Pattern change one bar late issue

Elektron Gear
#68

That’s the thing: Elektron boxes absolutely will pattern change at the right moment when triggered by a non-elektron. The question you should be asking yourself is, “for this device, what is the ‘right moment’?”

When is the right moment to trigger a pattern change on an Elektron sequencer playing another pattern? A beat or two before the current pattern reaches the end of its loop. Send the PC then (again, exactly when you’d normally press the button yourself if playing live) and you will have no problems whether your sequencer is made by Korg or Squarp or whomever.

Now maybe you don’t like the way Elektron queues up pattern changes like this? Maybe you feel it’s a shame that they don’t all have the Direct Start and Direct Jump modes of the A4, for example? That seems a reasonable thing to want from a 700€ box! But it has nothing to do with MIDI or bugs or manufacturer lock in.

And you’d have better luck asking for that feature you wish it had rather than insisting they fix something they clearly don’t even think is broken :wink:

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#69

Fair point. To say “this isn’t a bug” should not be read as “there are no bugs” :slight_smile:

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#70

Yes yes, I was not going against what you said.
I agree with you that most of it is the intended behavior, and from a logical point of view, it makes sense. But yes, aside from this, some other logical behaviors don’t happen the way they should.

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#71

How can the elektron know when a pattern change is coming? If the two sequencers are in sync, the pc message will get to the elektron late. They would have to implement a direct change witch would mean that it starts to trigger the old sound, but immediately change. That would sound glitchy. Or they would need to introduce a fixed latency so it could get the pc message when received from another sequencer.

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#72

Totally. I’ve just got the COVID and have nothing to do but sit around replying to everything :sweat_smile:

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#73

This is the cop out answer that frustrates and annoys a lot of people, myself included, who are otherwise really happy with their Elektron devices.

In this day and age, you shouldn’t have to stand on one leg while patting your stomach to make a device change in time with everything else. (You know, jump through hoops and make specific allowances on other machines).

@hazer posted a way around this in 4 steps.
His point is correct. If he can do it, really Elektron should be able to do it within the boxes.
A check box that made this happen, maybe at the temporary expense of other timing:Ch.Len options would be fine by most people who have a problem with this I think.

Now, honestly, if you asked me- do you want this functionality to work seamlessly in sync with other devices, but have to full sacrifice the master and per track/part seq length options, I would probably say no and stick with what I have now.

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#74

(Hope the Covid’s not too bad, btw :+1:).

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#75

Do these “everything else” boxes have chains you can make and unmake on the fly?

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#76

+1 Since I switched to using an MPC One as the main hub a couple of years ago, the Elektrons I own get used a lot less. I doubt I’ll buy another one now. Some machines have multimap as a workaround, so they could easily do the same thing with direct change for those of us who want it.

It feels like a personal insult to me these days. I love the machines, but this PC nonsense in is a real dealbreaker for me. The Rytm mk 1 syncs 1 beat late if I attempt to use the MPC PC box at all.

I just hope the MPC gets conditionals, it’s moving in that direction and that’s the thing I love the most about Elektron Sequencing.

I’d love to think they will sort it out one day, but gave up believing that years ago, they don’t give a toss.

2 Likes
#77

Well to be honest, the only one that matters is the one giving out the master sync as the main brain… in my case that’ll be Ableton or my MPC.
Ableton I can figure it out with some planning, sending a PC change via a non-qtsd clip… apparently some people have figured out how to make the MPC’s send early to the Elektron’s, but I haven’t got the patience for that personally. I’d rather fire patterns manually and have a moan here. :upside_down_face:
That means my Elektrons serve as sound modules or sound sources for their patterns, which I’ll record in and use/work on in Ableton/MPC.

#78

What happens when you use an Elektron to drive all the rest? Do they all change early?

#79

It’s not a cop out. It’s literally describing how the machines work. Like, literally literally. The DN manual says:

When a pattern is playing, and a new pattern is selected, the new pattern position is shown flashing in the upper left corner of the screen. Once the last step of the pattern has played, the new pattern starts, and the pattern position ceases to flash.

If you’re not a fan, that’s totally understandable. But it’s not like I’m making it up. :angel:

The thing I find super interesting is how no one has a problem with this outside of sending PCs via MIDI. Everyone’s first experience hands-on with changing patterns on an Elektron is, like, “yeah, that’s how groove boxes are supposed to work.”

Then I suggest they follow the exact same procedure, but with MIDI, and they’re all, “How dare you! Elektron should be ashamed!”

I humbly suggest the behavior expected by the Elektron hasn’t changed between those two reactions. The thing has changed is the tool used to trigger it.

This strongly suggests to me the problem is not with the Elektron’s expectations (which are constant between the two cases) nor Elektron’s sequencer (which people seem to like well enough when using it) — but rather with the new tool one wants to use as a “brain” but for the sudden realization that is has arbitrary limitations like not being able to send MIDI messages when necessary or whatever.

To my mind, that makes it a limited brain. Don’t go blaming the instrument when the brain can’t hack it.

Re: COVID, yup, pretty mild. Just dealing with the quarantine, now. Thanks for the well-wishes!

#80

I wonder if they’ll also fix the M:C and M:S … the bug on those (two) too.

#81

Do you think the new song mode helps with this issue? Haven’t got the time to update and try.

#82

One solution is buying a blokas. I worked out a way to do immediate pattern changes with some midi programming for DT/DN/octa with deluge as master. No Legato, thou. Blokas does the trick!

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#83

If you have two synced boxes say, a digitone and a Digitakt then when you que up a pattern change on the Digtone it would immediately send that message to the Digitakt and switch to the same pattern (number) in sync with the Digitone. That would be a great solution to me. Then drums on the Digitakt would follow the Digitone pattern change. Wouldn’t it be a simple way to sync two boxes fully together?

1 Like
#84

Possible Solution to Pattern Change Delay:
I was having the same issue that drove me to this post and with a bit of time I figured out my specific but related problem.
My Master is an Octatrack, and its driving a second Octatrack and a digitone.
My second Octatrack was changing programs right away, in sync with my master Octatrack, but my digitone was changing one pattern loop later.
After a bunch of digging I finally found the Answer to my issue, perhaps it can be the answer to many here… not sure. But for me, in my Digitone Pattern Scale settings I have it per pattern. and on the right side CH/Length and M. Length I had it set to 64 and inf.
I then found out that Ch.Length is a delay time for the pattern to change after its been cued. so at 64 it was waiting for a whole loop. I set that to Off for all my Digitone patterns and Im good to go. Changing right away in sync with the rest of the pack.
Thing is, its so basic that Im not sure if its the same issue most people are having, but perhaps it can help some.
Cheers!

4 Likes
#85

It isn’t the same issue that most people talk about, this problem is that all Elektrons need to receive early program changes so when using any other midi device as a master they all send them on time, but for Elektrons that’s too late & they change a bar late.

What’s needed is direct change mode which the analog devices actually have a physical button to do it manually, the mode would trigger it via PC. There’s a workaround using multi-map & notes to select patterns for the A4 & DN but not on other devices. It’s such a shame.

2 Likes
#86

yup, that’s elektron. They have a very good sequencer but it sadly needs too many workaround to get it right. And sometimes it just won’t work if you are not into the same Elektron ecosystem.
I ended up selling my digitakt with no regrets.

#87

You guys live in the past: composing a new song in 2023 includes purging its structure of:

  • intro
  • verse
  • pre-chorus
  • chorus
  • bridge
  • verse
  • turnaround
  • chorus
  • closing

This basically means that program change is no longer necessary
Elektron knows best