Is the Elektron sequencer starting to be “out-dated”?

Damn, have to try it. Have to try all these damm grooveboxes :see_no_evil:

Compared to Euro/virtual Euro, yes. I still believe that for the price of their boxes they are exceptional.

But that shouldn’t give them reason to rest on their laurels. They need more modularity when it comes to their rigid 4/4 techno. Time is fluid.

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I don’t see them as outdated. But they’re no longer forward thinking either, with the exception of trig conditions.

The main distinction I’ll make is that Elektron sequencers seem far more catered toward pre-configured, detail-oriented, low-level pattern generation. For the most part, to get interesting patterns you need to do work ahead of time. Contrast this with some other sequencers that are more catered toward on-the-fly pattern generation that operate from a more zoomed out higher level interaction paradigm. For these the focus is not on determining what each step does but instead what the pattern is doing as a whole. For example, Elektron sequencing asks questions like “where are the trigs?”, “what is the pitch of each trig?” Outside Elektron, sequencers are emerging that ask different questions about the pattern as a whole such as “what is the trig density?”, “how often does the average trig land on a quarter note?”, “what is the general contour of pitches across the pattern’s trigs?”

Some aspects of Elektron sequencers allow you “flow” and create things with immediacy. Other aspects feel like an impediment to this and slow you down with the details. Overall it’s neither a good thing nor a bad thing, it’s just a decision of what level of musical focus you want to operate at.

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But dude…Max is whatever you want it to be :wink:

Max is nuts! Too bad I’m so shit with it. But what people do is so awesome.
You (not as in you, but people) can’t compare a 256 colour palette vs, say, a camera.
But having constraints def can make you more creative. (at least, that’s how I feel about it).

But again…Max…holy shit!

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The Deluge has many great things about it. I particularly liked being able to record my tracks into the arranger(a bit like Ableton), and then being able to go into the arranger after recording and make further unique amendments to the sequences.

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This. Sequencers are fine - but a simple, solid, consistent, easy to use song mode and/or pattern chaining is what I’m mostly missing.

Or, for the love of synth gods, a way to change patterns immediately with midi cc so you can use other sequencers to work with patterns.

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Deluge is nuts. Even if I wouldn’t use any built in synth or sampling features, I would pay only for midi sequencing part!

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People always ask for reverse pattern direction, but in practice, it isn’t fundamentally any different than forward, it still just steps through a pattern in a linear way, just gets more confusing to look at. Pendulum is a little more useful, but still not really great imo. Random can be really powerful because it fundamentally changes how the steps are addressed. One of the more successful things I’ve done in my own sequencers is to add subcounters that can be turned on and off within the main counter that either add or subtract from the step address. This acts like a little auto remix function. Can change a pattern from
1 2 3 4…16 to something like 1 1 1 3 2 2 2 4 3 3 3 5 4 4 4 6… or many other types of remix patterns just by changing a few variables. The problem with adding these kind of modular sequencing capabilities to an Elektron box is that it throws off the balance of immediacy and ease of use vs depth and can quickly become unwieldy, even if they were to fundamentally change their UI to accommodate for more complex track linking (which they shouldn’t do IMO)

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one cool thing about pendulum is using pre style conditions means that in different directions things will get triggered in different ways, which can pretty cool and surprising in results. On the Pro 2 sequencer the slide notes look to the next note even if muted so you can have a single trigger sliding in different ways depending on the direction. But yeah I don’t mind elektron for the most part keeping there sequencers more controlled, because the more eurorack style sequencers while fun wouldnt really be great as a main sequencer imo. You can always get a weirder sequencer to use in conjunction with an elektron and you really get the best of both worlds with out messing with the work flow.

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This sounds dope!

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I always wanted Trig Conditions for Parameters locks. I guess that’s a Trigless Trig, but what if you want the Trig to Trig also? Sometimes I want a reverb tail, sometimes a delay, sometimes not.

Trigless trigs are one thing, but I always felt theres room for Parameter trigs.

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They should totally do this!

Imho the Digitakt for example would benefit so dramatically from features like that. I think it’s a bit bare bone regarding randomization / stutter fx and the like. This would be so huge… that’s why I was looking at the Polyend Tracker lately.

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The primary thing I’d like to add to the discussion is the idea of CV clock in, or rather to be able to advance the sequence with an independent trigger or pulse, rather than a constant stream of evenly spaced pulses. Perhaps this is already feasible with an external device for converting pulses to midi clock, but that would then lead me to request that Elektron give us the option to unlock delay/ reverb pre-delay from being influenced by the incoming midi-clock. (It might not always be desirable to have the fluctuations in tempo influencing the time-based FX.)

Lastly, I’d just like to emphasize the OP-Z’s step components/ master track features have me very green with envy. :drooling_face:

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I know right. This and the “relative” lock bugs me the most of the sequencer.

You can use a midi sequencer to run the notes from the device and then parameter lock on the Elektron. But it would be nice to just double tap the record button to enter automation trigs. Just like double tap Shift mute to get the pattern mute on the Digis.

For the OT it can just be one of the trig modes as for the A4 and Rytm it can work the same.

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I would love an ‘expert mode toggle’ in the global settings that puts all the sequencer info into different lanes much like how each automation can be expanded into a separate lane in Ableton. For example, the way trigs, slide, swing and recorder trigs are separated into lanes on the OT, but even more of them. Having a dedicated lane for parameter locks (trigless trigs) that can either be per step changes, or gradual change slides from one to the next would be amazing imo. Or separate FX lanes, etc etc. It would really allow for detailed edits like a tracker taking one part of the sequencer information at a time.

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Yes, I can’t agree more. This would really be a big WOW factor for me and show innovation for the company. I thought about this from the moment I had a A4 and later the OT which has multiple trig lanes for the FX or swing and stuff.

I am going to do a feature request in the morning :slight_smile: how they do it is up to them :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

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The more I think about it, the more I get excited. Imagine trig conditions for if reverb is added to a step or not, for example. Fuuuuck. Generative madness heaven

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The vector sequencer is amazing. Got it a few months ago and have been very pleased so far. The firmware is being updated very regularly and great features being added all the time. I haven’t used the MIDI much - it mainly runs my eurorack modules - but it is definitely extremely capable.

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It is :nerd_face:
Especially when using another sequencer/lfo/random source to modulate the remix parameters so that the pattern stays static, but the variations always surprise you!

The Monomachine has a basic version of this. By default, laying a trig is laying a trig for the amp envelope, the filter envelope and the LFO, but there is a button to switch to seeing any of those “lanes” separately, so you can edit/remove those data individually. More modern Elektrons just use trigless trigs and p-locks to do that.

+1 for conditional p-locks by the way. I’d also love a MnM style song mode combined with all the microtiming and conditionals from the newer boxes.

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