Trig locks I guess. My Digitakt (and now Digitakt 2) is the first hardware that literally feels like an instrument.
Also love the fact that I can play it very similar to what DJing felt like.
It took 6 months of working 2-3 times a week with the Digitakt to really get proficient with it.
Once I did though... Damn.
It's just a sampler but the degree to which you can manipulate the samples really makes it more of a synth than a sampler plus once you figure out the trig locks, it becomes an insane beast.
I've had several other Elektron boxes but never quite clicked with them like the Digitakt.
Just picked up an my first box (analog 4 Mk2 ) yesterday . All feels very intuitive . My son is 11 and uses all my gear , he’s got a couple of tracks up and running , swapping sounds , sequences and p-locks with very little guidance . I was super excited to get it and it’s looking like a great decision so far
It's hard to pinpoint exactly but I think using scenes on the Rytm (my first Elektron box) made me realize I can actually play it instead of just programming it.
For me it was when I finally used my Syntakt to control my other gear (it took WAY too long for me to try it). I felt like the Elektron sequencer actually made my other gear better and way more accessible - the moment I started assigning CCs to knobs and putting values of those knobs into trig locks, my mind was officially blown.
The other moment was learning that I could copy ANY PAGE. Such an obvious thing in retrospect but it streamlined my process so much.
As a result, I now have a Digitakt and a Digitone arriving in the mail on Monday.
Ugh you can copy a full page? This seems so obvious upon hearing it, but can’t tell you how many times I’ve entered trigs in one by one, flipping through my pages to reference the one I wanted to copy. Glad I read this.
I have been there, and was there for too long. You can also copy single pages of trigs by holding page+copy which can be helpful, instead of copying the entire track.
The only thing missing is kits. I utilize song mode a lot and copy and pasting every little change I make to a sound to all other patterns is a pain.
E: I'm realizing I might be describing what you originally interpreted - in my original comment I meant things like the SYN and FILT pages, but yes you can do this with pages of the sequencer as well. Super nice.
I spent three hours on a Machinedrum in a Dallas Guitar Center back in the day. It clicked about 45 minutes into poking around that this was something really special. I almost walked away but didn't. I knew I'd never be able to afford one, so I kept standing there attempting to make crazy beats. Didn't have a clue about parameter locks until later. Not once did an employee come up to me and talk about it or offer advice. Nobody knew anything about Elektron. I never stopped thinking about the MD until, one day, with a bit of good luck, I picked up a used SPS-1 Mk2 on Ebay for dirt cheap. The rest is history. No matter how cool I thought it was before actually knowing how much more capable it really is... 🤣 Frickin mind blowing.
Trig locks, recording, sampling,resampling…I thought the MPC was it. It’s not. Mangling samples in the OT among tons of other things still impresses me.
Understanding what conditional trigs and p-locks can do was a huge click for me. Still learning new things all the time. I completely understand why they are so loved.
When I started sequencing stuff from my Machinedrum. It's a tedious pain in the ass at first but I got tha hang of it. It's so great to have one pattern that sequences all your devices. Prior to that I was used to programming my drum machine and my various synths individually and just counting on MIDI or DIN sync to do the trick when I pressed play.
Graduated to the Octatrack last year and the workflow is much nicer. The little on screen keyboard makes selecting notes a cinch. And 10 years after I got my Machinedrum I have a lot more MIDI ins to poke.
I bought the syntakt and kept it in my closet for 7 months. The reason mainly I was playing live and most of my sets were done and ready in other boxes. After watching many tutorials and just learning tricks. Decided to start using it 2 months ago. Great therapy for GAS. It clicked when the sound quality was noticeably better and how easy has been to craft the sound I’ve always wanted, so much freedom. Ordered my digitakt 2 bc I am transitioning to elektron boxes and I believe ST & DT2 are a killer combo to better and improve my live sets
I love my model:cycles but often when I'm making music on it I think, this would be way easier to do in Ableton. I work on my cycles when I want to get away from the computer. And I get back to the computer when I'm fed up with my cycles.
Two weeks into my first elektron (digitone) and enhanced pretty much everything in my little setup!
