What things do you personally use Disting mk4 for ?. What do you think it does well or not so well ?.
I've had one for a little while and not really had the time to go through all the logarithms, so some of your thoughts would be welcome.
Thanks.


I've mainly used it as a tape delay...

Pretty much all the algorithms are decent - they do what they say they do

I think the trick with it is to use the favourites function and not worry about using or even trying all the functions

Use it to fill in what you don't have (an extra filter/vca or whatever) and want to experiment with (wavetable vco for example)

Use it to determine the next module you get - if you have it stuck on tape delay as I have had - get a tape delay and use it for something else - I just bought a Magneto and haven't re-assigned my disting to anything else yet

Don't try flipping through all the algos to find out what they do - and have to constantly refer to the manual whilst you are doing it and then get frustrated and hate the module - this is what I've seen a lot of people doing - if you bought 100 modules or whatever it is at one go you wouldn't expect to learn them all inside out in an afternoon - or even in a year...

"some of the best base-level info to remember can be found in Jim's sigfile" @Lugia

Utility modules are the dull polish that makes the shiny modules actually shine!!!

sound sources < sound modifiers < modulation sources < utilities


Thanks, that sounds like good advice. I'm sure I can put it to good use.


+1 on "use the favourites" -- makes Disting much more manageable, especially because it saves the parameters, so once you've got it working you don't need to fish the manual out again...

Currently my favourite programs are :
* I1 : sample player (Z = sample select)
* J8 : Crossfade Loop Player

The organisation I suggest is to make a folder for each favourite with the samples needed for that favourite only (even it's just one!) because changing favourites is way easier than trying to find the sample you want using the Z knob.

I also like the very much Quantiser and Dual Quantiser modes.

Everyone says the delay is good, but I have never tried it. Maybe I should!

It's quite nice just to flick through the manual before you start patching and build the patch around some Disting program you don't know yet. Like -- what is does a Pulsar oscillator sound like anyway?


I mostly use it as a random utility module. Most commonly as a "Precision" adder. Also frequent the Quantizer, Rectifier, Logic, Comparator, Compressor, Min/Max, Pitch Reference/Tuning. I'd like to dive into the shift registers next to see how they perform as the closest I have to one is Pachinko (Marbles). Generally though, I'm patching and repatching and repatching in the same session, layering different parts in the BitBox. So I'm more comfortable now with jumping around different algos on the Disting in essentially the same session. It really isn't that bad, especially if you KNOW what you want it to do right now, even less bad so if you do as suggested above and save your favorites.

First 30 days with it, I just picked a different algo everyday I sat down and tested with it, unless there was some other module that I wanted to focus on learning/practicing/testing

I've never used the disting for fx, oscs, sample playback, trigger/pattern generation (until I get to shift registers) or filters. I'm sure they're fine though.