It's a long one, so if you wish to skip around, here are some timings (although it's worth at least watching the intro first for context). 00:00 - Intro 01:34 - Arp 07:41 - Kick 14:14 - Snare 22:36 - Hats 27:44 - Other percussion 31:43 - Bass 38:57 - A little mix time 43:06 - Lead 48:41 - Voice 50:10 - Sample Flipping for Fun and Profit 55:29 - Outro
Just wanted to say: This is an awesome follow-along tutorial for me as an absolute Elektron Digitakt newbie! Because I can use the exact same sample that you used I can try and reproduce the exact same sounding pattern you made - but on my very own Digitakt at home. There's still so much to learn and there are tons of videos out here but these "let's actually produce something and you can see all the values and steps I make" type of videos are the best (at least, for me, that is). So a huge thank you!! 🙏❤
Brilliant. Thank you for such a helpful video, one where I can easily follow along exactly with what what is happening, which also speaks volumes about the digitakt workflow. Seriously blown away, I'll find a way to buy you a drink for this!
Super edifying & satisfying to watch! You keep a calm state of mind and enjoy the process - seems connected to your creativity, something to take away for inspiration.
Just an incredible and inspirational workflow. There’s so many times I’ve had 8 samples loaded and called it a night when brain fade set in. Just seeing how easily you got the single cycled wave form biz going has filled in a blank for me and given me another rabbit hole to effectively explore. Big respects. 🙏🏾❤️
does the 64mb memory bother you, do you run into its ceiling? I love the elektron workflow but I want to loop 4 bar drum breaks so I'm swaying towards getting a SP404mk2 instead
@@Tapepusher I’ve never run in to any sample length problems if I’m honest. I wouldn’t class myself as a super user but I wouldn’t say you’d have a problem.
The only time I've hit the limit is when I was pushing long field recordings on there for looping. If you were putting a lot of loops in a single project you might start to get a bit tight, but there are work arounds like speeding up samples 2x before importing them (which functionally halves the sample rate, but you might like how that sounds tbh - I do!). Although loops are a lot more useful on the Digitakt since the last update, if you want the Elektron workflow plus streaming of long loops, there is, sadly, still only one machine that really nails it... And that's the Octatrack (but I don't find it anywhere near as enjoyable to use, but that's just my tastes, and to be honest my unfamiliarity with the OT).
I'd say you're mostly working with one-shots, as it's designed to do. For that 64mb is more than enough. I really want the option to loop 4 bars of stuff and not worry about space. It's a pity the OT is the only device designed for that, cuz that's bigger, more complex and a lot more expensive. @@ChrisERoots
Well said. Yeah I've considered that by speeding up all samples I could fit 22 minutes of audio (instead of 11) into a project, and I've just measured all my drum break loops as mono files and they use up 3m:30s and 20mb, I would want a load of one-shots and more vocal chops too. I mean it's not bad, and it's making me think tbh. The SP still offers stereo sampling, basically unlimited space, master fx@@OscillatorSink
Right?! I actually played about with that a bit more off camera and allowed myself about 4 samples in total as I found some exciting and surprising sounds on some of the tracks.
@@OscillatorSink thank you! I have been umming and erring about getting a Digitakt but you really convinced me to do so. Won’t be until Feb (plenty to buy in Jan - including a new Eurorack case) but smashing through the videos on here. A fine job, squire!
I really like, that you demonstrated how little changed the track while scrolling through and replacing samples. I mean all those crazy viral videos with tracks from sample - they mean nothing at that point of manipulation.
This has to be the best video I’ve seen on RUclips about samples! I’ve watched it twice and kowtowing to try get arp going, can’t thank you enough for that lesson and insight🙏🙌
This is great. I love this kind of stuff. Even though I don't have a digitakt I feel I could benefit from employing these kinds of techniques whenever I get the music equivalent of writers block
Love the challenge, you can learn a lot with this sort of an exercise... I went to the music radar link...wow it's an amazing resource, I promptly signed up on their email list. However the site is vast and I can find the sample, it's probably right in front of me. Any help would be welcomed, I could always sample from your RUclips direct into my Digitakt. Merry Xmas and Happy New Year and thanks for sharing with us your outstanding channel
The link in this videos description should take you to the right pack - look for the link that says "Tuneful toys samples: click to download". It's in that pack in the Speak and Maths folder.
