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I continue to go back and forth trying to decide whether I should perform as a solo artist or to organize a small group to play the songs I'm writing. In the mean time I'm programming all of the drums on my Digitakt.

My setup is pretty basic and focused on five tracks as outlined below. I'm using a Digitakt 1, so I've only got 8 audio tracks total. I could use all 8 tracks, but I like to leave a few tracks open for miscellaneous samples.

Track 1: Kick

Sample selection goes a long way – pick something that sounds like your favorite kick drum sound and EQ it until it cuts through your mix. A P-locked velocity drop on a double kick or a ghost kick before a big hit adds physicality.

Panning

I pan my kick slightly to the right to keep it out of the way of the snare.

Track 2: Snare

Snare hits at the same velocity/volume are a dead giveaway of a drum machine behind the scenes.

I tend to vary the velocity of my snare hits manually using P-locks, whereas I use LFOs to add variation on the cymbals (which you'll read about below).

I pan the snare to the left, as if I'm sitting on the drum throne.

Track 3: Toms

• P-Lock the trig note. I generally default to a high tom sound and use parameter locks to lower the pitch for a low and floor tom. Occasionally I will load separate samples for each, but I tend to let the toms share a track so that I can see all of the trigs of a fill at once.

NOTE: Digitakt is monophonic per-track, meaning that any note triggered will automatically cut off the playback from the last trigger (if it's still playing), For toms this is generally okay (especially once they're in a full mix), but I break my cymbals into two tracks.

I pan my tom trigs depending on where they sit in a real kit: generally highest to lowest are panned left to right.

Cymbals: Crashes/Accents (Track 4) and Hats/Ride/Count (Track 5)

In my opinion, nothing sounds more sterile coming out of a drum machine than cymbals. I went on a year-long stretch writing music with no cymbals except for a closed hat sound because they sound so fake. After I got more confident with the Digitakt, I discovered a few things that help make things sound more natural.

LFO 1

I use LFO 1 to adjust the AMP: Volume to mimic slight variations in a drummer's velocity. Learning to tweak the LFO Speed and Multiplier can be tricky. Start by setting Speed to 16 and Multiplier to 2 or 4.

LFO 2

For beats that ride on the crash cymbal, consider that the cymbal is already vibrating when a drummer strikes it again. That initial "crack" that occurs when the cymbal is initially struck isn't as loud on subsequent hits. I set LFO 2 to Sample: Start and set Depth to a very small (e.g. less that 1) value.

Panning

I keep my crash cymbal slightly to the right. Ride cymbal far to the right. I set accent crash hits about half-way to the left. Successive hits of the normal crash on the right and then an accent on the left adds a whole bunch of depth to the mix.

Tune your samples

Adjust the trig note to match your scale. For kick, ideally to match your root note. A 5th above/below also sounds good.

Conditional Triggers

Fills

Setting a trig condition to FILL sets that trig to only fire when FILL mode is active. There are a few ways to activate FILL mode.

On-Demand

You can activate FILL mode at any time, and for any duration, by pressing and holding the [PAGE] key when the pattern is playing (GRID RECORDING mode cannot be active). The FILL mode is active for as long as the key is held.

One Pattern cycle

Press [YES] + [PAGE] to activate FILL mode for one pattern cycle. It will become active when the pattern loops, and remain active until it loops again.

Latch

Press and hold [PAGE] + [YES], and then release [PAGE] before you release [YES] to latch FILL mode. Press [PAGE] again to unlatch FILL mode.

Probability

Probability triggers are arguably the easiest way to add variation to your drum beats on Digitakt.

Setting COND to X% sets a probability condition. This means there is an X% chance the trig will fire. This is the easiest to understand but the least controllable. I don't use it much now that I've gotten accustomed to the other conditions.

Previous (PRE)

The PRE condition ties a trig's behavior to the trig immediately before it on the same track. A trig set to PRE will only fire if the previous conditional trig fired. This is useful for creating ghost notes or flams that only happen when a particular hit actually plays — so if you've got a probabilistic snare hit, a ghost note set to PRE will shadow it naturally rather than floating orphaned in the pattern.

Neighbor (NEI)

NEI works across tracks rather than within one. A trig set to PRE fires only if the most recently evaluated conditional trig on the previous track fired. For example, a trig on track 4 set to PRE will only fire if the last conditional trig on track 3 fired.

This lets you build inter-track dependencies — for example, a crash accent that only hits when a particular tom landed. Used carefully, PRE can make fills and accents feel like they're responding to each other the way a real drummer's limbs do.

Microtiming

This is a classic MIDI programming technique (it's the only one to be universally called "humanize"). No human can drum in perfect quantization.

Holding a trig button down and pressing < or > will shift the timing of your trigger to fire before/after it's quantized ("perfectly timed") position.

Even just a few fractions of a beat here and there can make a big difference. Be sure not to accidentally bump a trig on the first beat (i.e. Trig 1) to fire before the pattern starts, otherwise the first time through that trig will not fire.

Selective/Gated Muting

At the end of sections where the drums have dropped out, I like to mute all of the tracks but keep the next pattern playing. During the last few beats before your drums return begin unmuting tracks one or two at a time to "reveal" the drums. This creates a one-off "fill" that jives with the upcoming beat, but without needing to switch patterns to trigger.