How it’s organised · Digitakt II guide

3.1IntermediateManual §4 p.15, §4.1 p.15, §4.2 p.15

Sound architecture

Knowing the order things happen in takes the guesswork out of sound design: it explains why overdrive before the filter differs from overdrive after it, and where the effects pick up their signal. The Digitakt II has 16 stereo audio voices, three send effects (chorus, delay and reverb) and two master effects (a compressor and a master overdrive).

Inside one audio voice

Stage	What happens	Where you set it
1. Source	The track’s SRC machine plays its sample.	`SRC` page — The SRC page
2. Bit reduction, overdrive, sample rate reduction	Lo-fi and drive: `BR`, `OVER` and `SRR`. `OD.RT` puts the overdrive before (PRE) or after (POST) the filter machine, and `ROUT` puts SRR before or after the filter section.	`FX` page — The FX page
3. Filter section	The selectable filter machine plus the base-width filter (a high-pass and a low-pass in series). `BW.RT` sets whether the base-width filter comes before or after the filter machine. A filter envelope shapes the filter over time.	`FLTR` pages — The FLTR pages
4. Amp	The amp envelope shapes the volume over time; `PAN` places the voice in the stereo field and `VOL` sets its level.	`AMP` page — The AMP page
5. Track level	The track’s main level.	LEVEL/DATA or the internal mixer pages — Internal mixer
6. Out	The voice feeds the mixer, and its own send amounts feed the chorus, delay and reverb.	`CHR`, `DEL` and `REV` on the `FX` page

After the voices: effects and master section

The 16 voices meet in the mixer, along with audio from the IN L/R inputs and from USB (External mixer, Audio routing).
Each track — and the inputs — sends its own amount to the chorus, delay and reverb, and their returns come back into the mixer.
The effects can feed one another: the chorus can send to the delay and the reverb, and the delay can send to the reverb (Chorus, Delay, Reverb).
The compressor sits between the mixer and OUT L/R. COMPRESSOR ROUTING in the SETUP menu decides which tracks, inputs and effects it processes (Compressor, The SETUP menu: kit and track settings).
The master overdrive (MOVD on the FX MIXER page) sets the overall amount of overdrive for the audio tracks in the kit (FX mixer).

From the community

Digitakt II — At A Glance
Elektron
A short official tour of sampling, machines, effects and the sequencer.

3.2BasicsManual §5 p.16, §5.1 p.16, §5.2.1 p.16, §5.2.2 p.16, §5.2.3 p.16, §5.2.4 p.16, §5.2.5 p.16, §5.2.6 p.17

Projects, songs, patterns, kits, presets and samples

Everything you make lives in a simple hierarchy. The +Drive is your library; a project is your working session; the patterns inside it hold the sequences and sounds you play. Knowing what sits where tells you what you need to save, and what changes when you switch patterns.

Each kind of data

+Drive: The built-in non-volatile storage. It holds up to 128 projects and 1024 kits, all your saved presets, and a sample bank for up to 20 GB of your own samples that every project can use.
Project: Your working session: up to 128 patterns plus general settings and states. Loading a project makes it the active working state, and the Digitakt II boots straight back into it every time you switch on. Save, load and manage projects in the SETTINGS menu (Projects: load, save and manage).
Song: An arrangement of patterns played in sequence. Each row has its own pattern, row repeat, row length, tempo and mute settings. A song can be up to 99 rows long, and each project holds up to 16 songs (Song mode).
Pattern: The main container. There are 8 banks of 16 patterns, so 128 per project. A pattern holds its kit — up to 16 presets, one per audio track — the sequencer data for all 16 tracks, such as trigs and parameter locks, the TRIG page settings, and its BPM, length, swing and time signature (Patterns and banks).
Kit: A collection of 16 presets, one for each track in a pattern. Each pattern has one kit (The PRESET/KIT menu).
Preset: One track’s sound. For an audio track it’s a sample plus every setting on the SRC, FLTR, AMP, FX and MOD pages; for a MIDI track it’s the SRC, FLTR, AMP and MOD settings. MIDI presets are saved, loaded and managed the same way as audio ones. The +Drive library holds up to 2048 presets, which you manage with the PRESET MANAGER (The PRESET/KIT menu).
Pool: Part of each project, holding up to 128 presets and 1016 samples (The +Drive library and the pool).
Sample: Audio stored in the +Drive sample bank. A project can load up to 400 MB of samples — about 72 minutes in mono or 36 minutes in stereo — across at most 1016 sample slots. Record samples on the Digitakt II itself (Recording a sample) or send them from a computer with Elektron Transfer (Transferring samples to and from a computer).
Track: Each pattern has 16 tracks, and each one can be an audio track or a MIDI track (Audio tracks, MIDI tracks and machines).

Capacities

What	How many
Projects on the +Drive	128
Kits on the +Drive	1024
Presets in the +Drive library	2048
Your own samples in the +Drive sample bank	Up to 20 GB
Patterns per project	128 (8 banks × 16)
Songs per project	16
Rows per song	99
Kits per pattern	1
Tracks per pattern	16, each audio or MIDI
Presets per kit	16
Presets in a project’s pool	128
Sample slots per project	1016
Sample memory per project	400 MB (about 72 min mono or 36 min stereo)

3.3BasicsManual §5.3 p.17, §5.3.1 p.17, §5.3.2 p.17, §5.3.3 p.17

Audio tracks, MIDI tracks and machines

Every one of the 16 sequencer tracks can be an audio track or a MIDI track. Audio tracks play samples through the internal sound engine; MIDI tracks sequence your other instruments. What decides it is the SRC machine on the track.

