If you’ve spent any time with an Elektron Octatrack, you’ve invariably used polymeter’s at some point.
And once you begin using the track TEMPO MULTIPLIER, calculating the pattern MASTER LENGTH can become tricky.
So I wrote a simple script to work it out for me. I guess this might be useful to more people that just myself, so decided to share a page: to work out each pattern’s MASTER LENGTH in a simple, Octatrack centric way.
UPDATE: calculators added for more Electron Devices:
Thanks. Made a quick random test. Found 5712 steps for master length. 
Well done for having super complex polymeter’s! 
think that’s more steps than the maximum MASTER LENGTH allows… might have to add some logic to the page to add a notice when it exceeds that number…
cool
good share
just a thought, entirely off the top of my head, but I don’t think you can have sequences 1 long if you’re fixing other things 
Good catch, I’ll take a look at that… Didn’t test a track length of 1 on OT!
Have updated the code based on feedback: added logic to recommend INF for values > 1024–the max OT MASTER LENGTH (@sezare56); removed ability to create step length of 1–which is not possible on OT (@avantronica)
Hello !
I love this but can you explain me more why it can be important or cool to have a master lenght in head ?
Thank !
Can you then create an other pattern from head, substracting trigs and scales ?
Thank
( Anyway thank you
Thanks! Calculating MASTER LENGTH is cool if you want a pattern with different tracks lengths to loop or switch smoothly, this helps you calculate that number! Or (as I recently discovered) you can use a shorter (halved/quarter/third) MASTER LENGTH than calculated, which creates a different meter again…
Okay !
Nice and perfect with trig cond arriving haha
Can’t you make it with the other master scales ?
Lol thank you anyway that is nice
Not available anymore?
thanks for this, …I also worked that way of in 64 bars, say for a melody, and then would shave off 6 for 58 for a different track scale, and then probably the multiplier too, but whatever it was, it was that “playing/repeating 4 or 6 bars twice at beginning and then on to completion” thing that was messing up the composition process.
Somebody on FB asked what master length should be to twice play a track of 56 steps in 3/4 scale. The calculator gave the wrong answer.
Upon further investigation it looks like both 3/4 and 3/2 are calculated wrong. 6 steps at 3/2 for example should equal (2/3)*6 steps of the master which is 4 and not 5 like the calculator suggests.
Thanks for the headsup. Will take a look.
Thank you! It’s really helpful calculator!! Thank you!
Have had an opportunity to review the calculator code and resolve the issue. Give it a test and see how it works now.
Great tool, thank you very much for sharing!
Thanks so much!
Can these calcs be applied to any Elektron machine with time scale per track?
Yes it will work with most Elektron machines.
The Rytm would require 12 tracks.
Was thinking about adapting the calculator for each model and making the small adaptions necessary.