Digitakt 2 is a Co-Producer – Track Breakdown

video upload by Sineway

"Obsidian is a track that emerged through working with the Digitakt II.

In this video, I break down the elements of the track, but more importantly how the ideas took shape. Not just what is happening, but how the Digitakt II actively shaped the music.

All synth sounds are sampled from the Arturia AstroLab 37. Rather than sequencing notes directly, full phrases and musical ideas were recorded into Digitakt II and then explored, reshaped and refined from there.

Drum sounds come from Digitone II, sampled and processed inside Digitakt II as part of the same workflow.

This isn’t just a track breakdown. It’s also the starting point for a short series of videos about how Digitakt II has changed the way I approach sample based music production, composition, and discovery. More on that very soon.

Chapters:

00:00 Intro
00:31 Start of track breakdown
00:51 The arp track
02:02 Using the macros for performance
03:26 Wireless MIDI
03:57 The lead tracks
05:22 The bass track
06:38 Faster control breath control macros
07:36 How to make samples behave more like a synth
08:19 The pad tracks
09:26 How to make a chord wider
10:03 Sharing two sounds on the same track
10:57 Turning a loop into a granular pluck
13:32 The 303 track
14:30 Generating new ideas with random locks
16:37 Repurposing a drum loop from Digitone II
18:08 The kick track
18:21 A couple of stock samples to fill out the drums
18:51 Some momentary buttons for performance
20:05 Some AstroLab ear candy
21:49 Noise for atmosphere
23:19 Bringing it all together for the performance"