Looking for some advice if possible please. I have a Syntakt & I’m just about to take delivery of a DN II. Due to lack of space (moving to a bigger place next year), I’ve just been playing with my Syntakt with my headphones & no other equipment (I.e., no speakers/laptop/audio interface).
Is it possible to add the DN II to the set up without additional equipment? If so, is there any reason why this would be a bad idea other than potential latency issues?
Thanks in advance!
No probs just connect two audio cables from the outputs of one into the others inputs, for stereo.
Decide if you for example want ST to be compressed by DN, or if you want to mangle DN with STs analog FX
No latency since it’s analog
Yeah, audio out L/R of one to audio in L/R on the other and then you just have to enable the L/R audio inputs on the internal mixer and gainstage it so that your levels are good, after that it shouldn’t be an issue.
As far as what you intend to do with these tracks though, headphone mixes don’t always turn out so well on speakers which is why it’s not recommended to mix completely in headphones. If you’re just making things to listen back to in your headphones from the devices or on your phone or something like that then it won’t matter, but if you’re intending to release these in any capacity, while your plan for saving space in your living area is fine, I’d find a way to check the mixes on some kind of speakers.
Even if not studio monitors, desktop speakers of a middle of the road quality can still be very revealing.
This should work really fine as long as you got stereo or I guess even a mono 1/4 TS/TRS cable you can just run the out of the DN2 or Syn into the other although probably DN as master brain here IMO. You will also likely want to have midi connecting them to allow sequencing on one for both.
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Thanks for this! When you say sequencing one for both, do you mean using any of the 3 midi tracks on the Syntakt to sequence sounds from the DN II & vice versa on any of the 16 DN II tracks??
Thanks v.much for this! End goal is to produce finished tracks but will take me a bit of time to fully get to grips with both devices & as you say, would definitely want to listen on speakers first. On the off chance I do get to the point I feel I have a track good enough to release sooner than I think, my brother has a proper home studio set up with Ableton etc. that I could use.
I’d experiment with whether you actually prefer sequencing both from one or if you just want them synced. You can still control mutes on both devices from 1 even just synced, without using the same device’s sequencer. I feel like you have a bit more control just syncing them by midi rather than sharing the sequencer (when it comes to 2 elektron boxes) but some instances like simple drum beats I think it would be fine. Stuff where you want trig conditions and precise LFO destinations, not as much.
In my opinion if you’d like to use syntakt tracks to sequence DN or opposite you’d just waste the tracks.
As you want to sequence them it means you already have a midi cable. So I would just stick to synchronization and start/stop but leaving the whole sequencing for each device separately.
If you’d like to use Syntakt track for sequencing other gear it means you can’t use that for any other purpose. I don’t have the Digitone but I assume it’s quite similar there.
Yes using one to sequence and manage triggers on the other. A lot of people do this or will send over control over a few triggers.
Yeah my plan was just to have them synced and use the sequencers independently on both devices.
I thought (sounds like I naively thought) that if I wanted to run one of my DN II tracks through the fx block of the Syntakt, I could do that whilst still using the 2 sequencers independently but if I’m understanding correctly, it doesn’t sound like that’s possible?
Apologies, only had my Syntakt a couple of months so a complete novice on this stuff. Appreciate all of the responses.
I don’t have a syntakt but I think that you should be able to run audio from the ST inputs through the fx block like an effects processor kinda, you probably just have to route the inputs to the fx block. You can definitely do it with other elektron devices with a similar form factor.
That’s the way to go!
Yes you can, on the Syntakt FX block routing menu, where you select what tracks goes into it, apart from the internal tracks, there is also a button called ”in”. That’s your external input.
Audio is a completely separate thing from midi, so the sequencers have no effect on this.
About the ”one of my DN II tracks”, thing, it’s more like all or nothing if you want stereo (ST only have 2 audio inputs) The good thing is that it’s super easy to turn the FX block on/off on for your external input (DN in this setup)