Thank you Elektron for creating a Song Mode

Elektron Gear Digitakt
#1

Hello everyone :slight_smile:

Introduction:

I’ve been getting up close and personal with the Digitakt & Digitone for about 4 years, or probably more by now.

For the past 20 years I have been struggling with creating structure in my tracks as a DAW user who ended up settling with Ableton, mainly because I saw value in its routing flexibility back in the early days.

Over the years, I’ve attempted to create “proper” structured tracks whenever I came up with a groove that was particularily inspiring to me, but depending on my motivation I’ve always felt somewhat repelled by the process and more or less always felt like I was not successful at it as a result. As of starting to write this post I can’t say that I fully understand why that’s been happening to me, but I’ll try to figure it out as I keep writing.

I’ve hit a milestone when it comes to structuring songs, and I strongly believe that I have the guys behind Elektron to thank for it, which is of course what I want to discuss below and I believe my thoughts on the subject could be helpful to other people struggling with similar issues.

Before I get to the heart of the subject I want to clarify that I’ve always felt like this was a problem that was more revealing of me as an individual rather than something to be attributed to external considerations.

With that said, here are my main thoughts as to why Elektron’s addition of the Song Mode to its platform has completely changed my relation to the process of structuring music (or sonic art really):

Thought #1:

The way the Elektron sequencing workflow is structured naturally encourages focusing on memorizing the unique attributes of each of the pattern variations created, because by design the interface does NOT emphasize visual feedback that would allow one to differentiate patterns from each other in more ways than just their numbers really, which indirectly means that the user is heavily encouraged to focus on what they hear. This has very important implications:

a) In my opinion this sense of dependence on what the user hears as a main reference to move forward in a project greatly strengthens the connection they have with each pattern variations.

b) I believe that this intimate connection with pattern variations in turn naturally reinforces the user’s capacity to imagine a road map of the order in which they could queue patterns one after another in a context shielded from technical distractions. This is precisely what I believe was crippling me the most when trying to structure tracks in Ableton: this sense of not having an internal tight connection with the map of the track as a whole.

This does NOT imply that the DAW workflow is by definition of a lesser quality, but rather that in my opinion it takes more maturity to interact with it and to derive a sense of enjoyment out of it. The counterpart obviously being a greater sequencing flexibility, which in turn has a significant impact on the music one can come up with.

Thought #2:

The meta implications of what was previously explained is that for the first time in my life structuring a song seems accessible and more importantly enjoyable and fun. To me the Song Mode process just seems to flow naturally and does not feel like there is really any inertia attached to it, and so I end up using it spontaneously.

To me it’s as if the whole workflow that was put in place by Elektron, coupled with what could be seen as limitations in its structure were just what I needed for things to “click” in my mind. This refreshing feeling contrasts with my memory of the tedious task of structuring a track I felt I had to bully myself into doing. Too much choice, controls and steps between what I intend on doing and getting to the point where it is actualized kills creativity.

In Conclusion:

For 4 years of using Elektron Digitakt and Digitone I’ve been exploring, having fun, and developed the maturity to appreciate a platform structure that puts useful limitations in place, which is on the other hand coupled with the immense potential of what is made available at my fingertips. What was already great has now dramatically changed for the better with the arrival of the Song Mode, which for me created a sense of enjoyment out of the process of structuring a track for the first time in 20 years.

This enables me as a musician in ways I can only begin to appreciate. To some this might seem border line comical but to me it’s like a whole world was just opened, all this because a tedious process was transformed into something intuitive, accessible, and as a result fun.

Obviously not everybody might need to go through the same twisted and often convoluted route I had to go through to feel like a 200kg weight was lifted off their shoulders so that they can finally improve their track structuring skill, but on the other hand not everybody functions the same. I can see myself after enough time of reinforcing Song Mode practice able to just approach Ableton with the same good habits and get enjoyment out of it.

Is it me that’s changing or is it the tool that’s better tailored to my needs? Maybe a bit of both, I can’t really tell.

Anyhow, if you’re curious about the first track I made using Song Mode using only the Digitakt and Digitone as sound sources:

Thanks to anyone who cared enough to read through the whole thing lol, and once again, sincerely thank you Elektron for the Song Mode!

30 Likes
#2

Really enjoyed that :slight_smile:

Do you feel like the end result has really been affected ? Or is the change mostly about the ease in getting there ?

1 Like
#3

Hi! I’m glad you liked it :smiley:

The answer is multifactorial. I would say yes the end result has really been affected in a profound way by the Song Mode:

  1. It enabled me to find the enjoyment and therefore the stamina to keep going throughout the whole structuring process in a context where I had to dedicate immense amounts of energy to the engineering of other aspects of the composition in parallel.

