Hi,
I’m trying to get as much use out of the synth engines as possible. Are there any tricks to holding trigs for longer than 1 step? I realise its meant for percussion type sounds, but would be really cool if we could hold notes for 8 steps or so.
Would appreciate any tips anyone can give me 
Thanks!
Yes, easy, hold a trig for longer than 1 step ! 
It’s monophonic btw; notes can be recorded live from very brief to 64 steps and (also/or) be set to release infinitely … i don’t see what the problem is, just record it(presuming your amp envelope is set up to play whilst you hold), or program the exact length in step mode
Trig page -> note length, or else p-lock that on your trig 
(if that’s what you are looking for)
edit: or what avantronica suggests 
^ That’s probably what you wanted, if you just want to tap a trig in step mode for quick ‘long’ synth notes then that’s the way, but the note length won’t be locked if you later tweak it (unless manually locked or recorded in)
Thanks for the replies guys!
Right, when I’ve just had a play around with the toms, it was pretty easy to get a trig to play for 16 steps by maxing out the decay and hold settings. I was having a problem before as tuning on the HT was quite high so it would only play for 1 step.
Strangely the length setting on the trig page doesn’t seem to affect the length at all?? If I hit the pad (HT) the sound plays the same if the length is at the lowest or highest setting.
And even though I’m getting the HT to play for 16 steps, the volume (decay) starts to drop after 4-6 steps. Is there a way of holding the note, for say 16 steps?
It depends on the synth … toms are resonant filters and these will die out, the new machines are built on oscillator shapes (see BD sharp e.g.) , but if you want to hear the ‘potential’ of your envelope, just use the sample engine with a looping C4 sin wave from the factory samples
the trig (or note) length is a completely separate parameter from the ENV settings for sustain, decay, release, etc.
note length refers to how long the note itself is… 16th, 8th, whole note, etc… whereas the ENV refers to the behavior of the sound whenever it is triggered, no matter what kind of note - but its still dependent on note length… except the ‘release’ setting - its the only aspect that will be the same no matter the note length
Ah I didn’t realise it was synth dependant. Playing around with the BD machines and the notes hold for much much longer.
Thanks to everyone for taking the time to get back to me
Right, that makes sense. But then why doesn’t the length affect the sound length at all? Im hitting the BD pad and turning the length back & forth from min to max and it doesn’t make any difference to the sound at all?
the pad responds to how long you hold it down - just like a key on a keyboard
in the same way, the note length refers to how long the machine holds down the key when the sequencer triggers that step… you see what i mean?
note length only comes into play while the seq is running, and the note is triggered by the sequencer - not you
The length is only applicable at launch
The note length equates to gate length, which is everything (time wise) in a regular Amp envelope up to the initiation of the release phase
As I said, the best way for you to hear the env is to play with a constant Source, like a sample tone, some synth engines will not sustain infinitely, so that muddies the water
If you have a look you’ll see that some params are time based and some are automated based on note length, but if you have a long sustain, it will be much harder to perceive the gate/A:D:S phase (normal ADSR env) , test out with a shorter release … the AR envs are likely a little harder to explain because the hold phase can override the note gate time, if not on auto
and as @invisible_acropolis points out, Note Length is a TRACK param, not a Sound param - although the sound param can be affected by this, it is possible for it to be independent
Now I’m with you. Just been playing around with the BD machines, very long note length and some LFO action. Getting really good bass / sub madness going on. Im pretty blown away by this, its opened up a lot more possibilities for me. Awesome, thank you! 
And 1 thing to mention for anyone else who, like me didn’t know this: Hold (HLD) on the amp page overrides the note length on the trig page.
yupp, and auto hold is your friend for sustaining sounds
Is there anything that overrides the note length? Because mine isn’t working and I’m not sure why.
I’ve p-locked an open hat sample with the NOTE LENGTH on max and HOLD on auto but the sound doesn’t change.
@Sledge A sample’s maximum “length” will be the length of the sample. If your OH sample is 1 second long, there’s no way that changing parameters will make it sound longer than that. If you wanted to do something like that you’re getting into time stretching territory, which the RYTM isn’t capable of.