Besides the question about the origin of my samples, I'm also asked again and again if the special some special tricks I work with. There are, and I have written some of them down in this blog post. But I never stop learning and the Digitakt is a machine full of little happy accidents! If you have any tips you'd like to share with me and other readers, just write them in the comments at the bottom!
Digitakt MIDI Loopback
This is my secret weapon for making ultra long tracks interesting and evolving. I use the Midi Loopback (only for Digitakt, the Model:Samples doesn't support this feature) for adding slow motions to FX parameters that are not available as a destination to the normal track LFOs, and I modulate different destinaions at once with a very slow speed. I made a dedicated YouTube Tutorial about this cool Digitakt feature.
Digitakt Parameter Locks & Trig conditions
Let's say you have a one track playing percussions. Take one of the trigs and add a percentage condition, like 70%. That means, this trig will play very often. Copy the trig and paste it to the next one beside. Add the trig condition "Pre" so it only plays if the previous trig was NOT played, and add a microtiming (press and hold trig + Arrow left or right to open the dialogue) so the trig plays on the same position than the replaced one.
Now add some effects to this "replacement" trig to make it standout - for instance, you could add a massive delay and reverb to that specific note. Combined with LFO modulations (use the Midi Loopback to modulate the filter frequency of the Delay and the frequency of the Reverb) you will get a nice evolvement that can be very subtle.
Sample Start for changing textures
You can create subtle texture movements by modulating the sample start with the LFO! Assign a longer sample of a noise or vinyl crackle to a track, place a trig on the first note and adjust the length of the note so it plays the full track length. If the sample is not long enough, you could pitch it down so it gets longer (I do this very often!).
Now place the sample start in the center of the sample and modulate the position using a standard LFO with a super slow speed. Try the different waveforms of the LFO - each time the texture sample plays, it will be slightly different.
I guess most of these tipps are well known, but they are a key element in most of my tracks. What tricks do you have? I'm curious to learn more, leave your comments below guys!
And that's just the beginning!
In my Digitakt Online Class you can learn many other techniques! It's a video course focussed on creating tracks with the Digitakt. The class covers LFOs, Arrangement, Performing, FX and many other interesting topics, and I add new lessons frequently.