Sound saving help needed - Digitone beginner!

Elektron Gear Digitone/Digitone Keys
#1

Honestly, I am disappointed to say this device isn’t agreeing with me at all. I have tried to find the answer to one simple question, all over YouTube and no one is answering the question - and what’s even stranger is, I am reading forums, of people telling other users with similar questions to address section 14.2 ‘saving sounds’ pg59 in the manual when the manual only goes up to 9.0 and is only 33 pages??? I mean, is there a manual i am missing here?

So, please can someone help me make some sense of something here.

It’s really quite simple. I switch on the digitone, I have a play, I end up making a beautiful sound from scratch. I love it. I want to save it.

I don’t want to save this in some sort of temporary place. I want to save this as a permanent preset in my entire digitone library (to confirm, just remaining on the device - no exporting to computer at this stage). The only stuff i can find out there is to save this in the ‘sound pool’ and from my research into this the sound pool is sounds which you load in so you can have multiple sounds on just one sequencer line.

This is not what I am after - not to mention I would only worry that if, say, I deleted this project, this sound may go along with it which I don’t want.

I want a solid, saved preset of this sound so I can access it at any given time, no matter what project I start fresh, and j want to be able to access it via the usual “double tap T1, scrolling with the little nob, filter to bass, find my sound, load my sound… off we go”.

Why on earth is it so difficult to achieve this? Where am I going wrong?

What’s worse is i have saved this new sound in the sound pool (all every single person seems to continue to give as a solution) and I seem to have fully lost all my sound browsing presents which I had before. They’re all gone. The only preset I physically have access to is my new sound and it’s stuck on this page.! (See images attached). It also just says Sound Pool Empty? How do I even get back to my sound library and not my ‘pool’?

For the life of me, I just want to get back to these presets if anything so all the help can be mostly appreciated.

I’m so lost with this, I’ve never felt so deflated at a device in all the years of electronic music production.

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#2

Did you get the manual from elektron.se? Anywhere else and you risk getting an older version.

The image you are sharing is the sound pool, thats where you place presets so you can access them per step with the sequencer. You need to access the Sound menu and select “manage sounds” then push the right arrow button to see the saving options.

The truth is, you got to read the manual from start to finish. After that, read small parts and implement them on the device before moving to the next part.

Elektrons are very complicated for a reason; they are extremely capable devices. Chances are you won’t use all the features for awhile. You can also check out cuckoo videos online, he does a decent job of explaining stuff.

Stick with it, read the manual, and practice. That’s the best I can offer you

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#3

About saving sounds to the +drive (that is what you’re looking for), see the DN manual: https://www.elektron.se/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Digitone-User-Manual_ENG_OS1.32A_220302.pdf

Section 9.4 (page 27).

When you’re in the menu you showed in the screenshot, press the left arrow button to toggle between the +drive and soundpool.

Read section 5 on page 16 of the manual to understand how the +drive, sound pool and projects relate.

2 Likes
#4

This is the Digitone Quick Guide. You need the Digitone User Manual.

3 Likes
#5

I found this from @cuckoomusic invaluable. I still needed to watch it twice for my smoothbrain to cope. Explanations of the saving structure of the Digitone starts around 1:50s

{ The typo in your thread title is fun. A ‘Digiton’ is just a Digitone making reggae huh? :blush: }

3 Likes
#6

Real talk, though? Read the manual. It’s all in there. The Digitone (and all Elektron devices, really) is not a box you can sit down, twiddle random knobs, and hope YouTube will bail you out. You have to learn how it works to have any hope of getting some of the magic you hear people gushing about out of it.

The manual is short, well written, and vital. And there’s a whole crew here to support you if you get stuck. But you have to read the manual.

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#7

I will sympathize with you. Getting started on sounds and the sound pool is not intuitive because the Sound Manager is not the default browser. But upon reading your post, I realize I have never saved a sound that wasn’t in a project! I apply the Fav tag to many sounds I like and aways use them for jumping off points.

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#8

100%

That said, I’ve never read the manual. It’s a me issue, have had issue forever reading at length.

The mentioned Cuckoo tutorial above was awesome and helped me moving around instantly. Take your time, it’ll be worth it. Digitone is lovely!

