I am still so content with my OG DT, I don’t see a reason to look elsewhere yet.
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Hey djst, really great jam. It sounds very clean and well mixed.
I tend to record everything to a single track over USB because learning how to use Ableton, then adding the fx and panning in post is time consuming. I’d rather just make music with my free time, but damn this has got me thinking I need to change my ways.
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Ok that’s great news about being able to move projects over! something to think about in the long run. It’s unlikely to be this year. I bought my OG second hand about 6 months ago and have plenty to explore.
I felt that somewhat until I made a proper Live template with Overbridge set up and got a Novation Launch Control XL which defaults to control the sends, panning and levels of each of the tracks. Now it is the same amount of effort to set those things on the fly as it is on the DT itself, but I have have all the benefits of being able to edit with accuracy after the recording has ended.
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Hey Jamie, I really appreciate this comment. You’re right that it is time consuming but I think of it as part of the same process of “just making music”. When I sit with the gear in my lap, whether it’s the Digitakt or Syntakt or something else, there’s a relatively high degree of “feeling” the music and the process tends to be exclusively with headphones. Then when the jam is recorded, it shifts more towards “hearing” the music and getting the ability to realize those things you could only hear in your head earlier.
It’s of course a mix of both hearing and feeling, but I think of the mixing phase as something that is rather creative too. It’s like you made a sculpture of something, and then you switch to finer tools to bring out all the details. But it’s still sculpting. Hope that makes sense. Thanks again for your generous comment.
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Good points, and nice sculpture analogy. I’ve just spent the last 2 hours pulling my hair out with Ableton. I’ll keep going!! 
Yeah I won’t lie, the fact that you do need to take a few steps back with Overbridge, like having to recreate panning, is a bit tedious. I’m glad they fixed that in DT2 so there’s at least a way out of that in the future.
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Can’t find information about Overbridge for the Ditiakt II, where did you get that?
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TLDR: during the last month I have been trying to get things as good mixed right in the grooveboxes, and then just hit a hardware compressor/limiter and straight to the TASCAM to bake a wav or mp3. No more mixing mastering in the computer.
This is so me. I like Ableton a lot, but when used as the creative or instrument role, doing the things that only Ableton can do for me, some madness in Simpler or complex MIDI magic.
But multi tracking, mixing and then mastering… gosh, that is a lot work, and is the type of work that is never finished: you have to abandon it at the point when it sounds Good enough to your ears.
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I’m not that familiar with MPC and Machine, but when it comes to MC-707, there’s a big difference what Elektrons can do with LFOs and p-locking compared to Roland, so I’m suspecting there’s also a technical reason why they’re are not as advanced when it comes to synthesis complexity and polyphony. All those realtime modulation capabilities and flexibility surely need quite a bit of processing power and with more complex sound engine they would need exponentially more.
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Exactly, that was my point in a previous post: they reduce things so that you can plock and modulate almost endlessly without ever crashing the machine.
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It’s currently in beta, there’s a thread about that here. Overbridge beta sign-up
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I’d think they could reconstruct it in the DAW by sending mono audio along with the panning values for a “stereo” output, as the additional bandwidth required should be minimal; but that would probably require a firmware update.
I don’t think we’re likely to see anything like that happen though, even if it were possible.
I do have to wonder how much of the new features of DT2 (sequencing/interface more than anything else) could be back-ported to the previous Digi line-up, as a lot of it feels more on the design/implementation side of things than technical limitations.
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I could sometimes benefit from firing up a loop in stereo on my DT. Really stupid question: How do I split a stereo track in Ableton into two mono tracks with the left and right channel? I’d be fine uploading these two samples to DT as it’s really just about playback in a straightforward way.
I find for file management like that, I prefer doing it in Audacity. There it’s a trivial operation just going to the Track drop down.
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I was also thinking whether Audacity is easier for that kinda stuff. Will check, thanks!
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When I am taking the inputs of the DT into Ableton via Overbridge, I have a Utility on the incoming track (the same one that you can use for adding gain) to split the left and right signals to two separate tracks. But doing that would mean you would have to add the stereo file, play it through such a setup and record it back in. There must be an easy way, but I generally find moving around and looking at the audio clips in Ableton sort of clumsy, which is odd for a DAW.
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I just wanna move a loop of a guitar with stereo effects that I already have in Ableton to DT I with stereo effects intact, meaning two samples which represent left and right channel.
That’s one of my doubt. Surly not an important point that would push mecto buying.
But we could imagine having several kits in one… say 2 or 3 set of tracks that would be played separatly, so a single pattern could have 2 or 3 variations. Can be efficient for transitions or alternate pattern in one. If one could be organised enough to manage that to be confortable.
So the stereo OUT wont be too busy.
Word! She’s a keeper.
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