Genuinely intrigued about this too. I know zero about this stuff but I would have (probably naively) figured a slightly tweaked version of the same sequencer code from the OT/DT would do most/all of the leg work? Obvs depending if the AK has enough cpu/space to throw it in there. Anyone with coding chops explain why it would be any harder/incompatible on A4/AK?
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+1!
a thing that could be: it would need to work with “extreme” settings. E.g. set sequencer tempo to 300, then put 1/80 retrigs in each track. That’s a lot of events! The machine should handle this without hiccups, and it does with the internal engine. Maybe there’s a CPU performance issue there, however sending 6 midi bytes (on/off) per event shouldn’t be very taxing.
These machines do a very good job with sending/receiving sysex data quickly, without hiccups, which certainly is a higher load than sending a bunch of note/cc events…
Haven’t done the math, but could be that this extreme setting might be simply too much data for DiN MIDI speeds. But, nothing that couldn’t be worked around with, e.g. it could limit emitted events somehow. In the worst case, retrigs could be ignored and it would still rock.
Also, the sequencer does in fact send MIDI events, but it’s only program change messages on pattern change.
Since the DT can do it, and the AR apparently cannot, and assuming - it’s really just an assumption, it’s all we have to go by - that the DT OS is largely derived from Rytm but sans the analog control parts with the biggest difference being UI, I would think there might be an issue with the hardware design somehow, but I don’t understand how the machines can do the sysexing really well, yet sending notes would be tricky.
random other things I can think of:
- not enough OS code space - unlikely imo
- not enough space for additional data structures - would only be problematic if the goal was to have additional 8 or 12 dedicated MIDI tracks
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Sorry for the offtopic, but as you replied to my post about the subject I decided to reply to yours:
It’s not a consipiracy theory, it’s a fact. Even in your link the Elektron guy admits it possible but they have just decided not to implement it for now and claim it’s “really hard”. I bet if someone managed to get the source code for A4 OS, we would have an unofficial OS in a very short time period that includes MIDI sequencing.
That’s a silly excuse to not listen to your customers and add a feature that is requested the most.
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Elektron is a small company, spending time on A4 MIDI cuts into time elsewhere, I would guess that’s the biggest reason for not implementing it. There is a huge difference between what’s technically difficult and what is difficult in terms of man hours available.
Yeah well in my opinion that sucks. MIDI sequencing is such a basic feature it should have been included from the start.
If they wanted to limit a4 external midi sequencing for the sake of improving OT sales why would they release DT with this capability?
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A4 was released when OT was still in the middle of its life cycle. Now OT is quite old, they will probably retire it soon.
We are all guessing, but my guess is they simply made a mistake in the design. The issue is specific to their analog units only. Seems they missed somthing in the hardware when developing and designing the analog units.
It would be nice if they could enable it but I bought them knowing they do not offer this functionality. So much gear out there does not midi sequence externally, we should just not assume all elektron gear will do so either. They were never sold with or promised these features in the analog boxes. As I said, would still love these features if they could include them.
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Someone doesn’t show any knowledge on “how these things work”, unless they’re privy to the firmware and are an embedded/micro dev then they have no idea. Burden is on them to prove otherwise.
Okay… so discussion about A4 MIDI sequencing feature request gets moved to “off topic speculation”. Why?
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They obviously don’t want to, for the reason that has been thrashed out on this forum so many times before. Whining about it is not going to make them include it. I bought an AK after doing my research, MIDI sequencing was not something I needed. If it’s something you do need, then don’t buy an A4/AK.
It’s this sense of entitlement that cracks me up. Company makes a car that clearly doesn’t fly. People buy car and complain that it doesn’t fly until they are blue in the face, and whine that the car is crippled because of it. Can’t you see the ridiculous side to this? 
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This thread is about feature requests. Are we not allowed to discuss feature requests in this thread? Or are other feature requests allowed but MIDI sequencing should not be talked about?
The topic is Feature Requests for the A4/k and discussion of those … unhelpful conspiracy speculation verging on trolling is not of interest to most who would like to follow the thread … it also won’t allow Elektron to easily browse through these suggestions when it’s derailed by such content
as you were 
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Seconded!
so maybe a new thread would be helpful… but to be honest the A4 is now an older tool, i don’t expect more development for the future
I believe you mentioned it. How, on the A4, can I audition trigs w/locks?
Hold the Trig (step rec mode obviously) then tap the lit note (if on the right octave, or shift)
Hacky but handy, presumably far easier on AK
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Excellent! Thank you!
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umm show me any car that can fly that i can buy
i can show you tens of boxes that can external seq you can buy.
your analogy cracks me up
ridiculous alright
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