Ableton Program Change (pattern change) only sequential

Elektron Gear Analog Rytm
#1

Hi,
I apologize if this has been covered but I couldn’t find it anywhere so far.

I am using Ableton to switch patterns on the RYTM so that I can use RYTM’s awesome sequencer but let Ableton keep the parts of the song lined up.
When just playing on the RYTM there are of course three pattern switching settings: Sequential, Direct Start, Direct Change

For some reason, no matter what setting I have on the RYTM, when I send Program Changes from Ableton, it only functions as “Sequential.”

Anybody else have that issue? And/Or know a fix?

Cheers

#2

It’s by design. Independent on what your pattern switch settings are it’s always “sequential” with program change messages.

#3

That seems like a strange limitation being they give you the three options when using the machine directly.

Being that you said “designed that way”, I assume you’re implying they did so to avoid an issue or something of that nature. If you know what that reason was, could you please share?

I use Ableton as my control center for 7 different Hardware synth/effects units and they all will respond instantly to a program change. This allows me to stray from a pre-programmed song and actually improv for a real performance. With this limitation, I will be forced to do all sequencing in Ableton which eliminates the pure awesomeness of RYTM’s sequencer.

For them to do this on purpose seems ridiculous to me. But so have many things that I did not know the reason for :slight_smile:

#4

IIRC from a previous discussion on here, the limitation is likely there to prevent you from sending many Direct Program Chances too fast for the AR to handle – which would be hard to do manually.

There’s a dirty fix: When you change the pattern length in advanced mode, you can determine how long the AR waits after a program change. 2 is the minimum setting and it’ll result in the AR being slightly off at the beginning of a bar but in my experience, it caught up well after that when synced externally.

I don’t use pre-programmed patterns live so I can’t really vouch that this will work well for anyone, however…

#5

Hey there, sorry for pushing an old thread up again, but I was struggling with the exact same issue for weeks…thanks to dergit, I got on the right track again and found the perfect solution for this issue.

  1. In Ableton, use PGM Change clips with Launch Mode “Trigger” and Clip Quantization set to “none”. Pgm 1-16 will trigger Pattern A1-A16 on the Analog Rytm, 17 onwards will trigger Pattern B1 etc.

  2. On the Analog Rytm, leave the pattern jump behavior at the default (sequential, meaning the LED under the “Bank Group/Direct Change” button is off)

  3. In advanced mode, set the pgm change length for the AR not to 2 as suggested, but to 16! This is the perfect value. It makes the AR wait exactly until the current page has ended to switch patterns, and it was always in perfect sync everytime I tested it. Et voila! :smiley:

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Sending Program/Pattern Change Messages from Ableton to Rytm