Audio track: The default for every track. It holds one sample plus the settings on the TRIG, SRC, FLTR, AMP, FX and MOD pages. Any track with an SRC machine other than MIDI counts as an audio track.
MIDI track: Makes no sound itself: its sequencer data goes out through MIDI OUT or USB to control external MIDI gear. Each MIDI track can play chords of up to four notes with adjustable settings such as velocity and length, control pitch bend and aftertouch, and send 16 freely assignable MIDI CCs (The MIDI machine: sequencing external gear).
Machine: A module inside the Digitakt II with a specific job — a sample playback engine or a filter, for example. You can swap a machine for another in the same category, and each one brings its own set of parameters suited to it (The SRC page, Filter machines).

MIDI tracks work almost like audio tracks

Parameter locks, LFO modulation and copy and paste all work.
Each MIDI track has micro timing, and its own track length and time signature settings.
Any MIDI channel can be assigned to a MIDI track, and several tracks can share a channel. If they clash over a parameter, the lowest-numbered track wins.

Turn a track into a MIDI track

Select the track with TRK + TRIG 1–16.
Press FUNC + SRC to open the MACHINE menu.
Use LEFT/RIGHT to go to the SRC machine category.
Use UP/DOWN to highlight the MIDI machine.
Press YES to assign it to the track.

Key combinations

FUNC + SRC: Opens the MACHINE menu.
PARAMETER: Opens that parameter page for the active track.

What each PARAMETER page holds

Page	Audio track	MIDI track
`TRIG PARAMETERS`	Trig settings such as `NOTE` and `VELOCITY`	Trig settings such as `NOTE` and `VELOCITY`
`SRC`	Parameters for the selected SRC machine	Settings such as `CHANNEL`, `PROGRAM` and `AFTERTOUCH`
`FLTR`	The selected filter/EQ machine and the base-width filter	CC value and CC select settings for CC 1–8
`AMP`	The amp envelope	CC value and CC select settings for CC 9–16
`FX`	Bit reduction, overdrive, sample rate reduction and the send effect levels	Empty
`MOD`	Three LFOs	Two LFOs

Turn DATA ENTRY knobs A–H to edit the parameters shown above them — press and turn for bigger steps — and hold a PARAMETER key to see every value on that page. Each page is covered in Editing track parameters and The MOD pages (LFOs).

3.4BasicsManual §9 p.29, §9.1 p.29, §9.1.1 p.29, §5.1 p.16

The +Drive library and the pool

Digitakt II keeps sounds in two places, and knowing which is which explains what happens to your edits and which sounds you can switch on individual steps. The +Drive library is the big shared store that every project can reach: presets, kits and samples all live there. The pool belongs to a single project — a short list of presets plus the samples loaded to that project, held in Project RAM.

Loading copies; it doesn’t link. When you load a preset or kit into a pattern, the pattern gets its own independent copy. Whatever you change afterwards affects only that copy in the active pattern — the original in the library stays as it was until you export your version back to the +Drive with a save (Saving a preset, The PRESET/KIT menu).

Library versus pool

	+Drive library	Pool
Scope	Shared by every project	Part of one project, held in Project RAM
Presets	Up to 2048, in 8 banks (A–H) of 256	Up to 128
Kits	Stored here (up to 1024)	Adding a kit to the pool adds its 16 presets
Samples	All samples; the +Drive is 20 GB in total	The samples loaded to the project: up to 400 MB (about 72 minutes mono or 36 minutes stereo) across 1016 slots
Load presets into a pattern	Yes	Yes
Preset locks	No	Yes — the main reason to use the pool
Sample locks	No — import the sample to the pool first	Yes
MIDI presets	Yes	No — they can’t be added to the pool

What each container holds

Pattern: The main container. It holds a kit, the sequencer data (trigs and parameter locks) for all 16 tracks, the TRIG page settings, and the BPM, length, swing and time signature settings. A project has 8 banks of 16 patterns — 128 in all.
Kit: 16 presets (audio or MIDI, one per track) plus the LEVEL settings for the audio tracks and the pattern, the compressor and master distortion settings, compressor routing, control all settings and send FX settings.
Preset: On an audio track: a sample linked from the +Drive plus every setting on the SRC, FLTR, AMP, FX and MOD pages. On a MIDI track: the SRC, FLTR, AMP and MOD page settings. Any preset can go on any of the 16 tracks.
Sample: A 16-bit, 48 kHz audio file, mono or stereo.

Add presets to the pool

Press PRESET/KIT to open the PRESET/KIT menu.
Highlight MANAGE under PRESET and press YES to open the PRESET MANAGER.
Highlight a preset you want in the pool and press YES to select it. Repeat for each preset.
Press LEFT to open the PRESET SORTING menu.
Highlight ADD TO PRESET POOL and press YES.

For how projects, patterns and kits fit together across the whole instrument, see Projects, songs, patterns, kits, presets and samples.

From the community

Preset Pool vs Sample PoolElektronauts — Clears up the most common Digitakt I-to-II confusion: when to use presets and when to use samples.