Model:Cycles Kicks On Digitone

Elektron Gear Digitone/Digitone Keys
#1

Hi there,

I just re-purchased a Digitone. I’ve been lusting for the kick drums from Model:Cycles and thought that Digitone should be able to do that as well plus a lot more. But it seems like the transient and body won’t get the same smoothness. And I just learned that Elektron used compressor envelopes to make it more full-bodied. Of course I could post process it to get something similar. But is there a way to get there in DN itself, with the use of LFO’s for instance?
Using a little of the track overdrive and some more of the master overdrive, does help the sound in many cases. But it’s not really the same :slight_smile:

Another question. What’s the easiest way to change the fundamental pitch of the kick other than pitching all trigs down themselves in the sequence? Somewhere in the synth pages?

Getting an affordable M:C would solve my “issues”. But I don’t like having more than 2 pieces of Elektron gear. A mentality thing I guess. And I mean, if it wasn’t for the kicks on M:C, then I wouldn’t consider getting it. Even though the other voice types might be quite useful when exploided.

Thanks.

Best,
Jonas

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#2

How familiar are you with drum synthesis, have you tried reverse engineering the Digitone’s factory kick drum patches? There are a few tricks there that will push you in the right direction - what’s most important is to use one of the exponential LFOs on one shot mode as a pitch envelope to get the transient snap that you need.

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#3

Yes, I’m quite familiar with the basics :slight_smile:

I looked into several of the presets yesterday, none of them which btw has the same transient and body as I’ve heard from M:C demos.
I did notice however that there were several other places in the synthesis that affected how the transient and body would sound. How the envelopes for the operators are set up, and how much they feed into one another. You can get from a more noisy to a more round transient. The portion can be shorter or longer and pitched up and down. The slope can be changed to give me body. And all these results depends on algorithm, feedback, harmonics and the balance between X and Y.
And yes, I can make the sound softer with lp filter, but that’s not the same. Just muffles the sound a bit. With a bit of resonance? Still not the same. Maybe playing more with the filter envelope. I doubt it will work though.

Today I’ll try and make them from scratch and watch a few of the tutorials that are around regarding kick drum synthesis :slight_smile:

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#4

Btw, the most important part for me with synthesizing my own kicks is being able to tune and shape it in relation to everything else. That’s what I miss by using samples. They fall apart when trying to tune them. I love 909 kick samples. Especially the tape saturated ones from Samples From Mars. So I could layer a hipassed one of those for instance on top to get a transient and body that I ptefer.

And also because I’ve noticed that kicks from DN in relation to other drum samples from DT don’t really gel together that well for me. And I don’t use compressor or a lot of drive and BR on DT, so that can’t be it.
I’ve actually had this problem several times in the past, when trying to use different instrument together.

Like for instance AR and OT (don’t own either of them anymore). The nice lofi slightly more gritty caracter that I would usually get out of the OT when making weird pitched down sounds with several OT fx added, together with the more polished and hifi sound coming from the AR. It’s like 2 entirely different worlds. OT tends to be more flat, while AR tends be more 3d’ish, maybe also because I mostly used AR for drums and OT for weird stuff like texture, rythmical backbone ambience and fx.
Helps a bit deciding to use OT in mono, which is a shame regards to the nice stereo stuff you can do. But it also adds to the appearance of being lofi (I prefer guitar amps with mono cabs as fx for this reason too), and I put it in the same space as my sounds from AR, that I would also use in mono, except for main outs.

In other setups where I’ve had Vermona Mono Lancet, DFAM, DN and then either AR, DT or OT, it was the 2 analogue mono synths that was dificult to make fit. Running them into DN’s Fx was fun, but for running them separately into a mixer, I needed to add the same reverb sends for all instruments. Enough for Mono Lancet maybe. But the DFAM was dificult to make fit. It had all these low mid freqeuencies when doing drum sounds, that can especially feel quite harsh for the head over time of listening. And it takes too much space in the mix as well. Needed a lot of eq’ing, and potentially taking out some of that Moog caracter. So much for full sounding analogue synths :laughing:
Tuning the synths to everything else is also important of course

Right now I use external reverbs via sends on a mixer to put sounds into the same space.
I have EHX Cathedral and Vermona VSR3 for that. Caracter and “fidelity” actually sits somewhere between the reverbs on OT and AR, which is nice. Viby yet still open. And also better sounding to me.

Another thing I have to explore more, is making the gear talk more to eachother. One thing is doing it via creative midi setups. Another is layering sounds to make it gel better. I actually ended up doing that yesterday, when I tried to put an acoustic non-909 ride on every kick, which I would often do with a 909 one to accentuate the power of the kick on and off in the mid parts of a track, like I would also do with claps (a Drumtracks one is the most powerful I’ve yet tried for that). Messed around with it till I got something I liked. Ended up making it very short with external reverb on it, so that it ended up being just a transient on the kick instead. But with the reverb it makes it gel better.
And this is what I usually do when using hardware. Trying stuff out until it feels and sounds right, no matter what I planned on doing in the first place.
But I still think that the DN kick needs to be pitched down just a bit for that project. Tried on the keys yesterday. But that pitches everything and also changes the overall sound for that note.
Oh… Just realised that I created a new project without saving on the DN. Well, it was just a kick and it wasn’t that great anyways. I’ll just start over and make a better one :man_shrugging:

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#5

There’s Master Tune in settings but it’s not per track, so that would obviously effect everything globally. There’s also Ratio Offset, not sure if that can help but you might need to tweak all four in tandem?

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#6

Synth page one for ‘musical’ pitch of operators, page 2 for fine (and dissonant) tuning.

I think the easiest way to set the fundamental is in the trig page. Copy and paste, shorten the track length (and use probabilistic trigs) can speed up workflow.

