As I was researching whether to buy the M:S, it was maddening to learn about this design choice/omission, and that it wasn’t corrected in any of the firmware updates that added other significant feature. I did buy a M:S and mostly think it is great, but for all of its hard drive storage and otherwise intuitive workflow, it is absolutely crazy that there is no way to repeat a pattern. It’s obviously not a hardware limitation - I think Elektron had a specific workflow in mind as to keystrokes that would get you a pattern chain, and realized too far into it that it meant you could never repeat the first pattern in a chain.
I’m used - and somewhat tolerant of - limitations of this kind coming over as a Volca Sample. But if I can save thousands of samples to a device, and switch two dozen of them in and out within a single pattern, there just has to be a way to repeat patterns within a chain and then SAVE said chain within a project. I’m actually not sure what function “Projects” serve if there isn’t a song mode and you can’t retain pattern chains - isn’t that just more like a new storage “bank” for patterns beyond the initial 96?