note: if you add DT to current setup and BSpro’s track 1 and 2 allready controlling other hardware on midi ch1 and 2 do the above and start counting from 3 to 11, same on DT
If you figured out how to use PSpro as a drum sequencer on all DT tracks you can also assign the BS pro’s chromatic tracks to a desired DT track with a synth sample.
Example:
PSpro drum track pad 1-6 plays drum or one shot locked pitch samples on T1-6 (and use tune on DT track settings)
And BSP track 1 plays a chromatic monophonic track on DT 7 and 2 on DT8 .
Enough to explore.
summarize:
To achieve what you refer as “span” is possible but instead of a fixed midi channel and different note numbers you use fixed note numbers and different midi channels.
Track 1-8 should be set midi 1-8. Your auto channel should be midi channel 10. Now when you set your midi controller to midi 10, now the lowest octave on your controller will play the 8 tracks Digitakt. I’m curious why you want to use the sequencer on the keystep rather than the superior digitakt sequencer. At this point, you could set the sequence your tracks from the keystep to one of the four channels that you have set up on the digitakt tracks. Now you can use the key step sequencer to sequence for different tracks of the digitakt.
I was only intending to use the BSP for now just to get going, as I already have some songs programmed into the BSP I thought I could just focus on learning the audio side of the Digitakt, how to use the file system, tweak and assign sounds etc. then learn the seq later. As I say I’ve been out of the game for a while only really using ableton and before that it was atari ST /akai sampler etc… thanks again
Again, you don’t need to set/use multiple MIDI channels to accomplish what you want to do. The only constraint is that YOU can’t specify the note range you want the DT to respond to. It’s hard-coded in the DT for the 8 audio tracks to respond respectively to each of the first 8 half steps starting from C0, using the DT’s MIDI Authochannel.
You can set your pads on the BSP to that range, and then you’re good.
Also, set up this way, you could use the DT’s live recording mode to capture your existing sequences from the BSP into the DT’s sequencer.
ah, now it makes sense! I was confused as to why someone would do such a thing. that is, use the BSP in lieu of arguably the best integrated-sequencer available.
ah OK… thanks, I get you now. I’m going to see if I can figure it out today. I’ve not come across the autochannel page so far… I’m guessing it is a type of global channel setting?
Yes, in the MIDI config page in settings. The Autochannel is really useful/important for Elektrons…it allows you to use an external MIDI controller really easily for entering notes and live recording. Basically, whatever the current selected track is will respond to it. With the DT, it has that added feature where the lowest notes on the keyboard will trigger each respective track. Great for finger drumming.
actually I didn’t know the DT seq was so much better, glad to hear that! I am looking forward to getting to grips with it.
I didn’t actually realize the BSP was only monophonic when I first picked it up which was a bit disappointing at first… but it’s still quite a nice toy as I still don’t know how to actually play keyboards and I can use the scale controls to mess about and come up with random riffs. maybe I’ll just use it as a sketch pad eventually and capture the notes in the DT as Davestasiuk pointed out above