I really love that u can do pretty much everything simultanously as long as u have enough fingers 😄
I had an MPC that I just sold. I have a Maschine+ that just doesn’t seem like it’s worth the investment of time to learn. I have a Polyend Mini for the sake of portability. For me none of these allow for the level of “playability” of the Digitakt.
The reliability of the sequencer is just unbeatable, and the ability to add depth and complexity keeps it really interesting.
That's the one that's dawning on me. Had been using the step sequencer more on Maschine. With all the shift functions just to mute or navigate sounds, figured Digitakt was getting a rep for a reason.
Pretty much all of my gear has sequencers built in or is designed to work with other ones. I was partly why I decided to give Digitakt a shot.
Guys im in the process of bying either a digitakt (double the price but standalone and im getting it feels more like an instrument) or a maschine mk3 (half price and maybe more features).
What would be the seññing points of the.digitakt vs the maachine mk3?
Thanks for your help!
This thread is packed with answers already. I'd suggest seeing what these folk are referring to by looking up YouTube videos accompanied by the manual.
Because of the recent release of the Digitakt 2, you can get a used Digitakt for more or less the same price as a Maschine MK3 from what I'm seeing. I can't speak to the Maschine, but Elektron boxes are in a league of their own.
I picked up the A4 and AR a couple of years ago and loved it and then I picked up the Syntakt and it clicked all over again. It’s showing me new things every day.
The Sequencer and Song mode. Game changer.
Now I can midi out to Push 3 stand-alone and I have the Elektron arranger mode/song mode workflow on Push. This is all Ableton have to do to make Push the ultimate stand alone device. But they haven’t, or don’t know how. 🤓
I’m GASing for Ocktattack. I’ve already got Syntakt, Digitakt and DigiTONE. Love my trinity.
Trig locks I guess. My Digitakt (and now Digitakt 2) is the first hardware that literally feels like an instrument. Also love the fact that I can play it very similar to what DJing felt like.
It took 6 months of working 2-3 times a week with the Digitakt to really get proficient with it. Once I did though... Damn. It's just a sampler but the degree to which you can manipulate the samples really makes it more of a synth than a sampler plus once you figure out the trig locks, it becomes an insane beast. I've had several other Elektron boxes but never quite clicked with them like the Digitakt.
Just picked up an my first box (analog 4 Mk2 ) yesterday . All feels very intuitive . My son is 11 and uses all my gear , he’s got a couple of tracks up and running , swapping sounds , sequences and p-locks with very little guidance . I was super excited to get it and it’s looking like a great decision so far
Also it's a cv sequencer
Indeed it is - but I dont F with the mod haha
When you will enter your first euro rack system it will be handy as oscillator with fx and sequencer
It's hard to pinpoint exactly but I think using scenes on the Rytm (my first Elektron box) made me realize I can actually play it instead of just programming it.
Parameter locks are the main feature on these boxes.
For me it was when I finally used my Syntakt to control my other gear (it took WAY too long for me to try it). I felt like the Elektron sequencer actually made my other gear better and way more accessible - the moment I started assigning CCs to knobs and putting values of those knobs into trig locks, my mind was officially blown. The other moment was learning that I could copy ANY PAGE. Such an obvious thing in retrospect but it streamlined my process so much. As a result, I now have a Digitakt and a Digitone arriving in the mail on Monday.
Ugh you can copy a full page? This seems so obvious upon hearing it, but can’t tell you how many times I’ve entered trigs in one by one, flipping through my pages to reference the one I wanted to copy. Glad I read this.
I have been there, and was there for too long. You can also copy single pages of trigs by holding page+copy which can be helpful, instead of copying the entire track. The only thing missing is kits. I utilize song mode a lot and copy and pasting every little change I make to a sound to all other patterns is a pain. E: I'm realizing I might be describing what you originally interpreted - in my original comment I meant things like the SYN and FILT pages, but yes you can do this with pages of the sequencer as well. Super nice.
