A new SRC machine for the Digitakt (mk1): DIGISLICER, the SLICE machine with a slice editor. Slice a sample where you want, auto-slice it on its transients or on an equal grid, watch it play, and play each slice from the sequencer and the trig keys. There is no need to save a sliced copy to the +Drive first.

It is an elekloader mod for OS 1.53 and 1.54, a file for each. elekloader builds a custom OS file on your own machine, from your stock OS file and the mods you pick; nothing from Elektron is distributed.

• The DIGISLICER machine. Pick it as any machine: FUNC + SRC, then DIGISLICER, below SLICE, in the list.
  • Its SRC page is SLICE's, and it plays everything SLICE plays: GRID, SLICE, LEN, slice locks.
  • Press SRC again for its waveform view: the slice editor, on the track's sample. SRC, NO or another page key takes you back.
  • The editor opens on the sample's own slices if it has some, and on AUTO's otherwise.
• Your slices play everywhere. A sample with its own slices plays them on every DIGISLICER track that uses it, whatever GRID says. SLICE, the keyboard and slice locks pick from them.
• They are kept. A second after you close the editor, the slices are saved to the +Drive per sample (by content, so they follow the sample into every project). They live in /cfw/slices.a and /cfw/slices.b; a /cfw folder appears in the sample browser.
• GRID = AUTO. On DIGISLICER, GRID goes one past 64 to AUTO: slices on the sample's transients, for samples with no slices of their own.
• PLAY = PIPO. On DIGISLICER, PLAY goes one past FWD to PIPO, the Octatrack's ping-pong loop.
  • The slice plays forward, then backward, then forward again, for as long as the note lasts. Each note starts forward.
  • It works on GRID's slices, AUTO's and your own, and across the slices LEN spans.
  • The SRC page shows it as |<-->|.
• The keyboard plays the slices. Turn the keyboard on (FUNC + TRK) on a DIGISLICER track, and the trig keys work as the Octatrack's trig slice mode:
  • Trig 1 plays slice 1, trig 2 slice 2, and so on, whatever SLICE is set to. Each plays at the track's pitch: TUNE moves it, the key does not.
  • The trig keys of the sample's slices light up, every fourth one blue; with fewer than 16 slices, the rest stay dark and silent.
  • UP / DOWN go to slices 17-32, 33-48 and 49-64, as far as the sample has slices. The popup and the keyboard menu (FUNC + TRK held) count its pages (Slice Page: 2/3).
  • Live recording (REC + PLAY) records each key as a trig with a slice lock, which plays that slice at the track's NOTE, as a slice lock entered on the grid does. STEP REC (REC + STOP, then FUNC + a trig key) records the same at the cursor.
  • With the keyboard off, or on any other machine, the trig keys work as ever.
• The stock SLICE machine is left as it is. Your slices, AUTO, PIPO and the editor are DIGISLICER's only.
  • A track you switch from DIGISLICER to SLICE keeps its PLAY setting, as the Digitakt keeps PLAY across machines. So a PIPO track keeps showing PIPO, and plays it as FWD, until you turn PLAY.
• Kits keep it. A project saved with DIGISLICER tracks loads back with them. It needs core 2.1, which holds the machine slots that DIGISLICER and other added machines (such as digineighbor's NEIGHBOR) share.
• On stock firmware, or a build without digislicer, a DIGISLICER track loads as ONESHOT: the Digitakt turns machines it doesn't know into ONESHOT.

From 1.x: SLICE tracks that used your own slices, AUTO or PIPO play as stock SLICE now. Switch them to DIGISLICER (FUNC + SRC): your slices are still on the +Drive and play there at once.

The cursor works as the Octatrack's waveform marker. It is an I-beam on the waveform.

• It sits on the selected slice's start, and jumps there whenever you select a slice or move its start.
• LEVEL moves it anywhere: a view column at a time when turned slowly, faster when turned faster. The waveform scrolls to keep it an eighth of the screen from the edge.
• Knob D zooms around it.
• YES then offers ADD SLICE HERE.

The screen:

• The two bottom rows name what the knobs do, laid out as the knobs are, like the stock parameter pages:
  • A:SEL B:MOVE C:FINE D:ZOOM X on the upper row;
  • LVL:CURSOR with the cursor's position, and H:ZOOM Y under D, on the lower row.
• The top row shows the selected slice and how many there are, the sample slot, and the trig keys' page (P2-P4).
• The line under the top row is the whole sample, as on the Octatrack. The solid part of it is the part in view.
• The slider right of the waveform fills as knob H makes the waveform taller, as on the Octatrack.
• The playhead shows where the sample is playing, whether from the pattern, the trig keys or anything else. It moves as it plays, back and forth with PIPO.
  • A line through the waveform marks where each track playing the sample is.
  • A tick on the line under the top row marks where that is in the whole sample, even when the view is zoomed elsewhere.
  • It goes when the note ends.

