Just got an Analog 4 mk2 after about a year of owning and loving a DT and Digitakt combo. Right out the box its sounding great but coming up against some issues with patterns and instruments which im not used to with the Digis.
The problem is that when I copy and paste a pattern and then change an instrument on the new pattern this also changes the instrument on the existing one, is there any way I can set this up so I can have different instruments on different patterns like you can on the Digitone?
Analog Four has the concept of “kits”, which the Digis do not. This is useful to keep the same sound over several patterns (and a tweak to the kit is heard on all patterns). If you want a different sound on a pattern, use a different kit (either save the current kit with a new name, or load another kit).
To tame this, it can help to develop a habit of saving kit as a new one after each duplication of a pattern (kit, save, down arrow to the first new space, yes).
To reduce the hassle, I have chosen to not change the kit name. Quicker, and a4 knows which one is which anyway, and it doesn’t drag you out of the flow.
The chosen way of handling kits with Analogs seems experimental, dropped from further models, such as Digi ones.
I’d love a shortcut to save a new kit in a new slot. I do what you describe all the time and it still breaks my flow.
Edit: a year later, I’m still dying for this feature!!
Imagine how quick and non-destructive life would be to hit a key combo to save a kit to a fresh slot, instead of menu diving or messing up your current kit.
I disagree that it seems experimental. Until last year, the Analogs had Song Mode, and the Digis didn’t. The Analogs default to using the same Kit as you add new Patterns, which is a “song like” behaviour: defaulting to using the same sounds across parts of your song seems sensible. It seemed a coherent design to me. The Digis didn’t have Song Mode, and treated each Pattern as a self-contained sound world: which also seems a coherent design.
Everyone struggles in some way with both the Analog and Digi systems. People on Digis complain that sounds aren’t shared from Pattern to Pattern. People on Analogs complain that they do. I bet if you count the number of messages on this forum with both complaints, they’re about equal
