First Digitakt tutorial. This time we are focusing on breakbeats. I go through some various ways you can chop up and sequence an amen break and discuss the pros and cons of using the Digitakt for this purpose.
As someone that has recently invested in a Digitakt along with a few different hardware samplers with the intention of making jungle, I thank you for this video!
yeah! I would +1 this. I am on the fence to get a DT or DN for ambient and I would absolutely love to see how you do it. Right now I am mostly iOS mobile but I want to go more hardware :) thanks for your videos, Sir! Keep them coming!
Really great tutorial, it gave me a lot of ideas to spice up my music! I found that you can transpose a single cycle waveform by two octaves by setting end loop point at 30. So in other words, original octave is 120 +1 octave is 60 and +2 octave is 30. I found that the single cycle waveform were mainly good for bass. But with this technique you can get some lead sounds out of them as well.
Doo dee boop dee... yeah some interesting sample chopping... nice but kinda WTF is that @13:00!!!! OMFG AND 16:30 THOUGH!!!!!! WHAT!!!!!?? (I skipped work during the last half of this vid......)
Another +1 on the ambient tuto vid! I like how another commenter put it by saying "love to see how you do it" because there are plenty of cool ambient vids and tutorials on the DT but I'd specifically like to hear how you'd approach things.
I am going to have to watch this a few times to wrap my head around the process. I have a Digitakt and have only had the time to mess with it a handful of times. I need to get it out more and experiment with it when I can find a window of opportunity.
There is no gum in my mouth. I’m not doing it on purpose. Please don’t watch any more of my videos. Leave me alone. You are the 1000th fucking asshole to tell me this. Fuck off.
Fantastic demo! Very psyched for the ambient demo. I'm a digit user and have employed most of these tactic here and there in my projects, but it's really wild to hear them all come together in once pattern like this. Extremely well done!
Thanks so much for sharing your skills. It's a big help. Been subbed for a while and have wondered how you achieved the ace results. Really looking forward to the next one.
every other breakbeat tutorial ive seen on youtube, the beats are too simple and sound like shit. THIS is actually an interesting beat and sounds nice.
Some of the best breakbeats I’ve ever heard in my life. Fascinated by your efficacy with this instrument. This video was the best display I’ve seen of Digitakt yet
That's very kind of you. I am by no means an expert but I believe in sharing what you know. Haven't been using my Digitakt much lately because I have gotten more into an Ableton Live based workflow but I have been thinking of trying to work on an all DT EP or something. Thanks for the support!
I realize I’m attempting to cheat by asking, but did you ever upload some of these samples (particularly, the manually chopped-up bits) online for public consumption?
No, that's not something that interests me. I don't buy or sell patches or sounds. I don't judge people who do but its just not for me. I'd rather teach people what I know, and then learn the things I don't from people who are more experienced than me.
@@luisgomer858 it's really cool how much stuff you have uploaded to your RU-vid channel. You have really put in the time and effort to share things with the community and it shows. Fucking legend.
your last couple videos have been super rad I would really like to see how you got those awesome ambient/glitchy sounds on your "can you think?" video that you made a few months back if you have a chance in your next tutorial. keep up the good work =-]
matt fallon Thanks Matt! Yeah the next tutorial will focus on those types of sounds. I can pull up that project and break down some of what is going on.
I haven't used one. I would recommend looking up an article that compares the differences between the two devices. The main thing you are missing is the ability to sample and resample directly on the device which is part of what I do in this video. Also, from what I understand the screen is much more simple and doesn't really give you waveform display for assigning start points of samples. That said, you can probably do lots of fun breakbeat stuff on it you would just have to prep your samples ahead of time, either in a DAW or on a more powerful sampler.
Not sure why it took this long for the yt recommender alg to suggest this one to me. I can't wait to try these tips/tricks/ideas/recipes out on my own. Thank you!
Thank you so much for this!! Looking forward to seeing the next one, been having a lot of fun doing ambient stuff on the Digitakt as well. Can't wait to see your workflow on that.
Thanks for this! Loved your track "can you think" and was wondering how you made those breakbeats sound so good! I really love my digi it's such a fun piece of gear :)
Wowwwww!! Amazing work man. Thank you so much for sharing this wealth of knowledge. Really investing into the Elektron workflow and am grateful RU-vid deep dive brought me to your channel
How do you chopped the samples? Because yesterday, i was struggling my mind trying to get that result of the LFO - Sample method, but i didn't get anything consistent. I sliced the break in 2 ways, one way, cutting on the transient to get differents one-shots samples, and the second way, sliced the sample in 16 parts without taking care of the transient, but i didn't really like the result that i get. Otherwise very helpfull tutorial!
Any trick to how to set the parameter locks for the sample startpoints to exactly 16th notes (e.g. slicing by transient such as in Ableton's Simpler)? Or is this done by ear?