The slice menu (YES): UP / DOWN or knob A choose, YES does it, NO backs out.

• ADD SLICE HERE: a new slice starts at the cursor, and is selected. As on the Octatrack, it is listed only when a slice can start there: not on or within 64 samples of a start or of the end, and not with 64 slices already.
• SPLIT SLICE: cuts the selected slice at its middle.
• DELETE SLICE: removes it; its start joins the slice before.
• AUTO SLICE: slices on the sample's transients.
• CREATE GRID : n equal slices (LEFT / RIGHT: 4, 8, 16, 32, 64), each start moved back to a zero crossing.
• DELETE ALL: the sample goes back to plain GRID playback.

At most 64 slices a sample.

You need three things:

• elekloader:
  • Windows: download elekloader-<version>-windows.zip from elekloader's releases, unzip it and run elekloader.exe. The core mod, which every linkable mod needs, is built in.
  • Other systems: run elekloader from source with Python 3.9 or newer (see its README). There you also need core 2.1 for your OS, core-2.1.elemod (1.53) or core-2.1-os1.54.elemod (1.54), which are attached to this repository's releases too.
  • digislicer 2.0 and later need core 2.1 or later (its machine slots). The Windows app builds with the core it bundles, so it needs a release with core 2.1, and for OS 1.54 elekloader 0.4.0 or later.
• This mod, from this repository's releases: digislicer-2.1.elemod for OS 1.53, digislicer-2.1-os1.54.elemod for OS 1.54. They are the same mod.
• The stock OS file your unit runs: Digitakt_OS1.54.syx or Digitakt_OS1.53.syx, from Elektron's Digitakt downloads. elekloader recognises it by its hash, and refuses a mod file made for the other OS.

Then build your OS in elekloader's window:

1. Change stock firmware... (top right): choose your stock OS file.
2. + Install from file...: choose the digislicer file for that OS. From source, install its core the same way.
3. Tick digislicer. core is ticked with it. The check below the list should say "No conflicts ... Ready to build". To add digihealth (FAST AUDIO and SYSTEM INFO), install and tick it as well.
4. OS version shown: the 4 characters the unit will show, for example DS21.
5. BUILD FIRMWARE, and save the .syx. elekloader verifies it before writing it.

Flash it with Elektron Transfer, as for any OS update (Elektron's instructions):

1. Connect the unit over USB.
2. In Transfer, select the unit and Connect.
3. Drag the .syx onto Drop files here.
4. Press YES on the unit.

Don't turn it off until the upgrade is done.

Or on the command line (elekloader from source):

python -m elekloader.patch --stock Digitakt_OS1.54.syx \
    --mod core-2.1-os1.54.elemod --mod digislicer-2.1-os1.54.elemod \
    --out Digitakt_OS1.54-slicer.syx --version DS21

Recovery: elekloader never changes the bootloader, so the stock OS file always restores the unit. Hold FUNC while powering on for the startup menu, and press TRIG 4 for OS UPGRADE. Then send the stock .syx with Transfer's legacy OS upgrade mode.

The Digitakt mk1 cross toolchain (m68k binutils and gcc; on Debian or Ubuntu, apt install binutils-m68k-linux-gnu gcc-m68k-linux-gnu; on Windows, inside WSL) and elekloader:

python -m elekloader.sdk.build . --stock Digitakt_OS1.53.syx       # -> out/digislicer-2.1.elemod
python -m elekloader.sdk.build . --stock Digitakt_OS1.54.syx       # -> out/digislicer-2.1-os1.54.elemod
python -m elekloader.lint out/digislicer-2.1-os1.54.elemod --stock Digitakt_OS1.54.syx --with core-2.1-os1.54.elemod

These checks ran in digikit's emulator, which runs the stock OS and the mods through the real bootloader.

