Hi there … I hope this is not too daft a question … I can microtime individual notes, however is ther a way to nudge a complete track sequence back or fore in a similar way, ie less than a note?
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Not currently.
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I think if you go to the swing track, place a swing trig on every step, then change the swing level you should be able to microshift the whole track in one go. However you can only shift it behind the beat, not forward.
I’ve not tried this, and can’t as I don’t have the a4 infront of me, but I don’t see a reason why it wouldn’t work :). Good luck! 
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I wasn’t aware these existed. The manual only mentions them once, as far as I can tell, in the list of what a pattern contains, and doesn’t have a further explanation. What other secrets are lurking in this box?
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Oh yeah, these boxes go deeeeep with little tricks. I think the only time I’ve used this was to tighten the timing of a fill at the end of the 4th bar by removing swing trigs. And once adding random swing trigs to make a drunk drummer/humanisation feel (kinda worked, not sure I’d recommend it).
Couple of small ones:
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Holding func whilst in the trig menus (swing, slide, accent, mute) and pressing a trig applies it to the same trig on each track! A secret, undocumented feature ;). I think I posted it in a thread somewhere else, maybe the “most incredible/deep elektron” thread. Good fun for live manipulation :D.
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Also, holding transpose + up/down whilst in the sound preview menu let’s you preview different octaves without exiting the menu, and won’t affect your transpose settings. Another undocumented feature (I think).
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Thanks, I’ll save these. You’re right, I don’t see an immediate use for swing trigs, though the one that prompted the mention might be interesting to try in something like a minimal techno context (if I am using that term correctly, I am never sure about these things). I’ll also drop a note into the documentation thread.
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I’m pretty sure there’s some untapped potential, maybe doing a block of 4 swung trigs, 4 unswung trigs, repeat… Or maybe for allowing an accurate triplet roll with the rest of the track remaining swung? Or keeping a particular track unswung and swinging the rest of the tracks.
Sounds good RE the documentation thread, happy to post it there tonight when I get time 
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I did it already!
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Is there a delay on the amp ? … slightly delaying the start of the attack on the envelope.
Not technically altering the trig but it would impact the attack/ transient of the sound
A delay on the amp envelope would just put the note off-beat. [Edit: sorry, I got confused about which thread I was posting in, no there isn’t for the AK/A4, though you’re right, this would have the desired effect.] There is a separate filter envelope, and while there isn’t an initial delay on the one in the A4 (there is in the DT as of the latest update), it can have a slower attack than the amp envelope.
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Gosh, more than I asked for there …. In Ableton i have used a wet-only delay with no feedback to microtome a track, I did not think of this cos I can’t make it delay only on the A4…? Not having a wet/dry on the A4 is also on my Santa list for Elektron, or am I missing something again?
Okay, I’ve had a read over this a couple of times and think I know what you’re asking. I think you can send the track to your delay FX @ lvl127, and turn down your track volume, not amp volume, to 0 (but don’t use mute as this will stop the delay send) you should have a 100% wet delay track without the dry being audible. You might need to set your FX track level, and the volume of your delay settings to get things gain matching.
I think there’s also a “route to main” setting in the options menu where you could choose to disable sending your audio to the main output, but I can’t remember… It’s there for the digitakt, but I’ve never fiddled with it for the A4, it might not exist.
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That is ingenious thankyou, I shall be exploring this. I love the way these boxes are like a puzzle…
I really want a wet/dry I can modulate tho, I have been doing this a lot in ableton.
I have been playing with this … I can activate swing on every trig, but I can’t get it to apply to just one track … sure I did it at one point but can’t find it now …
Maybe try disable all swing-trigs on the track you don’t want to swing?
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I mean it applies the swing to all tracks, I would like to just move one track relative to the others …
Maybe not possible, I’m unsure if the A4 allows per track swing, it’s possibly a global kit or pattern thing across all tracks. I maybe had octatrack brain whilst replying to this 
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The octatrack defo has this, I’m in work and don’t have access to my A4 but I can check when I’m home in… Fuck me, 7 hours. Today is already dragging.
Maybe get a Syntakt, small enough to take to work ….
It looks like it’s not possible on A4, just sure I did it at one point ….
I don’t know a one-step way to do what you want.
What you CAN do, at least on the A4 mk1, is to follow the normal procedure for microtiming, but hold down SEVERAL trigs as you turn the timing knob. All the trigs held will be have their microtiming shifted the same amount.
This is obviously not as good as being able to shift every note at once, but does beat hell out of shifting trigs one by one. On the positive side, with this method you can move trigs either earlier or later.
If you write busy patterns, just use your whole arm. Or get a friend to help …
Thank you … Yes, this is what I have been playing with, it kind of limits you to how many trigs you can reach tho … interesting in itself cos it made me cut down any patterns that could manage to less than 16 steps.
To be honest, very little of this track microtiming has proven helpful… I wanted to try it hardware because I regularly move my acid line back or forward in ableton til it sounds just right.
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