  2. It felt very easy to navigate through the track structure in real-time even if I had to have 2 separate song modes enabled on each machine. I think this speaks about the convenience of interacting with music in the context of banks of patterns. I felt encouraged in having this relation with the pattern variations i made precisely because they could be connected and interact with each other in a controlled reliable creative manner because of the Song Mode implications I had in the back of my mind.

  3. The song mode also encouraged me to imagine a methodology of pattern management I now know I can use that will ultimately allow me to improve the structuring process to hopefully make my tracks more dynamic in the future. As an indirect consequence of this, with time my interaction with the machines will become more agile, which will improve confidence with “non - Song Mode” based machine operation that goes beyond basic muting/unmuting tracks on a single pattern.

  4. In my opinion pattern based music making is a lot more taxing to transform into a finished track with the constant pressure of juggling with real time pattern changes on 2 separate machines. I felt like the Song Mode gave me the mental bandwidth to really LISTEN and entirely concentrate on the overall progression of the piece. Ultimately this greatly expands the creative scope of what can be accomplished with the machines.

Song Mode? GOD MODE. :smiley:

6 Likes
#4

This! I could not explain it better.

6 Likes
#5

I’m happy it resonated with you :smiley:

It really is amazing how every aspect of the creative process has a cascade effect on the whole, and how sharing our perspectives with each other can end up benefiting everyone.

1 Like
#6

How does this process work?

#7

Hi! I’ll attempt to explain, and apologies in advance if some aspects of my explanation are obvious to you.

The first important thing is that it’s possible to connect the Digitakt and Digitone in a way where, by using the Digitakt as the clock source, you can configure the Digitone to just receive program changes.

Effectively this implies that if the user chooses to enable “program change send” within the Digitakt, the consequence on the Digitone (if program change receive is enabled) is that it will switch to the same pattern that the Digitakt is going to be changing to in the context of the Song Mode.

If the user chooses that approach, it simplifies the use of the Song Mode as you only have to program Song Mode on one machine. However, this is VERY restrictive for at least the following reason:

What if as your track progresses you want to mix for example Digitakt pattern A3 with Digitone pattern A8? To my knowledge it cannot be accomplished by using Song Mode on only one machine. In fact to me this completely defeats the purpose of Song Mode if using more than 1 Elektron machine at a time.

For this reason I do NOT use program change between the Digitakt and the Digitone.

The only way that I could find to make things work is to respect a few basic principles:

  1. For the sake of simplicity when building pattern variation ideas, if I move onto creating a new pattern on the Digitone, I’ll invariably create a new pattern on the Digitakt (and vice versa), even if it’s just a copy of the previous pattern.

By doing this while I’m in the process of generating ideas I don’t have to depend on Song Mode and I can just switch patterns on both devices manually as I see fit to see what works with what.

  1. For the Song Mode directly, I follow this simple rule: whenever I add line entry in Song Mode on my Digitakt, I automatically add an entry on the Digitone Song Mode with the SAME DURATION.

By doing this, I can ensure that as the track progresses, I can always manually match the point of the song I want to listen to on the Digitakt with the Digitone in a convenient manner, because I can just read the entry number on my Digitakt Song Mode, and choose the same number on the Digitone Song Mode.

For example if I want to:

  1. on my Digitakt run a 64 step pattern 4 times
  2. on the Digitone play a 64 step pattern 2 times
  3. on the Digitone play a DIFFERENT 64 step pattern 2 times

I will create 2 line entries on my Digitakt (asking for the pattern to be played 2 times and then repeating the same request once to achieve a total of 4 replays rather than just one line asking for 4 replays) to keep the progression of the song mirrored on both devices while introducing the melodic variation I’m looking for.

Then, specifically in real time if I want to jump to a different point of the track on both devices, I simply go in the song mode leftmost column on each device, and queue up the line I want to listen to manually.

If I don’t want to wait until the ongoing pattern ends, I simply stop the machines on both ends (stop really has to be pressed on the Digitone to fully reset the song progression), and prepare the line I want the machines to start at on both devices manually, and then press play on the Digitakt.

Hopefully that’s the explanation you were looking for, cheers :smiley:

5 Likes
#8

Really nice track!

And I’m right there with you on the benefits of song mode. I’ve had my DT since release and love it and will never get rid of it, but I’ve struggled to come up with any “songs” with it. Being locked in “looping patterns” has always been a bottleneck for me (yes, maybe I just suck). Yet, on Korg Gadget (iPad app) I was able to create entire songs and it never felt taxing or tedious, even if starting from a basic single pattern idea, it was so easy to expand and build out upon that starting point, get a structure laid out that doesn’t require me “doing” anything, so I can go back and listen through the whole thing and identify areas that need tweaking or think of new things to add, etc. Now with the DT/DN/ST song mode this same approach is possible and I’m super excited about it.

1 Like
#9

Hi and thanks for your comment! :slight_smile: Honestly I’d be amazed to hear of anyone that just got the whole song making/structuring skill set sorted right from the start. It is by no means easy, especially when:

a) attempting to make expressive music with significant melodic content, variations and lots of moving parts interacting with each other

b) not having a mentor or some sort of guide to share with you what you need to hear at any given point in time to help you progress optimally in a context where there is so much information and tools accessible at your fingertips that over time things can become discouraging and/or overwhelming especially for people that aren’t unusually stubborn

c) often not being encouraged in any way by the people around you

Anyhow, a significant amount of time has gone by since I wrote the original post, and I’ve had the opportunity to reflect on my behaviour in relation to the song mode in greater depth and realized that I came to appreciate some of the things I had initially written to a much greater extent. Obviously I thought it would be cool to share that too so here it is:

  1. Over time one of the things that surprised me most was how simply knowing the song mode existed dramatically changed my willingness to expand my pattern count in a project. Even though I can recognize this is purely psychological it blows my mind how profoundly impactful it has been.

Knowing that I’ll have the song mode’s help to put the pieces of the puzzle together in the end gave me the confidence, motivation and therefore the willingness to expand on my ideas naturally. This in itself had other cascading effects.

  1. My confidence in chaining/queuing up patterns manually just increased drastically, which ironically brought me closer to operating the machines in their initial release state more comfortably.

This in turn led me to deduce how Elektron users that had experience with flagship devices like the Octatrack or the Rytm and their respective song modes already had the practice that newer users that stuck to the “Digi” machines such as myself never had a chance to acquire before the latest OS updates.

  1. Throughout this journey of investing unholy amounts of time operating the machines with the intention of making complex projects, my ability and confidence to rapidly operate the machines dramatically improved especially for things like copying pages, parameters, sequences, sounds, patterns.

I can’t really recall any time where I have destroyed a pattern out of negligence ever since owning the machines, but I certainly recall a persistent feeling of lacking confidence in using the key combination appropriate to copy the specific thing I was trying to copy, and second guessing myself all the time to make sure I wouldn’t screw things up. That feeling is now finally gone.

  1. Never before had I ever used trig conditions like “1st” and “NOT 1st”, or conditions going as high as “X:8”, but now it’s just a fully integrated part of my work flow, and all of this is in direct consequence of using the Song Mode.

On a side note aside from percentage based trig conditions, obvious bit reduction effects and retrigs there’s not much in the machines that I don’t use by now… Maybe some LFO destinations that I wasn’t able to find much of a purpose for in my use cases, not really having a clue as to what I can do with the phase reset options, not grasping the full potential of microtuning adjustments for sound design on the DN, and maybe pattern grid settings tricks to some extent, that’s about it.

  1. I even finally got around to using Overbridge and found some nasty bugs that I got to find workarounds for with nearly complete success.

In many ways it was a bittersweet experience (I’m still sad about the “nearly” part) but I got to accept that it is much better that Overbridge exists than not, due to the amount of digital processing it opens the door to within DAWs obviously.

  1. Last but not least, by greatly incentivizing the creation of pattern variations (due to psychological considerations I referred to in #1), the Song Mode taught me to be more detached in the sense of letting go of certain pattern ideas in instances where I ended up losing perspective of the greater context of the song.

When looping the same 2-4 bars pattern for too long I noticed I have a tendency to get the false sense that an idea might be relevant whereas it might subsequently prove to be unusable because I lost perspective of the piece as a whole. On some meta level the Song Mode helps me re-evaluate my perspective constantly in order to see things somewhat clearly as a whole. It removes the pressure of chaining patterns manually to get to hear the progression of the whole, which helps me evaluate if I’m being truthful and coherent with the direction the song is going into. I constantly end up re-evaluating patterns in relation with one another to check for coherence.

  1. I’m also noticing that learning to let go of things in a way ends up giving me so much more… it helps me be more at peace with delayed gratification. This implies for example that I’m becoming increasingly prepared to approach a new project consciously as a long term thing as opposed to a 1 day burst. I feel like doing this is crucial to actually get past previous boundaries as it allows a clear opportunity to be exposed to ALL aspects of the process of attempting to make a substantial well thought out piece.

I feel willing to focus my intent for maybe 2 weeks (about 100h) on a single project at a time before pulling the plug and accepting that it’s generally preferable to move on. In these 100h of “heat of the battle” there is a tremendous window of opportunity to actually learn impactful things and to make real progress towards the mastery of my craft. Obviously there’s also the potentiality of a finished track of significance at the end of that journey which would probably be out of reach if I limited the scope of a project to just one day.

Going through all this got me to gauge better how much “work” (or effort?) is too much, as I have experienced the capability of excessive work to become destructive and/or counterproductive. I have learned to really respect that being excessive with how much work goes into a single session can really undermine the life balance needed to sustain a relatively long term effort on a project in a healthy manner, which logically implies that being excessive undermines one’s chances of successfully completing a project. It also got me to develop a much better sense of when I’m losing perspective, which of course invariably means that it’s time for a break or some sort of a reset.