• Against the build it came from: the mod is the tested custom build 1.8J split into mods. Linked with core and digihealth, it gives the same state as 1.8J at every step of the editor tests: open, select, zoom, move, split, delete, the menu (CREATE GRID, DELETE ALL), the arrows and the audition windows.
• A cold boot of core + digislicer against stock: every screen is identical. The audio is identical, apart from one 1 ms block of silence at the end of the recording: the hook bus changes the UI task's timing by a few instructions, and core alone does the same.
• A cold boot of core + digihealth + digislicer against 1.8J: a slicer script (GRID to AUTO, the SRC page, trigs, then the pattern playing). The audio is identical for 20.9 s. The last, silent 51 ms differ by under 0.05 of a 16-bit step (RMS).
• On a unit: the editor, its slices playing on the pattern, the arrows and the trig-key audition were tried on a Digitakt mk1 in the custom builds this mod comes from.
• 1.1 (the smooth zoom and the knob labels):
  • Knob A gets the same events and filter state as in 1.0, event for event.
  • Knob D zooms 3/8 of an octave a notch, to the deepest zoom and back.
  • At every zoom level tried, each slice start is drawn in the column whose waveform holds it.
  • The editor, menu and arrow tests pass: split, delete, the menu, the audition windows, the store on the +Drive, and the arrows. B moves a start one view column at a time, so its steps now follow the finer zoom.
  • A cold boot of core + digislicer 1.1 against 1.0: every screen and the audio are identical.
  • Not yet tried on a unit.
• 1.2 (the vertical zoom, the view line and the slider; the cursor and ADD SLICE HERE):
  • On every frame of a test that zooms D in and out, then H up to 64 times and back, each slice start, the view line and the slider are exactly where they should be.
  • The cursor:
    • LEVEL moves it six view columns a notch, and leaves the selected slice alone.
    • D zooms around it.
    • Scrolled right, the view keeps it an eighth of the view from the edge, and it is drawn in its column with its I-beam.
  • ADD SLICE HERE:
    • It is listed only off a slice start.
    • It adds the slice at the cursor, in order, and selects it.
    • The slice plays at once (the slot's table is republished), and is stored on the +Drive when the editor closes.
  • The labels: in two rows, as the knobs are laid out; the frame checks above ran on this layout.
  • H leaves the view alone, and D leaves H's zoom alone. Back at no zoom, the screen is the one before, pixel for pixel.
  • Knob A steps exactly as the firmware's filter does for the events it gets, as in 1.1.
  • The editor, menu and arrow tests pass.
  • A cold boot against 1.0: every screen and the audio are identical.
  • Not yet tried on a unit.
• 2.0 (the DIGISLICER machine, with PIPO and the playhead; SLICE back to stock). Linked with core 2.1, alone, with digihealth, and with digihealth and digineighbor 0.6.
  • The machine menu: FUNC + SRC lists DIGISLICER below SLICE (and NEIGHBOR, when installed, between them), with its icon. The cursor follows the machine, and the list scrolls to it, when stepping and on opening. Choosing it sets the sound's machine to 5; the render takes it as SLICE, and core records it as 5.
  • The SRC page is SLICE's, titled DIGISLICER, then DSLC: <sample>. YES opens SLICE's slice-lock menu.
  • The editor: SRC opens it on the track's sample; SRC and NO take the page back to its parameters; TRIG closes it and goes to the TRIG page. The editor, menu, arrow, cursor and vertical zoom tests pass on a DIGISLICER track.
    • The arrow and cursor tests give exactly 1.2's results.
    • The others differ from 1.2 only in how far knob turns went: A's steps in the menu and vertical zoom tests, and D's zoom (then the positions B moved a start to) in the editor and menu tests.
    • In the emulator, how its fixed knob notches group into events depends on the UI's timing. In the editor test, D's counts reached the editor as 4+4+4+4+8, where 1.2 got 8+4+4+4.
  • The playhead, with the pattern playing PIPO on unequal slices and LEN 2, then zoomed in, then after STOP (FAST AUDIO off and on):
    • On every frame, the tick and the line are where the voice was when the editor drew them.
    • With FWD, it shows while each note plays and is gone between notes.
  • PIPO on DIGISLICER: the samples are replaced with sawtooths, one ramp per 1/64 of the sample, so the voice's direction shows in its output, taken straight from the render.
    • Each note ping-pongs within its slice, with FAST AUDIO off and on, on track 1 and on tracks 2-8's voices.
    • At a turn the output steps at most 1.16 times the ramp's own step, at TUNE 0, +12 and +24. At -12 the output's own steps alternate between about 0.3 and 1.7 times their median, and each turn stays within that.
