Definitely agree that song mode has it’s place. As a “fun” experiment by last EP was made using song mode. No pattern repeats, i.e. a pattern will play then move to another one and so on for the entire track. This is happening on four machines so I just press Play on the machinedrum and the entire thing just plays out thanks to song mode. An insane amount of work and it did my head in. Next time I’m going back to live tweaking.
Here’s the EP for those interested Party History E.P. | Arsey Rob
Little bit patronising and superior.
I think the first problem to solve outside of saving pattern chains is the scene vs clip idea within Elektron UX/UI.
To make things simple let’s use a DT.
Think of patterns as Scenes in Bitwig/Ableton. Each track has its own sequence attached to it and that would be a clip.
Unfortunately in dawland, when you go from scene 1 to scene 2 and say track 1 doesn’t have a sequence… poof it stops playing.
This is something the Blackbox would keep playing since clips are playfree essentially. If your DAW has settings for this or is not a traditional one… fine but that’s not going to be a constructive reply. For the sake of solving this on the Elektron machine I’ll stick to default settings for Bitwig.
What needs to happen is a way to be able to trigger individual sequences (clips) in a pattern (scene).
Let’s use a new color… teal. When in “clip” mode you can mute(schedule)/unmute(unschedule) clips (sequences) for a specific scene (pattern). This mode would also let you go from pattern to pattern without triggering the entire scene.
Exiting this mode should still playfree clips but allow you to move around patterns.
Eventually you might want say… pattern 6 to have track 1 have more interesting kick trigs, or swap to a drum loop instead.
I just woke up very early but for some reason this was something I had to write down haha.
If we can solve the playfree clips… aka the creative live compositional performance (no need to keep copying over the same sequence for a track 6 times if you prefer it that way) then we unlock the machines even further.
EDIT: Since patterns on the DT are not limited to parts… you can have A LOT of freedom here.
Obviously there are caveats/settings/etc… to this, but it’s a solid start and now we get a new color 
Yes I am replying to my own post…
I think we can skip songmode for the digis if “composition/playfree mode” is a thing.
The ability to swap between individual sequences per track is very much still in the performance mindset but achieves a lot of the desires of this thread.
I also can’t imagine how complicated this would be to arrange/songmodeify on the digis… so maybe this isn’t songmode after all.
It’s an evolution of how to perform on the digis.
But I can also see the need for global changes to be played back.
Kind of like a live record for the entire machine. Being able to replay a unique performance sounds powerful indeed.
We could call this… “total recall” haha 
playfree/total recall sounds like it’s still aligned to performing.
Each project could have a “performances” folder.
You would still need to prepare/practice quite a bit before recording a performance
I can get over no song mode… I don’t really mind stacking patterns each time (ok I do…), but what is really a Downside with a capital D, is that there is no option to lock selected (current) pattern settings to then flow into the next one… or maybe I am missing at least a copy all settings (apart from the sequence and parameter locks) to next pattern function?
It’s just very hard to get a consistent “song” like this, if you consider how much a few parameter tweaks can change the sound of the whole pattern, not to mention volume discrepancies. A compressor helps, but it is not the answer.
This would be a kit.
Some prefer the powerful nature of each pattern being its own thing. Some dislike the limiting nature of kits.
It’s all tradeoffs unfortunately when it comes to that.
I never used the Rytm or any other device that has kits, so can not relate, but yeah…
Just getting further into this… Maybe I am blind and can not find it in the manual, but is there a button combo to copy all pages parameter settings and paste them to another pattern quickly? I know you can do it with each parameter page (SYN, FLT, etc), but that just doesn’t work when trying to perform a song.
If you are starting a new pattern from scratch but want the same sounds as an already created pattern (including the sequence) you can copy/paste entire patterns.
On the DN you can copy paste the tracks (sound?) themselves but I don’t know what all carries over (it might be everything that is saved… can’t remember haha)
Yes, but when performing, a lot of the time I change a few settings and want the next pattern to continue from there, but keep the sequence and parameter locks as they were set up for that pattern. That is my main issue, and hinders my creativity. I do not mind making one pattern to full extended loop , then pasting it and tweaking each one to make a song. The problem is, that 95% of the time, I then tweak some pattern, it starts sounding better, and then it is a whole mess trying to replicate just the parameter settings for each other pattern to make it sound the same… many times it helps with me not wanting to then finish a particular song.
[EDIT] Elektron, please give us just a button combo: Copy all tracks parameter settings from pattern/paste all tracks parameter settings into pattern
[TRACK] + [TRK#] + REC copies the sound/track and all primary parameter pages. This does not include the master FX page. Outside of grid record mode.
On the AR, I find that
kits are OK within one project but trying to transfer them between projects is too hard (you need to have the same sound pool between projects for them to use the right sample)
kits are a challenge to manage (more work).
but I don’t see kits as being limiting by nature. What are the points you had in mind (just curious! Might be implemented differently in other machines)
Here Here! the arranger turn all my shit patterns to a little less shit 
But does this also copy the sequence and parameter locks? It’s still not enough in any case, copy pattern, but without sequence and parameter locks would work for me to a great extent.
So my first Elektron, the DN… I found the freedom of being able to change the bass to a more aggressive bass or being able to swap leads was extremely powerful. Being locked in to a kit means that even something simple like rolling the filter back on the bass means I have to plock it on the sequencer.
So half filter on pattern one for dramatic song start. Then full open bass on the next pattern when the drums come in.
Just thinking out loud here 
There are many other examples haha
i think the main reason i really like the OP-Z is that Song mode is innate in the pattern structure… you have 8 core tracks which are the fundamentals of the pattern. Then you have loop track, performance track and Master track which all help you in arranging the pattern into a song together with mute groups. its incredibly powerful for something so seemingly simple.
I don’t have a DT handy to prove it out but this should not copy over the sequence… which should mean no plocks. Try it out on a new project. Hope it works out!
I agree. It’s nice to have the option of using kits, but most of the time I don’t. It adds extra steps when I just want a fresh pattern with a fresh kit. There’s a risk of ruining old patterns by starting to work on a new pattern and forgetting to switch to a different kit. I’ve done this a few times 
I see.
It’s something you can do with kits too (in fact, that is the purpose of kits) but you have to be proactive about it. On the AR, the first sounds you create will be used for all the new patterns by default (the exact opposite of the DN). The last active kit is used for a new pattern. If you save your kit on your 1st pattern then edit it on the 2d one and save it… you’re doomed haha. What I do is: new pattern = save kit right away. Which kinda bring it closer to the DN flow but what is cool is that you can load the kit2 on your pattern 1 (=kit 1) and see where it goes. It was very fun to do on the A4 with the preset projects. Load a totally different kit to a pattern.
So kits are really cool to create happy accidents or simply use different kits on the exact same pattern.
But as I said, the default project is fun to use for that because clever people worked on the patterns and kits. Me? not so much haha
That’s how I use the OT arranger as well. Mute groups are my favorite way to arrange stuff quickly. Most of the time with only one pattern. OPz should have the ability to chain mute groups (as far as I remember you have to trigger them manually)