Love these vids, awesome result! Happy holidays to you. Quick tip - When copying and pasting multiple trigs you only need to hold down the first trig in the chain when pasting (so if you copy 4 from 1-4 and want to paste on 5-8 you just need to hold down trig 5 and paste).
great stuff . This looks like Fun ... Might give this a go with the Same sample and NO RESAMPLING . Thought I have new FW on my DT . Would be funny to see a new take on this chalenge . ( would be better to have the Exact same sample you used )...
Ideas for jamuary😂 this sounds awesome. Did it with a kick drum years ago. Might try some sort of sampled violin or maybe some sort of stringed instrument this time:)
Really cool tricks. Had been starting to experiment on my Samples with some of these but I think I need to take it a little further. The lead sound needs a bit more work.
Good job bro.. I do the same thing one sample challenge on pollyend tracker lol.. No one would ever know where all the sounds come from. And they are always surprised when I show the process. Good job buddy
Hey, very interesting video about sculpting sounds out of only one short sample. Why don’t you upload your “three” sample and challenge your subscribers? )
Good shout, I've added a link to the video description, but the sample is from this pack: www.musicradar.com/news/tech/sampleradar-592-free-tuneful-toy-samples-574741
at 5:40 i. the video. are you adding a chord to the arp? it seems like it plays a few of the same note, and the. goes through the chord in the arp. can you explain how that is setup, is it an arp mode your in? it sounds incredible.
All I'm doing is locking notes to each trig. The pattern originally just had a trig on every step with the same note, I'm just changing the note on some of the steps. The other aspect is that I have the track sent to the tempo sync'd delay so occasionally it kinda sounds like chords as the previous delayed notes sit alongside the currently playing note.
That was actually accidental, and it changes later. That's the behaviour you'll see if you have a track set to 12 steps but the master track set to 16. You'll need to enable length per track first though.
No one provides Digitakt tricks like you do)) thank you so much for this ! I need to watch the Digitone ones now.. one curious thing with my Digitakt, If I put master volume to max, I get no sound unless I Pan to one side or the other. Any idea why it does that?
is there any website that lets you type in text and speaks out in the sound/style of this "three" sample? Did he call it speakomath? Would be nice to resample :)
Speak and Math was a children's toy from the 80s (see also the Speak and Spell). They had a very distinctive, lo-fi speaking style and are also prime targets for circuit bending!
@@OscillatorSink Thanks, I was a bit confused... it would have been brilliant if there were two LFO's per track... You did a 'func'+ rotate of the knob to reset it. I normally use knob 'press' + 'no' for a reset, but this works maybe better...
@@studio48nl func+ rotate will snap it to certain values - just so happens that 0 is one of those values. I think I naturally rest my hand by Func so it's probably just something that feels more natural for me.
Why does your arp move from step 1 to step 4, then to step 1 again, just to go through steps 1 to 12? That's still a 16/16th pattern, not a 12/16th as you told the DT to do. Did I miss something?
Good spot - that was because I forgot to change the master length of the pattern - so it was still fitting a 12 step pattern into 16 steps. Hence 12 + 4. I fix that later in the video, but I possibly edited the moment out - but if you have multiple pattern lengths and you want them to roll over each other, you need to set the master length to infinite, and use the chain length to define how the pattern switches happen (if you need that).
It's a long one, so if you wish to skip around, here are some timings (although it's worth at least watching the intro first for context).
00:00 - Intro
01:34 - Arp
07:41 - Kick
14:14 - Snare
22:36 - Hats
27:44 - Other percussion
31:43 - Bass
38:57 - A little mix time
43:06 - Lead
48:41 - Voice
50:10 - Sample Flipping for Fun and Profit
55:29 - Outro
Great job!
Nice to watch the process
Me: I’ll be needing all these sample packs
O. Sink: THREE!
Just wanted to say: This is an awesome follow-along tutorial for me as an absolute Elektron Digitakt newbie! Because I can use the exact same sample that you used I can try and reproduce the exact same sounding pattern you made - but on my very own Digitakt at home. There's still so much to learn and there are tons of videos out here but these "let's actually produce something and you can see all the values and steps I make" type of videos are the best (at least, for me, that is). So a huge thank you!! 🙏❤
I'm really glad to hear you enjoyed it. I hope you have endless fun with your Digitakt - so much to explore!
