NOGASAYAN Turns Berlin Traffic into Synth Gold: Digitakt 2 as a Wild Oscillator

NOGASAYAN kicks things off by showing us why every synth nut should be packing a recording device on their city strolls. Whether it’s your trusty iPhone or a pocket recorder, the idea is simple: nab the sounds of the world around you—traffic, birds, or even the odd street performer—and chuck them into your Digitakt. He grabs a slice of Berlin’s urban jungle, loaded with the kind of ambience that’d make any bush doof sound tame.

Once the recording’s in the can, it’s a quick cable job to get it into the Digitakt. No need for fancy gear—just an aux cable and a bit of know-how. The process is dead simple: pick a track, set up monitoring, and sample away. Suddenly, that ten-minute traffic jam becomes the raw material for a synth patch that’s as unpredictable as Melbourne weather.

With the field recording safely stashed on the Digitakt, NOGASAYAN jumps into the amp page and trims things down to a tiny sliver. By looping a micro-chunk of the sample, he transforms raw noise into a playable oscillator—mate, it’s like turning a sausage sizzle into a gourmet feast. The trick is all about making the loop short enough to buzz, then tweaking the amp envelope for snappy or smooth attacks.

He shows how the start and end points of the loop can be dialled in, shifting the tone from gritty to glassy. The magic happens when you flick the play mode to forward loop—suddenly, your field recording sings like a synth. It’s a classic NOGASAYAN move: simple steps, big sonic payoff, and a workflow that’s as hands-on as a backyard cricket match.

Now for the real fun—injecting a bit of chaos into the mix. NOGASAYAN dives into the Digitakt’s LFO section, assigning it to the sample start point. By choosing a random waveform and playing with the slew and depth, he gets the loop point to wander through the sample like a wombat on a sugar rush. This randomness breathes life into the sound, making every trigger a bit different from the last.

He’s quick to point out that Digitakt 2’s slew parameter makes things extra smooth, but even the OG Digitakt can pull off similar tricks with some clever envelope work. Whether it’s traffic, birds, or your neighbour’s dog, this technique turns any recording into a living, breathing synth voice. It’s the sort of sound design that keeps your tracks from sounding like everyone else’s, and it’s a blast to muck around with live.

NOGASAYAN doesn’t stop at wild oscillators—he’s all about making the groove move. By layering in hi-hats, shakers, and claps, he shows how subtle tweaks to velocity, attack, and filter settings can turn a static loop into a dancefloor weapon. The trick is to vary the parameters across steps, so your hats swing and your claps pop like a snag on a hotplate.

He even throws in some compressor sidechaining, making the sampled synth duck and pump with the kick drum. It’s a proper live performer’s toolkit: everything’s hands-on, nothing’s locked in, and the groove’s always evolving. If you’re playing out in the bush or at a sweaty club, these tricks keep your set from going stale faster than a meat pie in the sun.