Digitone Drums Tutorial

In this tutorial I'll explain how I make kicks, snares and hihats on the Digitone, and also how I quickly make variations. This tutorial has been on my mind for a very long time, and I finally found time to write notes and record a video!

0:00 Intro and general settings
3:41 Kicks
7:33 Snare
11:00 Hihats
14:20 Making a simple drum pattern
16:06 Variations on hihats
17:08 Variations on snares
22:43 Variations on kicks
28:10 Summary

I hope you find this video useful :). Thanks for watching!

Special thanks to my patrons Retentio Apocalypto, Stefan Tolksdorf, Xavier Shay, Kevin McAbee, Ethan Dinnen, Lying Dalai, Robin Sarac, Office Office, Markus Wüstenberg, Kenny Zhao, RShakya, Shren, matthew allred, Keith Thorne, 16AM, Christophe FROT, Lester Dizon, Paul Brogee, Douglas Port, Giampaolo Mancini, Steve Marshall, Russell Holzman, Lonnie Elliott, AgingSore, Jon Kjetil Øye, WhirlpoolS, Donovan Dwyer, Jason Meskiel, Wes Darling, Captain Clutch, Howard Anderson, Forvard26 ., Anthony Nazarov, Carsten Sorensen, Marcus Jang, Mattmarque, Aileen Paron, Ulf Bögeholz, POWERSTARS, Toby, Zoltan S, Bob Owens, Ultra Choice, Marco Joshua D Asuncion, Chanse Macabre, PlumWrinkles, Joshua Steele, Niels, Jase Vaughan, Thomas Erdmann, XC3N, dreamsaremaps, James Beeson, Gianfranco Cecconi, Kade Sullivan, Distreal, Sebastian Schmidt, Erik Suplicz, and Kevin Berg!

[bdTechno]

I like it when creators show you the finished sounds first, so you know if its worth watching the video. Sounds great mate

[JohnDoe-bmin]

Try 2 LFOs for a kick: one faster exp to pitch for the thump, another one slower linear (saw or ramp with negative depth) to pitch for the massive tail

[JeezVince]

Best vids for those synths. Outstanding.

[tonymahoeney]

i got my own digitone now, i will watch all your tutorials, probably multiple times as im a slow learner ;)

[monodux]

These are by far the most useful videos on the whole internet. Thanks Ivar!

[craxx]

Please, never stop releasing such beautiful content. I just ordered a Digitone and can't wait to finally start with what I've learnt from you.

[fully_privatized_mass_medium]

wow i honestly can't believe how much i learned from this video / thank you so much / keep up the amazing work, it's really appreciated

[Rolo_Thomas]

By far the most useful Digitone tutorial I’ve seen. Thank you for sharing your process and explaining your choices.

[RobbekenSynthMusic]

I don’t remember if I said it already, but thanks a lot for putting this together.

[nielsverhaegh]

Yess, thank you Ivar. Something to do for the Sunday morning 😊

[MilesKvndra]

Man, you're a hero! Although slowly getting better at sounddesign on the DN, percussive sounds are still hard for me. When creating percussive sounds in my eyes you have less sweet spots compared to leads, basssounds, arps or pads. So thanks a TON for this extremely helpful tutorial! 🙏

[howardanderson]

I really enjoy the Drum sounds in the Digitone, thanks for doing a tutorial on it.
I will be referencing this Tutorial a few times. Thanks!

[Gagarinprojectofficial]

you shall add "end results" example pattern :) would love to hear the final results of all beats

[slenski]

I've been waiting for this video :) thank you thank you! Have a good day bro

[forbesy]

Thank you so much for sharing your ninja techniques I would love to see you illustrate how you utilise midi thru and midi out together using the sequencer at some future time.thanks Ivar your the man.

[GeorgeL]

This was actually super useful for the Syntakt too. With similar sculpting techniques you can get a harder hitting snare than any of the Syntakt snare machines by using sy tone! Similarly sy bits makes a mean kick drum with the lfo and filter settings you talked about in the vid. Super useful. If you did a Syntakt version I'd watch the heck out of it.

[aki_gong]

Can you do Macros? Meaning, can you control several parameters from a sigle encoder?

[kevinbraiden]

Me - "Sweet kick!'
Ivar - "That sounds stupid".
Me - :(

Seriously though this was exactly what I was looking for. Thanks for this.

[davidsattar]

Thank you so much!!! You are so inspiring. <3

[robertsyrett]

I actually had no idea there was filter tracking on the Digitone! Also, I have no idea why that would be a global parameter. I might want it for a pad but not a funky bass, etc. Maybe in a future firmware :\