Lesson learned... I do not need bazillions of sample packs - one sample is enough. Very impressive, educational and entertaining video.
I'm glad you enjoyed the video!
Popping in as a Digitakt V1 newbie in 2025. This is such a cool tutorial for learning about sound design from unexpected sources. Thank you!
Sub-optimal year: classic British understatement
brilliant! so cool, the sample flip section at the end was a brain = blown moment
Brilliant. Thank you for such a helpful video, one where I can easily follow along exactly with what what is happening, which also speaks volumes about the digitakt workflow. Seriously blown away, I'll find a way to buy you a drink for this!
This vid is one of the main reasons I bought DT , thanks mate !
Thanks for watching, I hope you're enjoying it!
Do another do another!
29:50 real Night Rider vibes!
fantastic and mind boggling
Only 30 minutes in and need to stop for the moment but so far, this is extremely educational. Thank you.
Enjoyed the process and the end result(s). Digitakt is the perfect instrument for this kind of stuff.
Thanks for sharing.
I did not know the Digitakt was capable of this much sound design. And what expertise you have!
Brilliant exercise! Best way to explore the sound sculpting/mangling possibilities of this machine👍🏼
I do hope you do some more of these tutorial videos with sharing the same samples, having an amazing learning from you and great inspiration.
Amazing video sir! Some soulwax vibes in there🥳 Exactly what the digitakt is made for. Thank you for your knowledge master digitakt🙌
Super edifying & satisfying to watch! You keep a calm state of mind and enjoy the process - seems connected to your creativity, something to take away for inspiration.
Thank you, that's very kind of you to say, and I hope you can make use of some of these ideas in your own music.
Love the idea, I'll try something similar out on my Tracker
My god.You’re a legend! Thanks !
Thank you
Brilliant Video love the Idea , i never thought of using my DIgitakt this way.
What a brilliant video. I'm an amateur DT owner and synth enthusiast from London and I absolutely love your content. Please keep it up!
Thank you, and will do!
Just an incredible and inspirational workflow. There’s so many times I’ve had 8 samples loaded and called it a night when brain fade set in. Just seeing how easily you got the single cycled wave form biz going has filled in a blank for me and given me another rabbit hole to effectively explore. Big respects. 🙏🏾❤️
does the 64mb memory bother you, do you run into its ceiling? I love the elektron workflow but I want to loop 4 bar drum breaks so I'm swaying towards getting a SP404mk2 instead
@@Tapepusher I’ve never run in to any sample length problems if I’m honest. I wouldn’t class myself as a super user but I wouldn’t say you’d have a problem.
The only time I've hit the limit is when I was pushing long field recordings on there for looping. If you were putting a lot of loops in a single project you might start to get a bit tight, but there are work arounds like speeding up samples 2x before importing them (which functionally halves the sample rate, but you might like how that sounds tbh - I do!).
Although loops are a lot more useful on the Digitakt since the last update, if you want the Elektron workflow plus streaming of long loops, there is, sadly, still only one machine that really nails it... And that's the Octatrack (but I don't find it anywhere near as enjoyable to use, but that's just my tastes, and to be honest my unfamiliarity with the OT).
I'd say you're mostly working with one-shots, as it's designed to do. For that 64mb is more than enough. I really want the option to loop 4 bars of stuff and not worry about space. It's a pity the OT is the only device designed for that, cuz that's bigger, more complex and a lot more expensive. @@ChrisERoots
Well said. Yeah I've considered that by speeding up all samples I could fit 22 minutes of audio (instead of 11) into a project, and I've just measured all my drum break loops as mono files and they use up 3m:30s and 20mb, I would want a load of one-shots and more vocal chops too. I mean it's not bad, and it's making me think tbh. The SP still offers stereo sampling, basically unlimited space, master fx@@OscillatorSink
Amazing what you can do with one sample and a creative mindset. Good job.
U of Digi right here, on this channel. Many thanks, Happy Holidays and New Years - moshe
„Suboptimal“ 😊 ❤️
such a good tutorial, the overall approach ... just genius, thank you
Thanks Bruno!
this is a fucking brilliant video, and the exercise you ran through at the end just broke my brain. Thank you for sharing these.
Thank you, I'm really glad you enjoyed it!