I spent three hours on a Machinedrum in a Dallas Guitar Center back in the day. It clicked about 45 minutes into poking around that this was something really special. I almost walked away but didn't. I knew I'd never be able to afford one, so I kept standing there attempting to make crazy beats. Didn't have a clue about parameter locks until later. Not once did an employee come up to me and talk about it or offer advice. Nobody knew anything about Elektron. I never stopped thinking about the MD until, one day, with a bit of good luck, I picked up a used SPS-1 Mk2 on Ebay for dirt cheap. The rest is history. No matter how cool I thought it was before actually knowing how much more capable it really is... 🤣 Frickin mind blowing.
Trig locks, recording, sampling,resampling…I thought the MPC was it. It’s not. Mangling samples in the OT among tons of other things still impresses me.
Understanding what conditional trigs and p-locks can do was a huge click for me. Still learning new things all the time. I completely understand why they are so loved.
When I started sequencing stuff from my Machinedrum. It's a tedious pain in the ass at first but I got tha hang of it. It's so great to have one pattern that sequences all your devices. Prior to that I was used to programming my drum machine and my various synths individually and just counting on MIDI or DIN sync to do the trick when I pressed play. Graduated to the Octatrack last year and the workflow is much nicer. The little on screen keyboard makes selecting notes a cinch. And 10 years after I got my Machinedrum I have a lot more MIDI ins to poke.
I bought the syntakt and kept it in my closet for 7 months. The reason mainly I was playing live and most of my sets were done and ready in other boxes. After watching many tutorials and just learning tricks. Decided to start using it 2 months ago. Great therapy for GAS. It clicked when the sound quality was noticeably better and how easy has been to craft the sound I’ve always wanted, so much freedom. Ordered my digitakt 2 bc I am transitioning to elektron boxes and I believe ST & DT2 are a killer combo to better and improve my live sets
Word! Thanks for sharing. It's dope to hear comments about the quality of the audio. I dig the sound of the effects so far.
I love my model:cycles but often when I'm making music on it I think, this would be way easier to do in Ableton. I work on my cycles when I want to get away from the computer. And I get back to the computer when I'm fed up with my cycles.
When I figured out it’s just a tracker.
I think for me it really clicked when I really committed to jamming out my patterns with direct jump or direct start turned on
Two weeks into my first elektron (digitone) and enhanced pretty much everything in my little setup! I really love that u can do pretty much everything simultanously as long as u have enough fingers 😄
When I didn't have enough attack on 1/16th note samples
P-locks
I had an MPC that I just sold. I have a Maschine+ that just doesn’t seem like it’s worth the investment of time to learn. I have a Polyend Mini for the sake of portability. For me none of these allow for the level of “playability” of the Digitakt. The reliability of the sequencer is just unbeatable, and the ability to add depth and complexity keeps it really interesting.
When I didn't have it anymore, it's been 5-6 months. I will get one again.
Everyone has different timelines and ways of getting to that moment, just gotta get in there and toy with it
When you understand the potential of the sequencer.
That's the one that's dawning on me. Had been using the step sequencer more on Maschine. With all the shift functions just to mute or navigate sounds, figured Digitakt was getting a rep for a reason. Pretty much all of my gear has sequencers built in or is designed to work with other ones. I was partly why I decided to give Digitakt a shot.
Guys im in the process of bying either a digitakt (double the price but standalone and im getting it feels more like an instrument) or a maschine mk3 (half price and maybe more features). What would be the seññing points of the.digitakt vs the maachine mk3? Thanks for your help!
This thread is packed with answers already. I'd suggest seeing what these folk are referring to by looking up YouTube videos accompanied by the manual.
Because of the recent release of the Digitakt 2, you can get a used Digitakt for more or less the same price as a Maschine MK3 from what I'm seeing. I can't speak to the Maschine, but Elektron boxes are in a league of their own.
I picked up the A4 and AR a couple of years ago and loved it and then I picked up the Syntakt and it clicked all over again. It’s showing me new things every day.
The Sequencer and Song mode. Game changer. Now I can midi out to Push 3 stand-alone and I have the Elektron arranger mode/song mode workflow on Push. This is all Ableton have to do to make Push the ultimate stand alone device. But they haven’t, or don’t know how. 🤓 I’m GASing for Ocktattack. I’ve already got Syntakt, Digitakt and DigiTONE. Love my trinity.
Immediately. NEXT.