    • Nowhere else does it step more than 3 times the ramp's own step.
    • The same holds for your own slices of unequal lengths, for AUTO's, and for LEN set on the SRC page to 2 or 3 slices. The voice turns at the end of the last slice LEN covers, and at the first slice's start, and never jumps.
    • Between notes, a trig's locks reach the voice a block (0.67 ms) before its note starts, while the old note fades out. That block plays on in the old note's slice and direction.
    • A watch on every read of both voices' PLAY during playback finds no reader left unpatched.
  • SLICE is stock: PLAY stops at FWD and GRID at 64 on a SLICE track, and a SLICE track plays the stock grid even for a sample with its own slices.
  • Loading: the firmware's sound loader, run on its own, keeps a stored machine 5 (and 4 when digineighbor is installed); an unknown one becomes ONESHOT, as on stock.
  • On stock firmware: a voice whose PLAY is PIPO plays sample for sample what FWD plays.
  • Cold boots against stock (core 2.1 alone, and with digislicer and the others): the check's nine screens are identical, pixel for pixel. The audio is identical, or 1 ms longer at its silent end: the timing effect above.
  • Not yet tried on a unit.
• 2.1 (the keyboard's trig slice mode). In the emulator, from a snapshot of a pattern playing on a SLICE track: track 1 switched to DIGISLICER in the machine menu, GRID set to 32 and SLICE to 5 (and, in another run, left on the keyboard icon), the keyboard turned on with FUNC + TRK.
  • The keys: trig keys 1, 2 and 16 play slices 1, 2 and 16; after UP, trig 16 plays slice 32. Each note reaches the voice with SLICE = 0 and picks its slice by the note, in both runs.
  • The LEDs (what the panel is sent): all 16 keys lit with 32 slices, keys 1, 5, 9 and 13 blue. With the sample's own 6 slices, keys 1-6 lit and 7-16 dark, and trig 7 plays nothing. With AUTO, the keyboard counts AUTO's slices for the track's sample.
  • The pages: UP shows Slice Page: 2/2, and a second UP stays on page 2. A page left past the last one (page 2, then a sample with 6 slices) reads as page 1: keys 1-6 lit, and UP shows Slice Page: 1/1. The keyboard menu shows SLICE PAGE: 2/2 after UP, and keeps it on a second UP. (Stock firmware, on the same track as SLICE with FOLD off, shows its octave line there.)
  • Live recording: a key recorded during REC + PLAY becomes a trig on the nearest step with a slice lock of its slice and the track's NOTE. The pattern then plays that slice on that step every time round.
  • STEP REC: FUNC + trig 3 records a trig at the cursor with a slice lock of 3.
  • Unchanged: with the keyboard off, trig 9 plays track 9 as on stock. On a ONESHOT track with the keyboard on, the keys keep stock's piano layout (keys 1, 4 and 8 dark) and trig 9 plays note 60, with no slice lock. With the keyboard on, the slice editor's trig keys still audition its slices: only the keyboard's own notes get the slice lock (the firmware's trig preview and a view that plays note 60 use the same note path, and are told apart the same way).
  • The patched sites were checked by a second reader against the firmware's code: the bytes each replaces, nothing branching into them, and every register, flag and stack slot the code after them uses.
  • Cold boots against stock (with core 2.1; with digihealth; with digihealth and digineighbor 0.6): the check's screens are identical, pixel for pixel, and the audio is identical apart from 1 ms at its silent end, as for 2.0.
  • Not yet tried on a unit.
• OS 1.54 (the same mod, with 1.54's addresses), in the emulator:
  • core + digislicer 2.1 against stock 1.54: every stage passes, and the check's nine screens are identical.
  • core + digihealth + digineighbor + digislicer for 1.54 against the same four for 1.53, through the same scripts: DIGISLICER chosen in the machine menu (after NEIGHBOR, with its icon), its SRC page, GRID to AUTO and PLAY to PIPO, the keyboard's trig slice mode and its pages; and the NEIGHBOR, FAST AUDIO and SYSTEM INFO scripts. Every screen is identical between the two, but for SYSTEM INFO's readout, whose two pages alternate at different moments. The emulator's cold boot has no samples, so these runs play silence: they check the screens and that nothing sounds, not the audio of a playing sample.
  • So the editor, your slices and their playback have not been run on 1.54: the same code, with addresses found again in 1.54 (each by its own bytes and by the code that calls it). Not yet tried on a unit.

GPL-2.0-or-later. digislicer is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. It is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details: LICENSE holds version 2.

Not affiliated with Elektron. Digitakt is a trademark of Elektron. Custom firmware is at your own risk.