Dang the sample flipping at the end is awesome, I have to try this!
Right?! I actually played about with that a bit more off camera and allowed myself about 4 samples in total as I found some exciting and surprising sounds on some of the tracks.
This is next level. Best channel for Digitakt videos!
Thank you so much!
@@OscillatorSink thank you! I have been umming and erring about getting a Digitakt but you really convinced me to do so. Won’t be until Feb (plenty to buy in Jan - including a new Eurorack case) but smashing through the videos on here. A fine job, squire!
Great, Great, Great!!! I’am gonne try this right now. Thank you again!!!🙏❤️🙏
I really like, that you demonstrated how little changed the track while scrolling through and replacing samples. I mean all those crazy viral videos with tracks from sample - they mean nothing at that point of manipulation.
So insightful! Really helps to get into the device thank you so much for your work!
Have fun exploring! The Digitakt is amazing.
This has to be the best video I’ve seen on RUclips about samples! I’ve watched it twice and kowtowing to try get arp going, can’t thank you enough for that lesson and insight🙏🙌
This is incredible. Really love how you started from a single simple sample and manage to morph it into a complete pattern. Kudos !!!
Most of the kudos is owed to the Digitakt for being that flexible.
I'm still trying to wrap my head around this. Trying to replicate steps on my Polyend Tracker to get a feel for the process. Great work again.
@@martindu4 ... Duf?
Was here
Just amazing
Cheers!
I was on the fence about picking up a Digitakt... this video did it. I'll be here tomorrow.
Enjoy your new Digitakt. It's an amazing instrument.
Great exercise and video!!!
It was very helpful to watch your amazing video, thanks for your tips, keep on🔥👍
que increible video, pasado de bueno, que maravilloso llegar a tener el entendimiento que tienes acerca de esta gran máquina. (Y)
🙂
¡De nada! ¡Gracias por ver!
Three is the "Magic' number - Awesome vid thanks for sharing ❤️
Awesome. Reminded me of Black Dog/LFO. Super cool
Fascinating! Lots to absorb
Amazing. Thanks for this! Very inspiring.
This is great. I love this kind of stuff. Even though I don't have a digitakt I feel I could benefit from employing these kinds of techniques whenever I get the music equivalent of writers block
Little creative games can work great for blowing out the cobwebs. Glad you enjoyed it.
Great approach! Thanks
Awesome video, like always. Thanks! ♥️✌️
That was incredible!
Excellent video. Entertaining and inspirational. I'd have definitely saved many times during this process.
Just off to try a similar thing myself...
Have fun, I hope you find some cool sounds!
Excellent Mr Sink
Really nice video. I'm learning so much from you, thanks. I hope you do more from selfish point of view of course :p
Volume variation for free! This party’s off the HOOK! 🥳
Love the challenge, you can learn a lot with this sort of an exercise...
I went to the music radar link...wow it's an amazing resource, I promptly signed up on their email list.
However the site is vast and I can find the sample, it's probably right in front of me.
Any help would be welcomed, I could always sample from your RUclips direct into my Digitakt.
Merry Xmas and Happy New Year and thanks for sharing with us your outstanding channel
The link in this videos description should take you to the right pack - look for the link that says "Tuneful toys samples: click to download". It's in that pack in the Speak and Maths folder.
@@OscillatorSink Thanks, I'll try it again...
U r a star!!!!
Love these vids, awesome result! Happy holidays to you.
Quick tip - When copying and pasting multiple trigs you only need to hold down the first trig in the chain when pasting (so if you copy 4 from 1-4 and want to paste on 5-8 you just need to hold down trig 5 and paste).
Awesome
Woow.. Thats great work!!
Cheers!
Getting a real Severed Heads vibe from this. Excellent work as always.
great stuff . This looks like Fun ... Might give this a go with the Same sample and NO RESAMPLING .
Thought I have new FW on my DT . Would be funny to see a new take on this chalenge . ( would be better to have the Exact same sample you used )...
Ideas for jamuary😂 this sounds awesome. Did it with a kick drum years ago. Might try some sort of sampled violin or maybe some sort of stringed instrument this time:)
Very cool. Cheers
Really cool tricks. Had been starting to experiment on my Samples with some of these but I think I need to take it a little further. The lead sound needs a bit more work.
