Direct Start Pattern via MIDI program change (not working)

hi –

love this thing, pretty straightforward except for this one bit so far – i’m running RYTM synced to Ableton (which is doing the program changes)

I have it in “DIRECT JUMP” mode… works fine when I press the buttons on the device itself, but when it receives a program change to switch the pattern, it acts as though it’s in sequential mode… waiting until the end of the pattern to switch…hmmmmmmm…

any ideas?

would be great if a program change acted the same way as hitting one of the pins (round bottom buttons)

same problem here!!!

I don’t use ableton but there’s already been a lot of talk on the board about synching problems with ableton. Your problems might be related to that. If I remember correctly, elektron is aware there are issues. No word yet on a fix.

Welcome to a great but still flawed machine.

Man. Total bummer. I thought people on the internet didn’t understand how basic MIDI worked because if a device, a rhythm device, claims it can respond to program changes, anyone in their right might would expect it to respond in a sensible, rhythmic way that honors its silk screened pattern change modes. It’s written in paint right there on the box how it’s supposed to work right?

WTF? I basically can’t use this live. Well maybe, if I screw my head on backwards and work around basic expectations and hack it.

Trying to slave this AR MKii to my MPC Live so I can do amazing things like have a different tempo per sequence.

It seriously waits a whole pattern to act on a program change?! When set to direct jump?

So basically I have to enter a program change in another sequence to prime it? So much for sequence based composition.

And this has been going on for years?!

Disappointed.

Love the sounds.

Did you try changing the CHNG parameter to 2? Pretty immediate for me.

How do you change the CHNG parameter?

A little weird to have my post dropped into an unresolved post from 5 years ago… (modded)

Advanced Pattern settings.

Thanks for the help. I did experiment with the Advanced mode to CHNG the pattern after reading your post. Two issues: (this are probably going to come off like I’m arguing with you. I’m not trying to; I do appreciate your help).

  1. The first issue is that you can see a clear history of users expecting the Sequencer to honor Program Changes in Direct Jump mode.

My original post title was “Program Change MUST honor Direct Jump Mode”. This is the expectation people have had for at least 5 years and they come here confused like me why it’s not working. I think this is the common expectations on receiving Program Changes - the machine should respond to receiving a Program Change EXACTLY the way it responds to the user manually trigger a pattern change via the buttons. The MIDI spec doesn’t have a definition for “Direct Jump”, so Elektron should make it work the way it works in manual mode.

So in that regard, going into an Advanced mode to try to get the same behavior, while it may work, isn’t what people are expecting. Hence the posts for years on this topic.

  1. Setting the CHNG parameter (as a means of almost getting a Direct Jump response), comes quite close. However, I’m getting a bug that renders is unusable.

For some reason, of which I cannot explain, I have one Pattern that switches in and ADDS a beat. It misses the downbeat, and then goes back to 1 to add the down beat. It’s almost as if it’s emulating Direct Start mode… waiting a bit to process the program change (on beat 2), and the starting on beat 1.

For a rhythm machine, this is a cardinal sin. Drummer would get kicked out of bands for this behavior. It must keep the beat. I’ve fidgeted with my MPC for an hour trying to figure out why this one beat sometimes will switch properly, but almost always adds an additional beat when switching.

Sadly, my expensive, and in almost all other cases - totally awesome - analog drum machine will have to be sampled into my MPC for live use. Sadly, the entire expressive engine for Performance modes will be lost because the Drum Machine can’t respond to Program Changes in a non-buggy, dependable, as any user would expect, manner.

How hard is it to act upon a received Program Change and Directly Jump to another Sequence? We already know it’s possible because we can do it manually.

  1. The other issue I would say with trying to use the CHNG parameter method is that one is basically trying to trick the machine into responding programmatically the way it responds manually. So when I change the CHNG parameter, I have to sacrifice the acceptable Sequential Pattern Change behavior that as I user I expect when changing Patterns manually. (i.e. I’m having to alter the pattern to approximate setting it to Direct Jump, but in doing that I have to set Sequential to something I don’t really want)

I want the machine to respond programmatically the same way it responds manually. After all, internally there is a message being responded to.

Having to alter the manual response in a way to emulate - to trick the machine - into responding the expected way programmatically is a hack. Furthermore, the bug I’m experiencing makes it even worse of a hack because it’s behavior is not rhythmically dependable.

I guess I still hope I’m doing it wrong. Because after the years of posts, it seems Elektron won’t budge on fixing this the way their users keep telling them to fix it.

I guess another solution, instead of just sampling the AR into the MPC Live, is to go completely linear on my song arrangement, lock it all down, and then manually insert Program Change message prior to the beat switch.

So instead of:

SeqA -> SeqB (and getting to SeqB by having the MPC send a PC on beat 1 of SeqB and having the AR honor it’s pattern switch settings and DIRECTLY JUMP to SeqB the instant the PC is received)

I’d do

SeqA -> SeqB (by having SeqA be aware of SeqB (don’t want that) and send a PC change to the AR for SeqB a beat before switching to SeqB.

