Workaround for microtonal things

Hi all! I’m aware a typical option for microtuning isn’t available right now and has been added to feature requests. But I was wondering, is there any way maybe with velocity mod / pitch bend mod or any other way? That it’s possible to use “syn pitch all” to achieve a similar effect? Would you guys mind thinking along with me?

I know it’s fairly easy to put a S&H LFO on the pitch, but I want it to be not random, but so that I can choose which notes sound when. Thank you in advance!

Remco

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After going from a digitakt I have also been missing the tune control. For me it is more for performing pitch sweeps though.

You could use a square lfo to pitch with it’s depth p locked per step and mode set to the sample and hold mode. I have seen people use this with lfo fade in for pitch bends. Without the fade you would just have an offset for your note value. I believe that the depth of the lfo is in semitones.

you can midi loopback a midi track to one of the dtn tracks and plock pbend. wont be very nice when poly tho

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I have got no experience with microtonal music but the ratio offsets couldn’t be used for it?

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thx for the ideas! So far I’ve put the velocity to affect the Syn All Pitch parameter. Via this I could send notes from Ableton and make a nice pattern that sounded how I wanted it to sound. I’ve been very inspired by the music of Aleksi Perala, but don’t really know the typical ratios to be used for Colundi sequences. So I guess it’s just all trust on the ears.

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Blokas Midihub if sequencing externally/Midi loopback will do it :slight_smile:

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Pitch bend is the only way to get useable and accurate messages for a microtonal scale. There’s software that can translate scales and retune synths via pitchbend and maybe you can record it into the DN sequencer. I’ve achieved this with OT before but not sure if the DT records PB data? Would only work in monophonic so 4 mono tracks on the DN.

interesting, will have to look into that software, and test whether the DN responds or not

Midihub can change which midi channel is being played on a per note basis, which would allow you to play 4 channel polyphony on DN - as each MIDI channel, and therefore note, could have it’s own pitch bend value.

I’m sure there is software that will do the same too :slight_smile:

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If you used the MidiHub to play microtonally, could you record it? I think the Digitone will not record pitch bends. :thinking:

You could use DN MIDI Seq to program chords/melodies/notes on one track - send that out into Midihub, which will microtune and distribute across multiple MIDI channels, and then back in to DN to play microtonally.

Doing this way you wouldn’t need to record it, as you simply program as usual in the MIDI Sequencer and Midihub live retunes and plays DN channels.

Hope that makes sense.

Not sure if DN records pitch bend, as don’t have one myself, but I would imagine it does as pitch bend is often key to lead performances.

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I tried this, it works. P-locked ratio offset is simple and effective.

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I posted this a couple of years ago.
Don’t know if it helps you at all as I don’t own a DN, but it works for the A4.


Can use the spreadsheets to work out what the pitch bend values you need to program are for a given set of frequencies.

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will look into it thank you!

Thanks for your workaround. That makes sense.

Elektron designed it as a live performance machine. So pitch bend was designed to do live.

Wow, how can they completely ommit finetuning pitch per step? I do this on nearly every track and every sequency I create, as I try to create a hypnotic effect through slight alterations of pitch. The sound of the Digitone is great, but if I can not quickly fine tune pitch, it completely destroys the workflow for me. I just got my Digitone yesterday and this might be the reason to return it.

On page two of Syn1 (Ratio Offset) there are FOUR unused knobs! What is SO DIFFICULT about including a ‘Offset All’ function there? Seriously disappointed… I don’t want to waste all 4 Midi Channels on my 4 Tracks only to be able to microtune.

And don’t get me wrong, I love the Elektron devices and also everything else about the DN so far. I own a Analoge Keys and Model:Cycles as well and am very satisfied.
But this is a huge letdown. And I am afraid they will never bother to implement this, no matter how easy this would be, because so few people seem to care about pitch tuning beyond the standard western scale…

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You could use a midihub to distribute the notes to different midi channels per note including pitch bend - then you’d only need to use one midi seq channel. This is how I’ve been doing it.

@ess used the portamento to get some microtonal sounds.

I think ratio offsets can also be used, but for chords it could become tricky I guess.

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It doesn’t, wish it did though.