Awsome!!!!
参考にします！
Brilliant! 6 minutes in
This sounded a lot like early Severed Heads… ‘Dead Eyes Opened’, ‘Petrol’ etc…
sub-optimal.. that's great, I'm going to use that one.
This looked like fun.
It was!
Yes....I love challenges.....
Here's the pack containing the sample, get to it!
www.musicradar.com/news/tech/sampleradar-592-free-tuneful-toy-samples-574741
It's got an almost Kraftwerk vibe, lots of great tips as well on the Elektron workflow 👍👏
That is genius
Number 9
Number nine
Number nine
Number nine
Number nine
3 is the magic number
Good job bro.. I do the same thing one sample challenge on pollyend tracker lol.. No one would ever know where all the sounds come from. And they are always surprised when I show the process.
Good job buddy
Good free sample I guess 11:48
Yeah. Sounds very Kraftwerk ish. Inspiring
Thank you!
Hey, very interesting video about sculpting sounds out of only one short sample. Why don’t you upload your “three” sample and challenge your subscribers? )
Good shout, I've added a link to the video description, but the sample is from this pack:
www.musicradar.com/news/tech/sampleradar-592-free-tuneful-toy-samples-574741
at 5:40 i. the video. are you adding a chord to the arp? it seems like it plays a few of the same note, and the. goes through the chord in the arp. can you explain how that is setup, is it an arp mode your in? it sounds incredible.
All I'm doing is locking notes to each trig. The pattern originally just had a trig on every step with the same note, I'm just changing the note on some of the steps. The other aspect is that I have the track sent to the tempo sync'd delay so occasionally it kinda sounds like chords as the previous delayed notes sit alongside the currently playing note.
How do the first 4 arp steps loop before cycling through the 12/16 others?
That was actually accidental, and it changes later. That's the behaviour you'll see if you have a track set to 12 steps but the master track set to 16. You'll need to enable length per track first though.
No one provides Digitakt tricks like you do)) thank you so much for this !
I need to watch the Digitone ones now..
one curious thing with my Digitakt, If I put master volume to max, I get no sound unless I Pan to one side or the other. Any idea why it does that?
How are your cables set up? That sounds like one way or another you've got a phase inversion on one side of the stereo.
@@OscillatorSink thanks for the quick answer. Will check my cables... once again. All the best! Cheers
@@pierreb8267 also check the phase inversion switch on your mixer / interface / interface software.
@@OscillatorSink exactly right! Problem solved, Thank you so much ))
Glad I could help!
is there any website that lets you type in text and speaks out in the sound/style of this "three" sample? Did he call it speakomath? Would be nice to resample :)
Speak and Math was a children's toy from the 80s (see also the Speak and Spell). They had a very distinctive, lo-fi speaking style and are also prime targets for circuit bending!
Hello, @9:30 , please explain, what do you do here? "Same with out"?! Are you applying two different LFO's to the track?
No, just one - I'm just lowering the depth to zero for comparison, so you can see what it sounds like without the LFO doing anything.
@@OscillatorSink Thanks, I was a bit confused... it would have been brilliant if there were two LFO's per track...
You did a 'func'+ rotate of the knob to reset it. I normally use knob 'press' + 'no' for a reset, but this works maybe better...
@@studio48nl func+ rotate will snap it to certain values - just so happens that 0 is one of those values. I think I naturally rest my hand by Func so it's probably just something that feels more natural for me.
How we lived without second lfo and base with filter… Stone Age it was…
Simpler times.
Why does your arp move from step 1 to step 4, then to step 1 again, just to go through steps 1 to 12? That's still a 16/16th pattern, not a 12/16th as you told the DT to do. Did I miss something?
Good spot - that was because I forgot to change the master length of the pattern - so it was still fitting a 12 step pattern into 16 steps. Hence 12 + 4. I fix that later in the video, but I possibly edited the moment out - but if you have multiple pattern lengths and you want them to roll over each other, you need to set the master length to infinite, and use the chain length to define how the pattern switches happen (if you need that).
@@OscillatorSink Oh, I see. Totally makes sense, thank you for the answer! Stay healthy and keep up the good work. :)
three
Trois de France
Lol ‘sub-optimal’ !
At best.
Be easier if you could understand the cockferret
Wut?
Amazing work! Thx for inspiring