Brady's Studio: Playing the Digitakt's samples with the Arturia Keystep Pro's drum track

The Arturia Keystep Pro is a great midi controller, especially if you're getting started controlling multiple instruments and want to set up a sequence with them all playing together. Likewise, the Elektron Digitakt is a powerhouse sampler, recorder, and also performs quite well as a midi controller when it.
But I like the keyboard and rocker switch from Arturia, so I chose to put the two devices together, and immediately ran into some complexity figuring out how to drive the Digitakt's drum samples with the KeyStep.
Once I figured it out, I decided that'd be my first video in the "Brady's Studio" series, so here you go. Hope this helps you on your electronic music production journey!

[@romanyel]

Thanks. I'm going to try this with my new Circuit Rhythm but I doubt my current drum machine and all the sequences I have now will match up. Wish me luck.

[@soundofmai]

Just what I was looking for, thanks!

[@bradygaster]

glad it could help!

[@u.kustik9329]

exactly what I was looking for

[@Dolores5000]

Racking my brains over this! You are a genius!!!!

[@bradygaster]

Glad it helped!

[@thedeepblueskys]

Thanks man, I knew I could do this but I didn’t know how till now. The cool thing is I can still control my Digitone from the sequence button of that same green sequence lane, then alternate to the Digitakt by selecting the drum button. So it kinda gives me a 5th control lane. The only thing is I have to record the drums in the Digitakt’s sequencer if I wanna still sequence the Digitone with the KSP. Which is fine by me. So thanks again for the tip. Keep the hat btw, I dig it lol EDIT: also I noticed you can set up the drums like you show the video, plus set up the sequence button to play a selected sample on the Digitakt chromatically. In other words by switching between the Sequence and Drum buttons you can play either drums mapped across the keys or chromatic on the fly. I can easily switch my midi channel on the sequence button and to go back to playing my Digitone. Thats some dope options I didn’t have until today.

[@bradygaster]

Oh that's awesome, I don't have a digitone but that's a really cool idea. Thanks for watching! I need to get back into some of the production video work, the DJ videos have been too much fun recently. :)

[@thedeepblueskys]

@@bradygaster I understand, I used to be a camera operator. But yeah, it’s a nifty workflow with the music gear. Thanks again

[@Dolores5000]

THANK YOU!!!!!!🙏 ❤❤

[@lktlkt]

Thanks so much!!!!

[@peterpiek]

hey Brad. do you think its possible to run all 4 sequences from the Keystep on digitakt at the same time?

[@bradygaster]

not sure i know what you mean - the dt supports up to 8 midi instruments and 8 different samples. the keystep could control up to 4 different midi devices. i'd presume you'd want the first channel playing a drum sequencer, but, you could easily use the other 3 midi outputs going to 3 midi inputs on the dt, so the dt could record your midi signals as part of the track. would a video on that setup be valuable to folks?

[@Mortequal]

@@bradygaster Yes! Would be awesome if you could make a video with a setup like that.

[@gregoleksevic]

Exactly what I was looking for! Thanks for the tip🤜🤛

[@bradygaster]

oh so glad it could help! if you have any other ideas for future shows let me know!

[@thesmok1000]

thanks 😀

[@cvs5258]

Thank you. 🙏 Was stuck with that.

[@bradygaster]

sweet! glad to hear it helped. if there are any other videos or techniques you think i could help you grok, let me know.

[@horprodukt]

This REALLY helped me!!!! Followed your instructions and got the Keystep Pro and Digitakt linked up perfectly. Thank you.

[@bradygaster]

So glad to hear it was helpful! If you have any other things you’re trying that I can help with let me know in the comments.

[@horprodukt]

@@bradygaster actually yes.... Would be good to see how the 1.5 software version update on the Digitakt allows you to play more samples in chromatic mode and the slicing option.... So rather than be restricted to 8 sounds you can double it. It would be good to see how that works, along with the keystep pro

[@horprodukt]

Also....I haven't tried it, but can you change the parameters of a step during a sequence while using the keystep pro as the sequencer? If you use the step sequencer of the Digitakt you can change the parameters per step (called parameter locking) but would that work using the keystep pro as well?

[@bradygaster]

@@horprodukt so, you want to record a sequence on the KeyStep that plays the digitakt, but after it’s playing the sequence you want to edit the steps’ parameters - like gate time and velocity, for example - on the KeyStep pro? Note: you can totally do this by just pushing the step button down on the KeyStep pro for the step you want to impact and then turn the respective knob on the KeyStep. That won’t record those changes on the digitakt; you’d need to record your sequence into the digitakt memory as a digitakt sequence and then use the parameter lock knobs on the digitakt. Make sense? Totally a great idea for another video, though. That what you’re after?

[@horprodukt]

@@bradygaster hey Brady .... Yeah.....I like the step sequencer on the keystep pro but would like to have the filter change, for example, over the length of the sequence . At the moment I'm not sure if that should be done in the Digitakt or the keystep pro at the moment. Or the pros and cons of trying either.

[@159CHAPPELL]

Love the artwork in the background. Where did you get them ( the 4 grouped)👍👍👍👍

[@bradygaster]

Thanks! Most of them are a set of prints by Keith Haring. One of them is a poster from the original moogfest event in Asheville, NC about a decade ago. Another is a metal print of a nebula given to me by a colleague who does astrophotography. Thanks so much for the kind words!