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#7

mmmmmm i have DN and MC
The kicks are great on the MC yet i find that a resonant LP filter makes the kicks on the DN better / snappier…and definately better in a mix.

unless you are exploring kicks in the DN that rely heavily on the resonant filter and not the operators, you should be able to play the tone / pitch up and down no probs…some of the kicks are just filter and playing the keys does nothing to the pitch.

For more of a pitchable MC like affair with a controllable contour.

First thing is to assign the 2 lfos to one shot envelopes…the first lfo to set to synmix switching between A and B very quickly A should be a noisy cantankerous mess of a sound and B be a tonal sine wave. This will give you beater smack then the tone of the boom… lfo 2 should be the pitch envelope…also a short sharp affair.

Then shape the tone with a resonant filter, taking the cuttoff all the way down to 12, ramping the envalope amount to +35 and setting the env to a short env with a release of 14, zero attack and decay…resonance high

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#8

Aarh okay, yeah master tune would then be usable if I only have a kick on DN and need to tune to everything else. Yesterday I used presets as starting point. But I guess that if I find the right note fitting to everything else, before programming the kick would help. But I guess it might not be that simple when working with fm, where you are modulating the freqeuencies?

I could try ratio offset. Haven’t really messed with that before. I guess because it’s on the 2nd page, so I don’t think about it.

#9

Aarh okay, makes sense.

Yeah, I know that you can change tuning on the trig page. But then I have to mess around with everything again, to get the right overall sound, wouldn’t I? :thinking: Would be nice to have a more simple and quick way to do it (then go buy an M:C).

#10

Okay thanks a lot for the detailed explaination. I’ll look into that.
I’m not really into clicks on my kicks to make them stand out in the mix. I’ll usually use overdrive and saturation for that, and sometimes an actual compressor. I do sometimes add some highs. But I actually prefer to have my hats, cymbals and claps take that spot in the frequency spectrum. I also like to have clap and ride on each kick hit in certain moments of my arrangement to add power and tension. Sometimes closed hats, shakers and tambourines will also overlap here and there to accentuate the groove in a certain way. It’s not uncommon for me to have like 1 cl hat, 1 op hat, 1 ride, 1 tamb/shaker and 1 clap going on at the same time in a track, so that I can take one layer out and add another for instance, so that I can keep the interest going. And yes this is in a techno context, and I do filter and tune the sounds to make them gel :slight_smile:

But it could actually be interesting to tweak the HF on the EQ of my mixer for the kick live while recording to add tension and interest :thinking:
Else I do prefer a round transient on my kick, but a click does occour here and there in my productions sometimes. I don’t really have rules of course. More guidelines of how I usually prefer things to be :blush:

Edit: oh, and most times when trying to use resonant lp, then I don’t really like it. Maybe because it often accentuates frequencies that creates mud and wood. Eq’ing after could help that of course. Usually I’ll use lp without resonance and then saturate/overdrive to get the presence that I’m looking for.
I think I might be quite sensitive to sharp transients and higher frequencies. I was at a club for once a couple nights ago, and sometimes and to cover my ears because actually hurt. My eyes and head would automatically twitch sometimes like tics. I do have adhd as an actual disorder, so that might be a reason (that’s also why I comment so much, sorry), who knows :man_shrugging:

#11

You can save track sounds to your sound pool. Also load-from and switch.

Sorry if I’m stating the obvious

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#12

You are probably going to have to dedicate a track to kicks and toms unless you use soundlocks

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#13

Audio examples please !

I made this one, seems 909ish to me…

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#14

That’s nice. Quite beefy. You used the overdrives as well?

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#15

Yep, maxed IIRC.

#16

Yesyes, I do know, and thanks :blush: Definetly something that I planned to do, If I decide to keep DN. I’ve had it before. Not really for designing kicks though. But I’ve been through several poly synths that I didn’t click with, and DN was the only one that I’ve kept for a year, because my head treats it more as a groovebox oriented poly synth that is great for many types of sounds. And I still want a hardware poly synth for those few situations where I do want to use one. So to smack several flies at once, I decided to give DN a go again. I mostly ended up using presets, like I would do with any poly synth. I really shouldn’t have one with presets though :laughing:

Edit:
It was a lot of fiddling around today I feel. But I did learn that the ratio offsets was exactly what I was looking for in terms of base tuning, and that the ratios adjusts the “bendtime”. Adjusting the settings for envelope page for the synth, I already knew was for the transient when doing kicks. But there’s just so many things to tweak. A lot of back an foward. Haha, got confused several times when I wanted to switch between the different pages :laughing: it’s nice to be able to go into deep details, but I ended up more or less with the same types of kicks, because I don’t like klicks and when the transients sounds sort of phasy. Have to be round. I’ve also been using filters and both internal and external overdrives. Just got a Filter lancet today. Actually don’t really like the steep slope and resonance that they’ve chosen. Can make some crazy modulations with the lfo. But the overdrive and balls can do magic on some things. Definetly more useful for me than any guitar pedal I’ve tried.

#17

What does IIRC mean? :slight_smile:

#18

Yes, that’s what I’ve set it up for :slight_smile:
Track 1 and 2 for kicks, low toms/subby bass. 3 and 4 for pads, chord stabs and/or fx, or whatever I come up with. Other drums and fx comes from DT. Mono lancet for bass, low toms, leads and fx. Again, no rules as such. Just personal guidelines :slight_smile:

#19

Irrational Impulse Response Collision, or If I Remember Correctly…:content:

As apparently said above, I also use the exponentional wave lfo on pitch, which is snappier IMHO. Init sound and exp lfo is the base for me, would almost suffice !

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#20

Nice rhyme.

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