I have sounds assigned to all 8 drum tracks on a pattern. I also have all 8 midi tracks assigned to different Arturia MiniFreak patches via 5 pin midi din.
In stop mode and not grid recording: I can play back and forth between drum sounds with no problem but once I play a midi track and switch to another one, the first one is unavailable until I press PLAY and STOP.
If I press midi A and then press B => the A Freak patch will play and then B patch will play, but now when I hit the A trigger it plays the B patch. => if I now hit the C trigger it will play a new Freak patch and A, B and C triggers all now play the new C patch => hit the D trigger and A,B,C and D triggers all now play the D patch, etc. Why can’t I just play midi tracks like sample tracks? Boom, bang, bong, bang, boom.
If I press PLAY and then STOP, it resets the tracks but each time I press a midi trigger the same behavior repeats itself. Doesn’t matter what order I press track triggers. One and done until PLAY => STOP.
I’ve tried searching the manual and have also searched through this forum and Google but haven’t found an explanation anywhere. I did learn a lot of other cool stuff along the way though.
Help, please.
The Digitakt’s midi tracks are sending program change messages only the first time they’re triggered, and note on messages thereafter. Multi-timbral synths receive midi on different channels per sound, and Minifreak can’t do this that I’m aware of, and won’t be able to play more than one patch simultaneously.
You can parameter-lock different patches to different steps of a single midi track, or parameter-locking the PC message on every active step of the sequencer should send the program change messages, but I don’t think this works for playing in notes live. Sorry not to have better news, though someone else may have ideas.
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Yup, the only way around is to trigger the MIDI on a step with the program change plock, but (for the Microfreak at least, I’m guessing the Mini is the same), you could try add the PC plock on each step as it changes reliably on 16th notes. Worth a shot anyway.
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Yes thanks, this workaround crossed my mind too after posting. Especially if what OP wants to do is play live from different MF patches, filling each with “yellow”/trigless trigs with the program change locked onto them should be a suitable workaround and should be preserved in recording.
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Honestly this never crossed my mind until OP asked, could be a lot of fun!
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Thanks for all the responses. I tried putting PC plocks on all 8 midi tracks (each to a different Freak patch) on all 16 steps of a pattern. I get 1/16 note playback of the last patch played. Same behavior as before.
I’d really like to be able to live record multiple freak patches just like I do with the sample patches.
I can’t believe nobody else wants to do this. I guess you are doing it, but with multiple units. So hook a brother up. What’s a good bass synth that’s not much bigger than a deck of cards?
Sorry it didn’t work out. It sounds like you may not have placed “yellow” (fn +[trig]/p-lock/trigless) trigs? Not positive that will help, though. I still don’t think I fully understand the use case of using multiple midi tracks if the MF can only play one patch at a time. Parameter-locking patch changes on a single track is how I’d approach playing multiple patches on a single synth.
Sampling MF sounds into the DT also an option, but I hear people love the Typhon, which is the smallest-footprint quality bass synth I’ve heard of. (0-coast would probably be cool with MiniFreak, too.)
Thanks for your responses and sorry for being so slow. I’m a music major and just finished this semester and am getting back to studying the Digitakt for the Summer break.
Here’s what I’d like to do:
Press midi trig A => play MiniFreak patch 001
Press midi trig B => play MiniFreak patch 002
Press midi trig C => play MiniFreak patch 003
Press midi trig D => play MiniFreak patch 004
Press midi trig A (again) => play MiniFreak patch 001
Press midi trig B (again) => play MiniFreak patch 002
Press midi trig C (again) => play MiniFreak patch 003
Press midi trig D (again) => play MiniFreak patch 004
In context, I’d like to be able to live record & play MiniFreak patches exactly as I can with the sample trigs.
I’ve tried adding trigless plocks on MSB/LSB/CC and cannot for the life of me make this happen.
In the example above, I press A and the assigned Freak patch loads and plays. When I press B the assigned Freak patch loads and plays but pressing A does not reload the assigned patch and instead simply plays the B patch. After pressing C, both A & B will only play the C Freak patch. Press D and A,B,C will all play the D Freak patch. The only way to be able to play a previously loaded Freak patch is to press play and stop on the Digi which resets things.
This makes no sense to me. Why am I able to readily switch back and forth between sample trigs but not midi trigs? I’ve tried using trigless trigs and get no results.
Apparently the Digi will only do what I want if I have 8 different synths connected up?
Okay, assuming the point is being able to pull up selected patches while playing along live, rather than recording into the sequencer (this is a really unusual use case otherwise—if you’re putting things into the sequencer, parameter-locking PC’s on a single track is the way to go), then here’s a way I just tried that works:
For each midi patch track, in grid mode:
Func + Page to make the track the minimum number of steps.
Func + [TRIG 1] to make a yellow lock trig on the track.
Holding that yellow lock trig, select the program/patch # you want it to play.
Repeat for each track.
This gives you lock trigs that continually fire off your desired program change.
To play, leave all of these tracks muted, and from the mute page (green or purple trigs), you can unmute one at a time to have it send your program change message. You can leave it unmuted (then re-mute before selecting another), or double tap it upon selection so you’ll only have one button press to call up your next patch.
There are midi controllers that can be programmed to send PC messages with a button press (I like the Xjam), or iPad/iPhone programs like TouchOSC or Mozaic that are also designed to do stuff like this without elaborate workarounds.