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▘ ▝ m k 2 · m o d
New machines for the Elektron Digitone II, built from your own copy of Elektron's OS.
The Digitone II ships with five machines. This mod adds three families more, running on the instrument's own DSP and sitting in MACHINE SEL beside the stock ones:
- The Digitakt II's sample machines: ONESHOT, WERP, STRETCH, REPITCH, GRID and SLICE, with the DT2's own sample engine, its pages, sample list and browser, a recorder, and your WAVs sent over USB and kept on the +Drive.
- PERC, the Machinedrum: the MD's TRX, EFM, GND and P-I machines (34 of them) from the Machinedrum's own firmware, with its track effects.
- The Monomachine, polyphonic: SID 6581, DPRO WAVE, DPRO DDRW, DPRO DENS and VO-6, from the Monomachine's own firmware, drawn as the Monomachine draws them. The Monomachine played one note per track; here every note gets its own voice, so they play chords.
Everything else on the instrument works as stock: the stock machines, the sequencer, projects, presets and kits.
Not made or supported by Elektron. This is unofficial firmware. You flash it at your own risk. Back up your +Drive first, every time.
Contents: What's in it · Install · Going back, and recovery · Compatibility · Known limitations · How it's made and tested · Versions · Credits · Licence
Machine types ONESHOT, WERP, STRETCH, REPITCH, GRID and SLICE, on the DT2's two SRC pages.
- The DT2's sample engine: its interpolator and decimator, STRETCH's time-stretch, WERP's clock, no clicks at starts, ends and retriggers.
- SLICE: up to 64 slices from your WAV's cue points, a grid, or its hits; its own menu (YES on the page): EDIT SLICE POINTS, CREATE SLICE GRID; the slice editor ([FUNC] + [RIGHT] splits, [FUNC] + [LEFT] removes); slices on the [TRIG] keys in KEYBOARD.
- GRID: ALLOCATE SLICE (linear or random slice locks on the track's trigs).
- The sample list and browser: turn SAMP and the list opens with each slot's long name; [FUNC] + [YES] opens the browser, folders and SAMPLE ACTION (load, rename, delete, select all), as the DT2's.
- The recorder ([FUNC] + [VOICE]): IN, MAIN or any track; the DT2's TRIM, NAME and ASSIGN steps; recordings kept across power cycles.
- Your samples: up to 122 slots and 400 MB, sent from the computer with the
in-browser import tool or
tools/dn2samples.py, kept on the +Drive and loaded at power-on (docs/sampler.md). - Modulation: an LFO on SAMP or SLCE steps through your loaded samples or slices.
One machine, TYPE choosing among the Machinedrum's TRX, EFM, GND and P-I machines. Each is a port of the MD's own code from its firmware (you supply the MD's OS file), checked sample for sample against it. Page 1: the machine's eight parameters, named as on the MD. Page 2: TYPE and the MD's track effects (AMD, AMF, EQF, EQG, FLTF, FLTW, FLTQ). TYPE is p-lockable.
SID 6581, DPRO WAVE, DPRO DDRW, DPRO DENS and VO-6, each its own machine type, ported from the Monomachine's firmware (you supply its OS file). Their pages are drawn as the Monomachine's, choice knobs move one choice a few detents, and each is levelled to sit beside the stock machines.
Polyphonic. The Monomachine was monophonic: six tracks, one note each. Here a Monomachine track is a Digitone II track, so each note takes its own voice from the DN2's 16 (VOICE SETUP as for any track): chords and overlapping notes on SID, the DigiPROs and VO-6. How many sound at once is set by DSP time; VO-6, the heaviest, costs about 7 % of it a voice.
- A CPU guard: if the DSP runs short of time, our voices are left out for a block (newest notes first, finished voices free) instead of the audio stopping, and the page shows CPU while it happens.
- Stock questions stay stock's: the OS update and save questions take their keys on every page.
You need a Digitone II on OS 1.11, Chrome or Edge, a USB cable, Elektron Transfer, and your own copies of these Elektron OS files (the patcher asks for them; nothing of Elektron's is published here):
- Digitone II OS 1.11 (the one it patches)
- Digitakt II OS 1.17 (the sample engine's tables)
- Machinedrum UW OS 1.63 (PERC's machines)
- Monomachine SFX-6/60 OS 1.32B, Elektron's
Elektron_SFX6-60_OS1.32B.syx(the Monomachine machines)
Then:
- Back up your projects, presets and samples with Transfer.
