Yeah you definitely can record in step or realtime when chaining. AFAIK every Elektron machine since the MD can do it though obviously not Heat or Drive 
Not sure about M:S but bet it can.
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i even prefer to limit myself to 32 steps per pattern because I hate having to wait for 64 step to revolve before i ear the effect of a knob tweak 
it would be cool if elektron added a “pattern page focus”, looping on the defined page of a pattern for editing purposes.
do you guys feel the same?
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The sequencer is the only thing they got right. The size of that thing is hilarous. Why o why does noone thinks about usability anymore? As a strong shortsighted person, who starts also to become badly far sighted lately…this thing is not usable for me…my arms are not long enough.
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Yep. So dumb.
I think you are missing my point/misinterpretting, was not trying to be mean spirited or trash anyone, and I am one of those guys who has no music theory background.
But I have been using grooveboxes for a while now, and the trend is to make it more accesable, but somehow through that losing some features I do like. Any case this was a ‘Rant’, but glad I made you think about grooveboxes for a moment and the “8 bar awareness crisis”.
The tricky part of dealing with the whole groovebox thing is most of the time when a box is designed to ‘do everything’ it doesn’t typically do any of those things all that well. It’s like trying to stuff 10lbs of shit into a 5lb bucket.
I think the EMX/ESX/RM1x did all of those great, Command stations too, and where even deeper, even though a little too much menu diving from Emu
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I don’t know about you but I try to abuse trig conditions… You can have trig conditions up to 1-8:8 on most Elektron devices.
That means 8 repeats of the pattern, if your pattern is 64 beats… that’s 32 bars of potential variation and motion.
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This…
I have an octatrack. Infinite master sequencer length and pattern chain settings mean that the so called four bar limit, is false, and irrelevant.
I can have what ever number of bars I please, In any time signiture I please. Seeing a boundary and staying inside it is a choice. Discovering the potential of a machine realises ways to break boundaries.
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^ OT is beast mode 
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The main thing I’m taking from this thread is that there are so many different ways we all work and so to think in terms of “standard features” we’d expect a groovebox must have is weird as there will always be people who fall outside those normal situations. I tend to be quite pragmatic in my approach to things and don’t get too hung up on specific methods… if i want to work with 8 bar melodies in a very linear way then I’ll tend to use a DAW as I’ve never encountered a groove box of any generation to be good for patterns of that length. Using 4 bar patterns with conditional trigs makes more sense to me as I tend to structure songs in my head in ‘blocks’. Plus, I also tend to think about using the most appropriate tool for the job… I’m unlikely to go onto the Sibelius forums and complain that the software is horrid for making dark ambient…
You certainly did! I hate to come across as some aging hippy but I do think that conditional trigs absolutely are composing. Consciously placing trigs on certain steps means that it’s an equally conscious decision to not place trigs on other steps. And so, consciously placing conditional trigs on certain steps is a conscious decision for a note to play x% of the time on that step. It’s just as deliberate an action and the outcome as far as sound is concerned can express an idea or emotion just the same.
It’s like the old adage about if you’re playing and make a mistake, just repeat it. If that becomes a song then does it mean the song wasn’t composed? Where does likes of found sound fit into this? Sample digging? I just find it easier to think of any action taken to make music as composing and then we can cater for the most complex to most simple, most accessible to most obtuse and we’re all golden.
I feel like I should be wearing tie-dye whilst typing this…
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I knew when I came in here that I’d find some people complaining that such-and-such feature isn’t present in their Elektron device when it actually is, and I wasn’t disappointed What a nice surprise for those people!
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Just to throw this out there:
When a pattern can be 8 bars long, the makers have the assume that ALL patterns will be 8 bars long and account for the storage space needed for that data. So, would you rather have half as many but longer patterns, or have the ability to create twice as many patterns and chain them together when you need to?
Yes, I realize that the majority of users probably don’t ever come close to the pattern limit of a project/device and it’s probably not a huge amount of data needed to be stored (but, obviously, each device does have a limit, so it it is somewhat of a concern) - just something to think about…
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may not be what your’e looking for, but basically any MPC…
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Might I suggest an Easel and its 5 step sequencer?
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Yeah played with an mpc1000 for a bit, but wasn’t mad on the workflow.
Maybe the mpc live or that new one they just released might offer better workflow.
I do like the step sequencer paradigm and the ‘on the flyness’ vibe of Elektron/Korg/Roland stuff, which I am not convinced the mpc’s excel at. Could possibly be me though more the equipment.
I was about to suggest this 40 quids wonder: https://www.thonk.co.uk/shop/ryo-penta-kit/
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I agree - very different way to work - more like chucking in an MPC500 etc. is a good way to offload MIDI or audio parts, backings etc that can be outside of the pattern-length ‘limitation’ on a groovebox - also a cheap way to get multiple length stuff happening with some electribes etc. Also temp_per_sequence! (nomenklature: seq = patt)
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That would do the trick!
I’ve been setting up some interesting 5-9 step patterns on my Medusa and TB-3 lately which has been fun.
Yeah no doubt the mpc’s have some strengths, been around longer than any other groove box and still going. Might revisit if I see a bargain going.
So…I just learned about one shot trigs on the OT
Which is kind of like a live >4-bar recording if you’d like.
This guy recorded this part to a 4-bar pattern, but the recording itself was longer, and he can easily make it play as long as he recorded it, too.
Sounds like “more than 4 bars” to me 
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