Please talk me into selling my Digitone 2 and just using Drambo
Ok so I need some help here.
I have a Digitone 2, and annoyingly enough, it’s really good. Like, every time I think “maybe I should just sell this and focus on Drambo”, I turn it on and it immediately goes “hello, remember me, I sound expensive”. Digiton 2 really speaks to the heart, it's immediate and performance friendly.
But the thing is, I keep coming back to Drambo. It feels more like the weird little system I actually want to build. I like that it can be a sequencer, synth, sampler, fx box, modular rabbit hole, and general bad life decision all in one app.
I mostly make techno-ish stuff, and the idea of having one focused iPad setup with a controller is very appealing. Less gear, less cables, less “hmm maybe I need one more box”, hopefully more actual music. Maybe. Drambo takes just a tad more time to setup as a performance tool, but still very doable.
So yeah, please convince me that selling the Digitone 2 is the right thing to do. Tellme Drambo can basically cover that territory. Tell me I’m only keeping the Digitone because it has nice buttons and makes me feel like I have my life together. Tell me FM is just spicy math and Drambo can handle it somehow.
I’m not looking for a balanced discussion btw. I’m looking for friendly peer pressure. 😅
Comments
Friendly peer pressure???
Well, I don't have a Digitone 2 so I can't speak in that direction
however dRambo is the sequencer and now visual brain of my music rig.
I've been around music tech for awhile and when dRambo dropped (and I will always say it) I thought it was a joke
since then my iOS app purchases in regards to synths and effects have dropped to almost nil unless something really special comes along
because I can make quite a lot of the synths I can think of in Drambo now.
I have it rigged up with all of my synths and drum machines and Eurorack Modular rig
and I have a LaunchControl XL mkii and a LaunchPad X all connected.
It's an awesome midi router, problem solver, electronica instrument maker and
now I'm having fun using it in Reaper on my macbook together with my iPad to trigger my orchestral sounds.
So if you want to sell the Digitone 2 by all means go ahead however certainly get yourself
a midi controller and let dRambo open up the world of virtual modular for you.
Is that friendly enough???
I'\m Gravitas by the way. :)
Haha, that was perfect amount of friendly 😂
And yeah, I think this is what keeps pulling me towards Drambo. It’s not just “an app”, it’s more like a weird little music operating system. Sequencer, synth builder, midi brain, problem solver, fx mangler and all in one place.
I’m using an APC40 mk2 with Drambo at the moment and it already feels like I’m slowly building my own instrument. That’s probably what I like the most about it. Digitone 2 is lovely, but it’s still someone else’s box, if that makes sense. Drambo feels more like I can keep shaping it around the way I actually want to work.
How do you feel your external gear adds to Drambo? Like, do your synths and drum machines still bring something important to the setup, or are they more like extra flavour around Drambo being the main brain?
Nice to meet you Gravitas! I’m Martin :)
@bantheboy
"Haha, that was perfect amount of friendly 😂"
Sweet.
"And yeah, I think this is what keeps pulling me towards Drambo. It’s not just “an app”, it’s more like a weird little music operating system. Sequencer, synth builder, midi brain, problem solver, fx mangler and all in one place."
It certainly is all of that for sure.
"I’m using an APC40 mk2 with Drambo at the moment and it already feels like I’m slowly building my own instrument. That’s probably what I like the most about it. Digitone 2 is lovely, but it’s still someone else’s box, if that makes sense. Drambo feels more like I can keep shaping it around the way I actually want to work."
That's what happened with me when I first got a midi controller,
I was like wow, I can play actually play dRambo like and instrument and I say that because I primarily am a live musician.
By the time I had started my thread on "interfacing dRambo with Eurorack" I had already started shaping my rig with dRambo as the brain.
It still continues to shape itself around my rig, whenever I meet an obstacle I pull out dRambo because dRambo can do it.
"How do you feel your external gear adds to Drambo? Like, do your synths and drum machines still bring something important to the setup, or are they more like extra flavour around Drambo being the main brain?"
They are like extra flavour around dRambo being the brain.
There's also the added fun with the fact that I've created midi panels in dRambo for all of the external gear.
So dRambo does all of the midi and the effects on my external gear and it quite happily controls all my eurorack stuff as well.
It's a joy to use.
"Nice to meet you Gravitas! I’m Martin :)"
Likewise, I'm Ishmael though almost everyone on here calls me Gravitas. :)
You say it yourself: Drambo is like a "music operating system". I can fully resonate with that statement. You get sequencer, modular synths, groovebox and more. And superb support for many MIDI controllers that give you the hands-on feeling. I am using Drambo mostly with a Launchpad Mini MK3 and a Launchcontrol XL3. This is lots of fun! And you can scale your set up easily: Lots of controllers in the studio, a light setup for traveling and just the iPad on a flight, the sofa or in the bus - perfect! Personally I would pay a lot for Drambo being ported to other desktop OS (Linux or Windows).
I would say go ahead and sell your Digitone 2. You will get enough money to buy some nice MIDI controllers that suit your needs - and still have something left.
My view: You'd first make the decision, whatever it is, and then get along with it.
I have a DT and a DN Keys and I love them.
Could Drambo make the same sounds?
Sure it can! But that's not the point. Jamming and composing on hardware feels so different from touching a glass surface, at least to me. Might not matter as much when I have a certain musical or sound idea in my head already, then it's more about being fluent and fast with whatever tools I have at hand.
Elektron have a very specific way of designing user interfaces and although I don't like all of their decisions (bad knob response is one of them), it's different enough to make them keepers for me.
I must admit though that I certainly spend ten times more time with Drambo than with the elektrons.
And elektrons are not couch compatible.
Yeah, fair point about composing on real hardware. The tactile feeling you get from the Electron boxes is great, and when the key combination muscle memory kicks in you become really effective.
But I did actually get a pencil for my iPad, I think it help quite a lot with getting the iPad to be little bit more tactile. Almost like you are slowly "writing" your track with it.
I think it is settled. My DN2 will go out for sale. Thanks guys! 🙏😊
I didn't find the DN2 to be immediate enough to use over iOS. Also I love the more authentic recreation of old FM with Dixie. The nuance of the lookup table sound is just worth it.
I went DN2 => Virus TI => Just iOS. Drambo (and AUv3s) were just better for me with the flexibility and power. I do use hardware for sequencing though. Each person finds a different path.
I was thinking the same idea, but more about the Octatrack. I decided to keep them both.
-The feedback knob on the Operators sounds delicious and I’ve never heard another synth that sounds like that. It’s just perfect.
-The wave effects on the Wavetable osc do things no other synth does.
-The Wavetable Osc can use Syrum wavetables so it’s basically an infinite oscillator. I’ve got over 1000 wavetables to choose from.
-Audio rate modulation.
-Automation. The Digitone does P-locking but as far as I know does not do Automation.
-it’s the anything synthesizer. Want 16 lfos? You got it. Want 64 oscillators? Okay.
-Wavetable Lfo. Nothing does what it does.
-Macro Oscillator is straight out of Eurorack and is one of the best oscillators ever conceived BUT in Drambo it’s polyphonic and you can use as many of them as you want.
Digitone is great and all. Hands on is really all it has that Drambo doesn’t have and Drambo can run circles around its synthesis.