Pattern Transition

Elektron Gear Digitakt
#1

Hi! I’ve browsed most of the forum now but I couldn’t find a thread which is really dedicated to the topic of pattern transition. I’ve got my Digitakt for two days now and I’m thinking about giving it back due to that issue. I need it for live jamming, so easy and fast transition between patterns is a crucial thing to me.

The ideal solution would be to playback one pattern while you switch silently to the next pattern in order to prepare it (choose sounds, locking parameters, etc.). As far as I now that doesn’t work :frowning:

The second best solution could be to copy your actual pattern and paste it into the next one and proceed to that next one simultaniously without a break. It seems like that’s not always possible: Digitakt Pattern Change Timing

The only solution for transition between patterns that I’ve found works with loops: Working with loops on the DT

Is that all?

#2

What do you mean transitions?
If you are just talking jumping from pattern in a live setting, that should be no problem with a little pre prep like setting up sounds, Pattern bpm, etc.

#3

Well I want to use different patterns for variations and those variations a created within a live jam. Further of course I want to keep the “original” pattern to switch back again later. So I need to copy the pattern that I want to vary and work on the copy (ideally while the original patterns remains on playback) but I can’t find a way to copy a pattern on Digitakt without risking a break.

#4

There is a quick save and reload function by pressing the function and yes or no button. Not sure if that is totally helpful but you could quick save make changes and then reload the original patern when you are ready to revert back.
It also depends on the live/prep ratio you are looking for. I have a friend who on the OT sets up patterns in doubles one to be the original and one for audio destruction so he can easily switch and make changes.

#5

to expand on what @jefones says above, you can essentially have 3 states of a pattern in various buffer memories. Example: tweak a playing pattern to your liking then copy the pattern, then tweak further. Func+no to reload the original, Func+stop to paste the copied, func+stop again to undo the copy, essentially reloading the previous state.

#6

i just gave this a try, but you indeed cannot " pre paste" your pattern. When patten 1 is playing,and you change to pattern 2 to paste it, pattern 1 has to finish playing before you can paste into pattern 2… and there is a break. ( might be a good feature req. to implement this)

A simple solution maybe preparing all the patterns by pasting the original onto all off them… and then just overdub them and make different variations of the original.

#7

tl;dr: Yes, you’re right it is a missing feature - but turns out the machine is pretty good at live jamming even so.

I also use the DT exclusively for live jamming.

The seamless pattern pasting bug was the first thing I ran into. It used to be a feature listed in the manual. Elektron acknowledged it was a bug. Then later they just took the key-sequence out of the manual. But, some hope it make come back in a future OS version.

The temp save area and the copy buffer let you, with some oddities, work with up to three variations of a single pattern at a time. And because there is a temp area per pattern, you can go off to a different pattern for a while, then come back to a pattern and still have two versions to work with.

Frankly, I think the temp area is just a limited stop-gap, and the ability to paste-and-switch to a new pattern would be far more versatile: You could then manage a bank’s worth of variations as you saw fit, rather than just two.

That all said - now that I’ve played about a dozen sessions with the DT live, the limitation is less than I thought. You can get good at the “copy pattern / switch to empty pattern / paste pattern when it switches” dance and you only end up silencing a beat - and I found I can work that as an element - now I sometimes intentionally I even drag it out longer. (I recognize this won’t work for all musical styles.) The two-sometimes-three versions you get with temp buffer and copy buffer are often enough for what I’m doing. In short - I thought I’d miss the live-paste feature terribly, but in practice, not so much!

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#8

I just thought of a possible transition trick that I haven’t seen anywhere else here. Apologies if someone already thought of this.

What if you first set up all of your patterns for different songs, then selectively resampled key tracks from those patterns for intro/outro? Then, you could have special “transition” patterns that contained just these resampled loops, one per track (two if you have to have stereo).

Then, when you wanted to move from one pattern to a completely different pattern, you could select the “transition” pattern containing the resampled loops of both the pattern you are on and the eventual destination pattern. Then, once your are in playback of the transition pattern, adjust the volumes of the two resampled tracks to fade out the first pattern loop (recorded from the full pattern you just came from) and fade in the new pattern that you are going to jump to. Then, when the new pattern’s transition loop is faded in, you can do a hard-jump to the REAL multi-track target pattern. ideally sounding like either a seamless transition or at worst, the jump comes across as a natural variation on the new song/pattern.

I’m sure there are issues like planning ahead for matching BPMs without time stretch and perhaps having mute-states or volumes set in advance in the transition patterns with loops, but it seems like this workaround might trick the Digitakt into doing smooth crossfade transitions between patterns, at least as far as the listener is concerned.

I might try this tonight and see if I can make it work. Would be super-helpful for live.