Kristian Burghard there isn’t really a great easy way to do this. I wish they added an auto slice mode. One option is resampling the full beat and using the slice mode to save each hit as a separate wav, but that still relies on your ears and eyes on the waveform display. You can also play with sample start and length and look up the ratios (I believe there is a table on Elektronauts somewhere). So if you evenly divide the total number of possible start points you can do the math and get your 16th notes. But this requires that the loop is exactly the length of your pattern. You can accomplish this by using a loop where you know the BPM, pre-timestretching it on a computer, or the hard way by tuning it by ear. Ultimately this is all just a major weak point of the Digitakt and I believe the easiest solution is to work with a DAW or basic audio program like audacity or Soundforge to prepare your samples in advance which makes your life easier. Although this advice is something that has caused commenters on this video to talk shit about me. But I stand by it. Being an anti-computer DAWless purist is silly. If using a computer for certain applications makes your hardware workflow more fun and better then I recommend doing it.
Hey thanks a ton for this. A bunch of stuff I probably couldn’t have figured out myself. Will you please upload that ambient tutorial :) just looking forward to more awesome tips on the Digitakt
This is really excellent. It makes me happy that your process is very methodical and mathematical, it is a fitting tribute to the source material and also sets you up to play really complex material with ease. This was mind opening for me. I've been messing with my digitakt for awhile but I've never had a machine like it and there's so much to it that I get overwhelmed. ... I also lol'd at the John Cage "set the LFO to cycle through empty slots and contemplate the mysteries of the universe" quip. Subscribed.
How did you manage to load in samples in the lower slots? when i do that it automatically adds it above. Also what are the purple lights for? i never seen those on mine.
Thank you so much. Lately the negative comments about my vocal tic and loud breathing have been making me want to delete this tutorial and even delete my entire channel. So, it's really nice to get a comment like this. I am trying to find a way to get motivated to start making tutorials again, hopefully with some better production value, but its been really hard to feel positive about it recently. It warms my heart to know that folks like you are still getting a lot out of it and enjoying the musical performance aspects as well. Sincerest thanks!
I was in an accident that’s left me unable to walk - or stand up... the worst part being that I had to give up my part-time DJing career - and cancel 9 months full of weekend bookings. That was a mass kick in the teeth as I’ve been mixing since 1990, and doing it Pro making enough money that I didn’t need my main job as an Airline Flight Attendant- however, travelling round the world continuously AND getting paid for it was too much to quit lol. Anyway, with no balance and clubs not set up for DJs who can’t stand at decks - plus scratching is a bitch without being able to lean over decks. So I sold my Reloop 8000 decks and 1 of my 1210 turntables - kept one Technics just for my vinyl living room sound system. Sold my Pioneers and both my DJM850 mixer and my 909 scratch mixer, and all my extra kit -RMX1000, SP1, Kontrol F1 remix decks - the lot. Decided to build a home studio to get into making music, something I’ve always fancied but never had the time. So, got well off track with what I wanted to ask. My set-up is missing a really good (affordable) drum machine - I thought about the Digitakt but I’m really liking how the Arturia Drumbrue looks and sounds- especially the new Drumbrue Impact. Do you have experience with the Arturias and if so how do they compare with this hardware as a standalone / live drum machine ?? I’d also be using it as part of my home setup but the live standalone aspect is what I want to buy the right product for. Cheers
Thanks for sharing your story. Sorry to hear about your hardships but glad to hear that you are finding new ways to be creative. I used to have a DrumBrute and really enjoyed it. I got a Digitakt which I love and I couldn't afford to keep both so I sold the DB. The new Impact looks great. I like the sequencing and sound of the DrumBrutes, but I think a sampler is more versatile over all. I am considering picking up an Impact. Hope that helps.
Excellent video! Learning a lot. just a question tho: I tried to replicate what you did at track 6 at 17:00( re-sampling track 5 at 40bpm?) but I cant get the same results. What am I missing?
I don't know what you are doing to try to recreate it so I can't really advise you. Sorry about that. If you want to send me more information send me a message.
zetO when the buttons are purple you're in a pattern mute mode which means when you switch from pattern to pattern the tracks that are muted won't be the same. When the green buttons are lit in mute mode you can think of it as a global mute mode meaning when you switch patterns the digitakt will keep the same tracks muted on the next pattern played. To switch between mute modes you just hold the function button and double tap the mute button. The purple mode would be useful for if you're playing back single pattern beats or ideas so when you switch to the next pattern, the digitakt will remember the mute settings you have on the selected pattern (as far as I know it saves with the pattern saving) so you can smoothly transition between patterns without having to mute/unmute tracks. The green mode would be useful if you say have a chain of patterns (or variations of the same pattern) that are going to be played in a sequence, so when you switch to the next pattern the digitakt will keep the same tracks muted allowing for a smooth transition (If you're playing a live set or maybe recording a song to an external device) Hopefully this helped you or anyone reading, its all personal preference really and comes down to how you use the device and what for. Those we're just some examples I thought of why you might use one mode over the other.
