The manual didn’t say a lot about the practical use of LFOs so I did some research and now want to share a few of my insights on how Digitakt LFOs work.
I created a table that contains all LFO speeds and multipliers so that you can use it creatively knowing what you actually do.
The problem with Digitakt LFO is that it does not have a positive 64 value (it ends at 63). If it would go to 64, the LFO would be MUCH less confusing because at speed 64 your multiplier number would just mean the exact length of an LFO.
Negative speeds just invert the LFO phase, but the numbers from the table remain the same. And this allows us to do one trick.
Put your LFO at -64, and invert the phase by setting the SPH to 127.
Now Mult works exactly as it should! It’s value represents the actual speed relative to bpm and you don’t need to do any counting.
Mult 16 = 1/16 note
Mult 4 = 1/4 note
You get the idea.
In case you want your LFO length not be equal to any specific BPM but have some clue about it’s real length, you can basically do the same thing. Set speed to -64, SPH to 127, use Mult to set the length you want, then as a last step slightly raise the speed number to detach LFO from BPM (make it a bit faster).
I usually use 1/16 LFO’s to humanize the shakers and hihats, by slightly randomizing their volume, pitch or start position. It sounds much cleaner when you know what you’re doing, not just putting some random values on LFO page.