Has anyone mentioned panning, gain staging, and/or proper usage of the filters? Got to remember that eqs are just filters or vice versa. You don’t have to be extreme with them to achieve desired results. In fact, take small steps with all the “mastering” adjustments. Compress lightly at first. Utilize some tricks of the trade. Study up on basic mastering tricks, as you can take those skills everywhere. Duplicate sounds and pan left/right respectively, and resample. Tune up and down sounds to add/remove frequencies, and maybe even discover a better mix. That’s all that immediately comes to mind. Subjective of course, but I love the way the DT sounds. Or maybe I’m just fanboying out.
Resample the left and right individually, assign to two tracks, hard pan L/R. Then you get to use different filter/whatever settings per side, send one to the delay, send both to the delay but less on one side… I’m just saying, the option is there for (prepared) stereo sample playback, just needs two tracks, but I use a duplicated sample on two tracks hard panned (on Digitakt) all the time with slightly modified parameters on both sides, and it sounds awesome. Using two tracks for one or two sets of stereo is really no big deal, still 4 or 6 tracks left, and don’t most of us usually have at least another drum machine running in the setup anyway to supplement?
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Yes everything fine. I have a simple setup. Digitakt > A&H ZED16 > Adam monitors.
Although my first post is refering how i use the digitakt and be satisfied i can imagine that some if us, which are used to sequence stereo loops, can be disappointed. Sounds with stereo chorus baked in can’t be rescued when converted to mono by adding reverb or delay. In these situations i slap myself in the face and remind me that it’s a beatmaking powerhouse. And because of the powerhouse part as drumsampler it invites a lot of us to make whole songs. A lot actually achieve them but if you go strictly back to beatmaking you can create those stereo drumloops that you would buy as sample elsewhere. The disappointment comes from the awesomeness side of the machine that it can do so much that you almost can make full tracks.
Can you explain more about this?
I think we need octatrack next to the dt/dn combo asap🙉
I do regret mentioning this because everyone thinks I am mixing on headphones which I am not. I have been making music for many years and I am fully aware of not mixing on headphones, but I use a combination of HD650’s / headphone amp and a set of HD25’s when travelling. I was using them more to analyse pairing the sounds together, certainly not for mixing.
I am starting to believe this could be an issue with not fully understanding the correct way / relationship to set track volume, sample volume, overdrive, master knob. Adding too much Overdrive for example to drum samples…
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Again I regret mentioning this - I am not mixing on headphones, I just assembled the track / chose some samples.
Have you checked if you have similar output on Audio Out, Headphones out and OverBridge Main ?
Just to be sure you don’t have a defective machine…
If you’re used to mixing, then I can’t see why you struggle with 8 mono tracks, with the tools at your disposal in this box.
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The mixing process begins at that production stage. Especially when using hardware with limitations . The samples and you choose and preparation of them, the placing in stereo field, filtering , using reverb to create the space where the sounds live in etc. Etc. That’s all part of mixing as well. When you don’t keep those things in mind from the get go, you will have a hard time fixing it later without surgical EQs and compression available.
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Maybe send a snippet, a pattern you struggle to mix correctly running in loop for 30 sec so you can benefit from more precise advices.
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Mix volume pumps up the track as is, and only affects the master output in the compressor stage. The amp volume actually changes how the sample responds to the envelopes, filter and stuff, sort of pushing it harder through the mix, which alters the dynamics.
Normally, I try to keep the amp volume quite high and work with the mix level instead, if say I like how a track behaves but just think it’s too loud. It seems a lot gets lost if you dial down the amp level.
I could stand corrected here, cause these are just my observations from tinkering and still learning these things myself. I’ve been on gear for some time that’s done a lot of this stuff for me by automation (the Blackbox, the Toraiz and similar), but with the Digitakt, you need to know a little more to get it to where it sounds great, so I’m learning now. Most voices in this thread know far more about these things than I do, so listen to them instead 
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…if u wanna create in various locations on the go…ur always sourrounded by a certain amount of background noises and a basic level of db’s around u, u can’t be aware of…
so first thing u do is, instinctively raise up the volume of ur headphones for clearance and further distance from all that…which will force u into working on too high levels right from the start…
i’m not recommending noise cancelling of any kind…but i recommend closed cans…
whatever ur headphones might be right now…if they’re not truu closed ones, u better go for a set of dedicated ones…at a reference level pricetag…damned good investment for ALL situations…
once u know those for real…they gonna be ur best friends for mix downs in all kinds of sourroundings…even back in ur studio, since all rooms lie to u at a certain kind of degree…
so make sure u really invest in some truu reference headphones…
then u can also judge ur mixing on takt only, since u don’t need to blast right away from each next beginning…which will end up in proper lowest octave leveling…which remains always the biggest challenge…
Using the Digitakt standalone requires a really good understanding of the Digitakt. You only have to see/hear other people using it (here, YouTube, etc) to get an idea of what’s possible… but it takes time to get to that level with it.
@8bitBarry can I ask how long you’ve been using the DT? How much experience do you have with it?
It sounds to me like you’ve come at the DT here with a pre-conceived idea of what it does that’s maybe wide of the mark?
As far as the sound, I would work from your main monitors first and translate this back to the headphones, not the other way around… but it does sound like you could also have a fault. It sounds alien/wrong to me, and many others here, that it lacks bass, sounds congested and lacks stereo imaging… that’s just NOT the Digitakt at all…
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I wonder if it could be an arrangement issue. I’ve come to realise over the years that great mixes are mostly great arrangements. If you’re really leaning on EQ to cure congestion, then maybe there are two many things happening in that frequency range.
@Hawk right, but then you lose a track. Not everyone has or wants another drum machine. Plus, trying to keep mixes and sounds across patterns consistent while tweaking is hard enough, now I’m supposed to try and tweak two knobs on two different samples live in the same pattern? Haha.
@tubefund I’ve had the OT twice and couldn’t justify keeping it for how little I used the majority of the features. I also hate how the mutes are audio based and not trig based. Sold my mk2 for more than I paid and got a Medusa and new iPad. Haha. Maybe I’ll grab another MKI one day, but who knows.
Again, these are all personal opinions and workflow stuff.
Not if you use the p-lock micro-timing tricks to have both panned samples trigs on the same step of the same track… Isnt it ? 
Nope. Tracks are monophonic. The latter trig will simply cut off the former.
Stereo samples imho are a bit overrated. You have panning on DT. Stereo samples are great for more complex synth sounds with lots of movement but this is where octatrack shines because of the streaming from Flash card. Then again, digitakt has 2 lfos per track now plus the plocks means there is a lot of stereo movent you can create with both lfo panning and plocking, plus stereo delay.
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Here it is, you spend a couple of weeks away from your boxes and you forget about the main caracteristic of them !
My bad.
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All I can say is that my mixing on the DT used to be a lot worse before I practiced it a bunch. Can still get into real trouble if I’m producing with headphones