Help please! Freaking out OT & A4 arranger mode

[len]

Hi

So for 2 days I’ve been trying to get the OT and A4
Working together to compose a song.

I’ve recently got the A4 but have been. Working on the octatrack for a while, I can get the machines to write songs do mutes and go through an arrangement by themselves no problem, but now they I have connected them, I can’t get the A4 to start at 00 as there is a scratch patch at the beginning which cannot be cleared, secondly when the A4 is in song mode and controlled by the OT it doesn’t listen to its mute functions as it goes through the song.

I figured I’d just arrange from the OT as it’s arranger works well and does all it’s mutes etc, but this means I lose all the mutes on the A4

To me it seems so simple just build a replica on each machine of a song and each machine, turns on and off it’s mutes as it moves through the song, I refuse to believe the A4 can’t do this.

Is there any way to send mutes from the OT to the A4 for individual tracks, surely this seems obvious

Please help I’m loosing it

[PeterHanes]

Welcome to the forum, @len

I don’t have an Analog Four so I can’t advise you directly about the song start position problem. Hopefully some AF/AK users can chime in.

Is there any way to send mutes from the OT to the A4 for individual tracks, surely this seems obvious

Elektron did introduce MIDI control of mutes on the AF/AK, although the AF/AK manual has never been updated (hello @eangman) to include the information. Check this forum topic:

A4 Tracks Muting via MIDI

Hello there! Can't find it mentioned anywhere, so: Is it possible to mute tracks in pattern on A4 via midi CC? Or a note? The thing is - when i load next pattern via Maschine (sending midi note) - i want next kit to be loaded and, for example, tracks 2 & 6 to be muted, so i can unmute them later. Hope the question is clear) Thanks in advance)

[Analogic]

Hi Len, I came from a similar place with my expectations of crafting arrangements on the trinity. After months of trying to make them work together I settled on OT as master arranger and no song mode use on the analogs. If you have 4 midi tracks to spare, you can p-lock A4 track amp volumes to zero from the OT in order to ‘effectively’ get your A4 song mutes back. I never bothered (midi tracks full) and now settle on manual mutes outside of the OT.

[len]

Thank you @PeterHanes and @Analogic for the response.

It really is bizarre, I’m very suprised and disappointed, the A4 on its own works perfectly
Doing it’s own mutes, it’s just really weird they haven’t sorted this

Thanks guys I’ll definitely look it your suggestions
At least now I can relax and know I’m not insane
Was really thinking it was me for a while there

[Analogic]

No problem! Do make sure you’re sending/receiving midi program change on the appropriate machines of course. I didn’t mention that earlier but you likely did so already. Don’t let the lack of song mutes from OT steal your sunshine! You’ll build some manual mute muscle memory in no time.

[len]

Thanks a lot @Analogic

Yeah I was kinda freaking out cause I refused to believe this couldn’t be done, and had read everything and tried everything still refusing to believe, kinda blew my mind, do you know why they have the scratch patch at the beginning of song on the A4, meaning it never lines up correctly with other machines?

So weird as well

Thanks again

[Palu]

What do you mean by scratch patch? I don’t have OT, but I use the A4 from the first pattern and there is no init patch… Do you work in a new project?

[len]

Hi

I’m referring to the A4

It always has this – at the beginning of a song

[Rael]

Hi Len, I’ve been using the trinity song mode recently and I got it to work
If you have some specific questions maybe I can help

First of, from memory when you use the trinity without the arranger mode we generally set it up with program changes so that everything follows the OT, which is perfect and simple to use, however if you want to use each individual machines arranger it is necessary to disable the program changes so that each arranger is independent
Afterwards it is quite tedious to duplicate the arrangements in each machine(though it does give the possibility of choosing dif patterns or lengths) but it does offer a huge advantage which is programming mutes inside each machine, I found it to be the fullest automation arranger possible with the trinity, but still a lot of things missing, for example, scenes can be programmed on the OT but not on the others,
and you can’t program a scene or mute during a measure, it has to be at the start of a measure which is a big shame

[len]

Thanks a lot yeah it definitely helps as far as using the mutes and getting the arrangers to work together

Only now I can’t do patch changes between parts because no program change

Thanks a lot though that definitely helped