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#9

9.4.1 SAVING A SOUND TO THE +DRIVE
A Sound that you save to the +Drive is available for any project.

  1. Press [FUNC] + [PATTERN MENU] to open the IMPORT/EXPORT menu.
  2. Select EXPORT SOUND, and then press [YES].
  3. Turn the LEVEL/DATA knob or use the [UP]/[DOWN] keys to select an empty slot to where you want to save your Sound, and then press [YES]. If you want to save your Sound to another bank, press [BANK] + [TRIG 9–16] to select a bank.
  4. On the NAMING screen, name your Sound and then press [YES]. For more information, please see “6.5 THE NAMING SCREEN” on page 19.
  5. On the TAGS screen, use the [ARROW] keys and [YES] key to select the appropriate tags for your sound, and then select and press [YES].
4 Likes
#10

Haha Omg i totally didn’t clock that typo. You’re right. Maybe this could be a new genre of Reggaeton but only using the Digitone haha

#11

Thanks for kindly putting this message across. The manual I have realised is the quick guide (someone explained below) which makes a lot of sense to me. Re reading the manual first, that’s exactly what I was doing and then along the way (from tapping and playing to follow the manual) I created a sound I needed to save before losing it, and then got myself into the mess whilst trying to save it.

So, whilst reading it from start to finish sounds like a valuable thing to do, there are issues which will happen along the way which I won’t have got to in the manual yet - so hopefully that’s where the help of you nice people can come in.

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#12

Probably the most useful response, so thank you for understand and sharing this.

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#13

I get that! That’s exactly what I was doing and then along the way (from tapping and playing to follow the manual) I created a sound I needed to save before losing it, and then got myself into the mess whilst trying to save it. I wasn’t just twiddling nobs etc. I mean give me a break, I’m not trying to bail myself out with YouTube. Simply found a sound accidentally and wanted to save it.

Reading a manual from start to finish sounds like a valuable thing to do, and I don’t disagree, but try to understand that there are issues which will happen along the way which I won’t have got to in the manual yet - and asking to see if anyone can help isn’t exactly a bad thing.

Please forgive my tone but you have to admit, the tone you took upon your response, starting with “real talk, though?” had that stand off vibe which you see all over forums. A more chill was of saying this would be “Hey, you’ll be fine, trust me on this, reading the manual from start to finish will do you a world of good. I believe in you, just read that manual and you can thank me later ;)”.

It’s hope forum spats happen all the time. Just letting you know.

#14
#15

Thank you for such a calm and kind response.

1 Like
#16

You are a legend. thanks

#17

The same goes for me. I either start with the default setting and fiddle with it…or start with one of a few internal “go to” sounds, then tweak it. In both cases, the sounds get saved in their respective track/pattern/projects. And I also have a few drum sounds saved in the pool. While I regard my tracks and projects as precious, I’ve never produced a patch/sound that I thought was worth saving outside its local environment. I don’t think in terms of good/bad sounds. Rather, I think in terms of good/bad textures. Product of the parts rather than the sum of the parts.

In other words, I don’t care about saving sounds, so neither should the OP. Just kidding. It is easy to be dismissive when it’s not my problem. Also, it’s easier to RTFM when you already have background knowledge. My own reading of the manual was fairly confusion-ridden. This doesn’t mean Elektron did a bad job writing the manual or designing their boxes. It just means that I’m no genius, I’m not that experienced, and I will have to re-read the manual.

“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” -Albert Einstein

#18

I mean, what you said was “I have tried to find the answer to one simple question, all over YouTube and no one is answering the question.” And there’s literally a big heading the the manual called “Saving a Sound” under the bigger heading “Patterns and Sounds”. So I hope you’ll excuse my jumping to conclusions and assuming you hadn’t looked there. Mea culpa.

I agree that asking for help isn’t exactly a bad thing. In fact it’s a good thing! But doing it without going to the source is going to land you in a “give a man a fish” vs. “teach a man to fish” type situation. That’s the real talk. You’ll be better off reading it in the manual and then asking questions.

And it sounds like you’re doing that, so :+1:.

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#19

I feel your pain. I was in a similar situation a few weeks ago, trying to load some presets into my Analog Four, so I started a thread lamenting the difficulty of using Elektron devices (especially content management). There was thoughtful discussion but a bit of snarkiness too. I do wish Elektron would take seriously these legitimate complaints about the unncessary difficulty of getting most out of their devices by making content management more straightforward and intuitive–and telling those of us frustrated by this “RTFM” isn’t very helpful, when we already have read the manual and it is still difficult (way more difficult than it needs to be at this point in technology development).

Here’s the thread I started a few weeks ago (just as validation for your frustrations): Elektron Interfaces are unnecessarily difficult - #7 by michaeljk1963

#20

You should explain how it can be improved. Elektron may offer a role in development.