Digitakt swing doesn’t match with RD8 drum machine swing:
I’m playing a song on Digitakt with a pattern swing of 60. The midi transport is connected with a RD8 drum machine in slave, playing a pattern with swing 60.
Now, there is something off in the groove: it seems that 1/16 notes are pushed differently by each machine clock
Is this a bug of my setup or is it normal for everyone?
Swings can be different. If you have ableton you can select from many many swing templates.
Some people love that ‘mpc swing’.
Trigger the rd8 from midi channels on digitakt and it’ll probably be ok
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You are telling me to play the drum part from digitakt? How? This mean having one channel for every part (RD8 has 11 parts). Well, this is totally uncomfortable or maybe impossible.
No, dont use computer
That’s quite normal. Elektrons measure swing from 50 to 60? Or something like that. Roland TR8-S measures swing from -127 to +127. Not uncommon for different machines to have different swing rates and ranges.
I match them up by ear.
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Ok, I suspect that the swing scale is something purely indicative, it can behave completely different between machines
Not really. The behaviour eg: late alternate 8th notes is the same. (General definition of swing)
Its the range of how far the machine can delay those notes, and how it is expressed numerically that is different.
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each trigger on rd8 is a single note all on a single midi channel… (i dont know the note value to trigger each sound, it’ll be on the midi chart)
midi channels can play 4 notes (or 3, i forgot) per step on digitakt… though that would be annoying so i’d use a few channels to play rd8. … bass drum, snare, toms …
the accent is (i think) triggered based on note velocity over 100 or something like that.
so yes, although digitakt has only 8 midi channels you could cover all 11 instruments on rd8 quite easily, its not impossible.
or not… find another way… use samples or whatever…
OT and DT behave similarly by default. 50 to 80. On even steps.
If if understood it correctly, 100 would be 1 step, 75 is half a step, 66 shuffle.
On OT it is per track or global and you can select steps concerned by the swing. It can be used to delay all trigs for instance.
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Yes. I’m sure that the value between Elektron machines will match, that’s because they share the same engineering. It is instead more challenging to match machines from different manufacturer.
I wonder why there is no midi cc transmitting the same swing value to all the setup: how did they do to swing in the 80’s?
If it’s simple 8th notes swing, (which is most gear I guess), just try to match by ear.
Btw, that article was pretty nice IIRC.
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i cant speak for everyone but i like the way when things are swinging in different amounts and ive never tried “matching” them, it makes beats sound more organic when theres a little difference
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There are sync boxes that can swing everything downstream.
By ear
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Btw, what’s your goal? Recreating an RD8 beat on Digitakt?
I’m swinging with drums and I would like the bass and the chopped vocal to follow tight on time. Yes, “Sync by ear” could be a solution, but it’s a workaround that doesn’t satisfy the sound engineer side of my soul
Huh? Please elaborate that
Why the distrust in your ears? Just let the machines play, you’ll hear when it’s right.
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The swing scale is different between the machines, but you could settings that match. Ultimately they’re both shifting notes in the same way. If you can’t find a common swing setting that you want to use, how about using microtiming to nudge things into place?
This isn’t what you’re asking, but personally I actually like having some drum hits swung while others are straight. If I were using these two machines and couldn’t get the swing to match, I might just dedicate one to being swung and play the other straight 
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In the old days.
A trig out pulse from the 808 would advance the step of the 101 sequencer.
Eg rim shot would be used.
So that would get drums and bass to swing the same.
And extra synths would probably involve lots more analogue trigs … chords probably sound ok if there’s a longer attack.
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Swing 66% (triplet), then 50% (off), then 75% (dotted 32th ?), 66%…
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