I will conclude with the following. Throughout investing all this time and energy in this “track making” learning process I’ve confronted myself to many questions that I consider to be fundamental or essential. I want to share what some of these questions are, as maybe asking yourself these questions might be helpful to you throughout your creative process:

a) Is the pursuit of what I’m doing of any use to me and/or the people around me?

b) Am I aiming for my music to have some degree of persistent meaningful impact on people, or is my creative process revolving more around momentary fun?

c) How do I view the balance between form and substance in my music?

d) Do I aim at making music that speaks to the heart and/or the gut or do I want to make music that speaks to the mind, and is my music coherent with that intention?

e) Do I genuinely feel something listening to what my musical piece has become?

f) Instinctively, have I respected and/or acknowledged my own voice, am I at peace with what I have put together? Or have I instead contorted myself into sounding like someone else, potentially to the degree where nothing substantial is left of me?

g) Am I respecting a healthy balance between a creative mindset and a critical mindset throughout my project?

h) Am I approaching music with a mindset of love, abundance and positivity? or with a mindset of fear, scarcity and negativity?

i) How much of my music is my own instinctive language and how likely is it that listeners will recognize and/or understand it? And am I willing to compromise on that?

j) To which degree is my music likely to be perceived as coherent by someone who would listen to it for the first time?

k) Is there a distinctive touch in my music that would allow the listeners to easily recognize that it comes from me?

l) Is my motivation for making music revolving around the exploration and pursuit of something beautiful, or is it revolving more around receiving recognition and validation from others?

Confronting myself to these questions helps me be more deliberate and conscious with my choices. It keeps the bullshit-O-meter in check and it’s an anchor point for the perspective that I will rely on as I go deeper in a project.

Thanks to anyone who made it this far :wink: !

6 Likes
#10

I have only used them as a means to “add variation over time” to a pattern and I’m sure a lot of other people have approached it in this way as well. Song mode now gives more of a purpose to some of these features, I think to build in automatic “end of section” variations etc.

This pretty much sums up what I believe to be the biggest advantage. Not just for “song-crafters” that like to meticulously plan and build up a track/song/whatever where you can just “press play” and enjoy the fruits of your labor - but also for live performers I think there’s a huge benefit to being able to lay out a skeleton framework, to relieve yourself of the mental tax of having to do the “busy work” of pattern changes, and instead can trust that the underlying structure will move along as intended, and you can focus more on the “big picture” and performance things

Sorry for popping in so much later than your original posts btw - I just found out about song mode a couple days ago, just on a whim checked Elektron’s site and saw the big “SONG MODE” … I was like, OMG OMG OMG OMG WHAT… And sadly haven’t had a chance to actually use it yet as I’ve been super busy with work, but hopefully soon!

1 Like
#11

Song mode is great and I’m using it on my A4 and Digitone.

#12

I was also thinking the same at some point but I’m really not sure how viable tweaking the machine is while the song mode is ongoing or if it’s even effectively possible since clearly you can’t have access to the grid content of your patterns for each track while the song mode is activated.

I know it works for when a machine is being remotely controlled by a song mode running on another machine but the idea that you can only tweak 1 machine out of the 2 while a song mode is ongoing feels a bit frustrating to me.

There’s also the question of resetting all of your project’s patterns to their pre-tweaked state once your song ends if you want to give it another go without having to reload the project, I’m not sure if it’s possible at all as well (I don’t think it is)

#13

I like to play notes in live, especially when I have a pattern already running. I can add notes just by hitting record and playing them on an external keyboard (Digitone).

With song mode I can play over several patterns, which makes it a lot easier not to get stuck in loops.

1 Like
#14

This works with Pattern Chains too.

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#15

That’s how I did it before.

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#16

I didn’t think I needed it, but now that I have it, planning for live sets just became SO much easier. I’m also able to commit to creating more arranged dance music completely OTB.

2 Likes
#17

Do you know if you can install song mode without installing the other updates? I want to keep my DT with the original filters and efx etc

#18

You already know the likely answer lol :smiley: not a chance!

1 Like
#19

I don’t think there’s any way to just upgrade to the feature you want. It’s an all or nothing upgrade.

But I’m also fairly certain that Elektron tries to be very careful that any changes to the OS are additive and shouldn’t “break” what you already have. For instance, an OS update that adds filter types or a second base width filter won’t remove any filters or filter settings that are already there.

But I’m just some guy, not an Elektron employee, so make sure you back up your stuff anyway.

2 Likes
#20

I don’t back anything up on these devices. My laptops from 2010. When I record tracks out I commit to them being finished. Which means if a mmm