- Prove recovery once with stock 1.11 over a DIN MIDI cable (Going back, and recovery). Until this has worked once, flash nothing modified.
- Open the DN2 Mod Patcher, pick a version, give it your OS files. It builds the firmware in your browser (a few minutes) and lets you save it only if it is byte for byte the version that passed the gate.
- Send the saved
.syxto the Digitone with Transfer, at low volume, as any OS update. - Run the regression check (
docs/SAFETY.md, about 10 minutes): the stock machines, effects, a pattern, a p-lock, save and reload. Then the version's own tests inFIRMWARE.md.
To send samples: the import tool (Chrome or Edge, USB CONFIG set to USB MIDI or Overbridge, Transfer closed).
- Back to stock: send Elektron's own
Digitone_II_OS1.11.syxwith Transfer, as any update. - If it will not boot: hold [FUNC] while powering on, press [TRIG 4], and send stock 1.11 with Transfer's Legacy OS upgrade mode over a 5-pin DIN MIDI cable to the Digitone's MIDI IN (USB does not work in this mode). It takes about 12 minutes; do not interrupt it. The mod never touches the bootstrap that runs this, and the build tool refuses any file that would.
docs/SAFETY.md lists every way a flash could harm a Digitone II and what stops each one.
- Digitone II OS 1.11 only. Every address is measured on 1.11; the tools refuse any
other file. A unit on 1.10 updates to stock 1.11 first; one on 1.12 goes back to 1.11
(
docs/SAFETY.md). - Projects, presets and kits are stock's formats. Projects that use the mod's machines need the mod to play those tracks; back them up before going back to stock.
- Your samples live in a region of the +Drive stock never uses; stock firmware ignores it.
- DSP time. The Machinedrum and Monomachine machines cost far more DSP than the stock ones. With many of them sounding at once the CPU guard leaves voices out (CPU shows), and heavy use with dynamic voice allocation can still cut the sound out. Locking each heavy track to one voice helps. Making this solid is the current priority.
- Power-on load time grows with the samples you keep (about 30 s for 20 MB).
- The open reports, and what each version fixes, are in
FIRMWARE.mdanddocs/user-reports.md.
The mod is built by a Python tool from Elektron's files, as patches to the ColdFire's code
and the DSP's image. No build is published until scripts/ship_gate.py prints
CLEARED TO FLASH on that exact file:
- Preflight: the bootstrap, updater, metadata and Outbox are byte-identical to stock; signature and sizes checked.
- DSP: the stock machines are bit-identical to stock in a SHARC simulator, and every new voice is bit-exact to its reference model, block by block.
- ColdFire: the build boots from reset in an emulator, its engine, save and load run, and every new screen and key is driven and checked.
- Unit tests.
The patcher only saves a file whose sha256 is the cleared build's. What remains unchecked until it is on hardware is said in each version's notes.
Building it yourself: Python 3.11+, pip install -e ., then
dnfw mods apply Digitone_II_OS1.11.syx --mod waverider -o build.syx (the other OS files in
00_Resources/). The gates need digikit and
selache (docs/SAFETY.md, docs/emulator.md).
Every version, newest first, with its sha256, what it adds and what to test:
FIRMWARE.md. The files themselves are on the builds branch, and the
patcher builds any of them from your OS files.
- dn2_firmware_explore by
Ángel Linares: the firmware map, the tooling and the first new machine. This project
started as its fork; what changed is in
docs/CHANGES-FROM-UPSTREAM.md, and its README is kept atdocs/UPSTREAM-README.md. - digikit: the ColdFire and SHARC emulators (GPL-2.0-or-later), used as external tools.
- selache: the SHARC+ assembler (GPL-3.0), used as an external tool.
- elektron-firmware-tool and the
others in
THIRD-PARTY.md.
Not affiliated with Elektron. Digitone, Digitakt, Machinedrum and Monomachine are Elektron's; names are used only to say what a machine is modelled on.
GNU AGPL-3.0-or-later, as upstream. Use it, fork it, change it; keep the notices and pass on the same freedoms.