A4 Feature Requests

That’s exactly my experience.

Half expected it to be added, became frustrated it wasn’t being added, then spent some time with it and realised that I have other devices that can send it midi so why not just use them, and enjoy the a4 for what it is.

I found peace very quickly after.

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Maybe AK is more like an Airstream. It’s a beautiful and awesome trailer–probably even more beautiful and awesome than any RV you’re likely to find. But if you buy an Airstream and get inside and you’re bummed that there’s no steering wheel or pedals, you’re not seeing the Airstream for what it really is. Sure it seems like if all these crappy RVs exist then what’s preventing Airstream from going all the way and just throwing a steering wheel, some pedals, and an engine in there, right? It’s like why you holding back Airstream?? Maybe with that kind of power and it’s complexity, it’d muck up purity of that gorgeous chrome simplicity. Idk. What we gonna do.

ARP P-Locks please ; )

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ARP P LOCKSSSS

Make this thing a glitchy wonder, PLEASE! I’ve tried the LFO trick, finagled with it for an hour and couldn’t become satisfied. Imagine a world where you can plock the arp, arp speed and decay. Are you familiar with the old expression the flap of a butterflies wing leads to a tsunami in China?(butchered, buy you know what I’m saying)

Am I saying this will lead to world peace and turn the world into a harmonious utopia? No, but it would certainly help!

Elektron. Only you can make that first step. Only you can enable arp p-locks.

<3

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Update the A4 to allow it to sequence external midi modules. This is a major flaw IMO.

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omg

He just got an A4 and is new to the forum, the cycle begins anew… :ooh:
Edit: he’s innocent, maybe cut em some slack…

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Apologies if this has been mentioned in one of 486 comments above - the AK/A4 is packed with features that are seemingly designed to allow the user a certain degree of freedom to reconfigure his/her workflow within the framework of its architecture, obviously the “backbone” of this design strategy in the depths of multi-mapping.

That being said, after looking into this carefully, I’ve finally concluded that Elektron decided to make Pattern Chaining and Song Mode rather inaccessible (remotely).

Via multi-mapping, why not have a way to trigger specific pattern chain rows (or song rows) when its applicable mode is activated (song or pattern chain)? Transpose, mutes, and long-form pattern variation and repetition information would be preserved, which is surely a massive convenience for both performance and quick-sketching. I’m no midi expert, so I’m sure someone will enlighten me.

…and I don’t feel like this is an unreasonable request. One would think that a company putting out a line of super sophisticated products would focus a little more on integrating the features that each shares.

Just shy of a rant…whew! …and who knows, I might
have overlooked a solution to this problem (I’m running an OT into the AK). I’ve read “rumblings” of the OT’s ability to send and receive SPP. However, in my attempts thus far…no dice.

Consider it either a feature request or if it turns out that Song/Pattern Chaining sync with Elektron boxes have been making love for years - for the love of God, can someone reach out and enlighten me?

cheers guys.

Another vote for slew feature or smoothed S&H LFO

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All the Elektron sequencers send and receive MIDI Song Pointer Position messages when in their Song/Arranger modes. You should ensure that TRANSPORT SEND is activated on your OT and that TRANSPORT RECEIVE is activated on your AF/AK. Starting an Arrangement in the OT should get the AF/AK’s Song playing along in sync.

I’m not sure whether that will help you with your actual suggestion for a multi map feature request.

Hey Peter,

thanks for the info. i live on these forums but i’m not the most vocal. needless to say, through your kindness in sharing what you know, you’ve gotten me out of a bind more than once.

deep/sophisticated are these machines that elektron makes. shame that they don’t seem to be very fond of one another.

i’m gonna have a think about what the best solution is here. from what i understand, for this to work properly, rows, their lengths, corresponding pattern # need to be spot on, or they’ll lose sync.

if you know someone here on the forum who uses this with success, i would love to pick their brain about it.

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AFIK, everyone of their song modes has been different and not fully cross platform compatible,

This is a MAJOR fail, hey but Roland give you 16 a and b patterns and no song mode these days.

My feeling is that I dont buy new tech products that are vastly inferior to 20 yr old tech, I do buy second hand when the stupidities have been realized and the price accordingly

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I want to be able to plug in the multimap in grid recording mode. Also, arping through the sound pool like the BBox on the MNM would be awesome <3

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I’d love to see Elektron double the number of onboard pattern banks on all of their machines.

Add external L/R inputs in the global + kit voice routing settings

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A way to establish voice priority when using voice sharing so that you can determine which voices get stolen when more than 4 voices are set to play

I think this already exists to some extent. Check that field you set to ‘reset’ under poly config you have a few options there.

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Not really a request, except to correct it :
In the manual, p54 (Multi Map) there’s a mistake :

TRANSPOSE transposes the pattern up or down 1-36 octaves. No transpose if set to 0.

Semitones, not octaves.

Since there likely are engineers currently working on software for the mk2 machines, I’d like to request that the cv outputs be given some more attention. I have 2 requests.

  1. Pitch tracked lfos on the cv track - As I’m not an engineer involved in a4 development, I don’t really know how the pitch tracked lfos are implemented, but I suspect it’s not really pitch tracking, but rather keeping track of what pitch the dcos are being fed, and doing some math in order to turn that into a multiplier for the lfos. If that is the case, the same could likely be done on the cv channel, when the v/oct or hz/volt settings are used. Knowing what voltage is being output would give an expected oscillator frequency, and then an audio rate lfo could be derived from that. This would be amazingly useful, as it would effectively allow one to use the cv outs as not just audio rate modulators, but also as additional dcos. :fearful:

  2. My second request is much more mundane, but would make the cv track more immediately usable than it currently is. Allow cv track settings to be saved as presets, not just in the global slots. - Users could then give descriptive names to cv configurations like “killer minitaur bass” or “hacked monotron setup” that wound greatly streamline people’s setups, and make experimenting with the cv outputs much more inviting. I currently have a sheet of paper with the voltage required to accurately play my monotron with my a4. This clearly should be saveable. It’s a digitally-controlled synth for a reason.
    I would happily give up a bank of sound presets for this purpose.

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a feature to freeze your performance macros would be nice… maybe pressing jes + performance (like with freezing transposition).
so the performance state gets set to 0 and all the changes to the parameters get written into the kit.

would be super awesome cause it would allow to make nice transitions.

plocks would be a poblem though. these could just reset back to their normal state.

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This has been touched on before I think. Possibly by me but alas I’m senile and wouldn’t know. The joystick on the AK can be pressed down just like the knobs.

One idea is having it freeze the position you’re holding the joystick in when pressing it so you can let it go. And unfreeze either when you start moving the joystick again (from its center position) or by a 2nd press.

Another idea is having it act as a secondary hold function, just like your typical hold function. The hold button the AK currently works in mysterious ways (although really great for building up melody lines with the arp:-).

The 3rd and last idea is if you stand at the side of the AK you suddenly have a nice long screen, suitable for a Asteroids/Missile Defence kinda game or a Breakout game, eh? EH? :slight_smile:

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