I’ll burn some time on that today. That might be the only way to make it work given this 5 year history of not working and that I’m getting switching bugs (non-deterministic) using the CHNG settings.

If that works, it just means I can’t jam with these two sequencers ever - because I never know when the AR might just add an extra beat and go completely out of sync.

I didn’t know your post was in ref to Direct Change (probably due to the mod).

Since I only use an OT and it doesn’t have this mode i cant help you with other gear.

I will say however that direct change seems to me an incredibly advanced mode esp when employing polymetric tracks. As you say, theres not even a MIDI standard for it. Now, Im not smart enough to understand it, but Ess once stated that the analog boxes sequencing werent even written in MIDI. So this might be why we havent seen a “fix”.

I think the word “must” here is a bit inappropriate. Elektron doesn’t have to do anything. Its unfortunate that it doesnt work the way you want it to work. But that’s how it works. You alone can only decide wether it suits you.

As far as this bug, check that the master length of that pattern is not inf.

Why not use direct mode as opposed to sequential?

When I use the word MUST here, I’m using it as specification jargon, not a term of entitlement. If I were a member of their technical team writing a spec for how the the device should be designed and tested, I would say “it MUST change patterns according to the selected Pattern Mode regardless of the pattern change is triggered manually or receives programmatically via a MIDI Program Change message.”

This device would fail my test plan. :slight_smile:

Since I’m just a consumer who spent $1400, I can only say SHOULD. And I have 4-5 years of forum activity of people puzzled by the same thing.

There’s nothing in the manual to indicate it won’t behave the same way when receiving MIDI pattern changes. And I did read the manual before spending my money.

Regarding Direct mode, I am trying to use that. I have Pattern Mode set to Direct Jump - it just doesn’t honor this when receiving a pattern change via MIDI. I can’t use Direct Jump manually because I also have a guitar in my hands and a mic to deal with (and sometimes a foot controller for lights), so when manual, I need to use Sequential.

Again, I’m sure this comes off as arguing with you over the internet and I don’t mean for it too.

The pattern lengths are set to 16/16 and 64/64.

It a shame it doesn’t work with external midi.
MD and A4 have a map to control patterns with midi notes, and A4 can do Direct Jump with midi notes (set in Multi Map).

Musically, do you need direct jump for rhythmical variations for the same song?
Can’t you use scenes instead?

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My FINAL follow up on this.

I purchased a Blokas Midihub with the hopes I could work around Elektron’s software deficiency - my words.

Alas, even after requesting a special processing feature with the Blokas Midihub that translated a PC to a Stop -> PC -> Start message, the Analog Rytm simply will NOT directly change the beat based on PC. It still hiccups and plays an extra beat.

Kudos to the Blokas Midihub team for trying to help me work around Elektron’s deficiency in the Rytm. I was hoping to share a quite different post based on the Blokas team’s effort, but the work around did not work.

So, I’ve officially given up on ever being able to jam with the Rytm. There’s just no way for my MPC to send a PC in a jam context to switch sequences. “Jam context” being me switching Next Sequence in the MPC and getting the slaved Rytm to immediately switch patterns. Yes you can do it by manually hitting the buttons on the Rytm and that works perfectly - but you can not get the same behavior receiving MIDI PC.

Yes, programming an exact song that never changes, and preceding the sequence change with a PC prior to wanting to switch works - but that’s quite stilted and jamming will never happen.

I give up.

Hey Elektron RnD team, you know who you are = )

The solution which would BLOW the doors off:

Create MultiMap for Analog Rytm :fire:

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This one weird trick will blow the doors right off your RYTM!

Edit: in all seriousness, I didn’t know that the RYTM doesn’t have this feature already. I feel like it could be pretty helpful… Elektron?

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I think MultiMap was originally intended for instruments which used a traditional keyboard for control, EG Monomachine, Analog Four, Analog Keys, Digitone…

But allowing for a whole new set of performative controls through incoming MIDI notes is pretty value-adding. It’s a matter of how deep into the code they’re going to have to go. It’s probably like a coronary bypass rather than removing a mole.

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Direct jump would be a great thing to work over midi. Imagine being able to change pattern using something like an LFO+gate from modular/vcv to change patterns etc!!

So am I right in thinking that even 2 elektron boxes with direct jump (eg A4+AR) will not both change pattern at same time using direct jump? :frowning:

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As it is implemented now the direct jump functionality itself is strictly for local use.

But I guess you can work around it when at least one device supports MultiMap.

For example: let the AR do it’s direct jump and then translate the outgoing PC externally to trig a matching MultiMap config at the A4.

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Just found out direct change does not work over midi, but does work over usb (atleast with overbridge). Would like to see this addressed.

Does this really work? :o everyone says its not supported at all. And I cudnt get this working like you described :frowning: