Didn’t say you can’t use them for other things, just that that’s what they’re best suited for.
Let me revise what I said, I meant electronic music in general
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It was coined by Juan Atkins after reading “The Third Wave” by Alvin Toffler. Toffler, writing in the late 70s, suggested his future would include “techno-rebels”, people fluent in the zeitgeist’s technical advances but committed to using them in off-piste ways. Atkins felt this suited the music he wanted to make.
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Cool! Short for “techno-rebels” is pretty great. Thanks for the bit of history!
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No, just “techno”.
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If every new pattern had its kit automatically saved to its associated kit memory slot it would be easy to name kits later and swap them around with each other. They could change the memory slot numbering system from the current 128 slots to A:1 to 8 thru H:1 to 8 to make things easier. I don’t necessarily prefer the DT system now but initially I found it a lot simpler. I bought the Rytm first but it has taken me a lot longer to understand its quirks than the DT.
I just sold a Roland MC-707 because I think the sequencer is way to limited for my workflow. On the 707 you can either define an Instrument per Track or per Track (aka pattern), but you are limited to that one. You cannot use extensive p-locks. Way to limited modulation options for the sequencer. If you don’t record into the sequencer, but program it, changing length and velocity in it is such a pain, that I started to use a Launchpad, Programm the Sequence there, than recorded it into the MC-707. You cannot set different Envelope and Filter values or even deep changes in the Synth-Sound per Track. Propabillity is very very basic.
But I would not say, one is better than the other… I am quite sure, that it heavily depends on your workflow, your style of song-structure, and maybe even style of music, what Sequencer is better for you.
Pointing out the Sequencer is too simplistic, sounds as if you are missing a few options, other devices have, but didn’t open the door and see, how complex the sequencer is.
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I’m pretty much sure the Digis have kits implemented as you’ve written(pattern 1 kit is saved automatically behind the scene to kit 1) but the user can’t just acces them directly.
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Machinedrum:
A new pattern gets the last active kit.
You wanna edit a sound? go to the kit page and change the sound. -
Analogs:
A new pattern gets the last active kit.
You wanna edit a sound? sure mess around and discover you just destroyed the first pattern sounds… -
Digis:
A new pattern gets a new template kit (that we can’t access)
The Analog way was the most error prone for me as I would accidentally modify a kit used in another pattern but I found a solution: new pattern = save right away the kit to the next available kit slot. More work but safe.
Somewhat my “solution” is certainly what the Digis are doing behind the scene but instead of saving the last active kit they save and use a template kit.
I like the Machinedrum way because I can’t forget I’m using a kit because in order to change a sound I need to go to the kit page so no mistakes but it’s more work…
The Digis way is easy to deal with so the learning curve is minimal and don’t lead to mistake but… I do miss kits, kits are really useful.
The Digis could bring a simplified kit system where we could copy and alias kits already assigned to each pattern. If you don’t go to the kit page, business as usual. If you go to the kit page then more power.
Basically, it would be like the preset list. Right arrow would bring the menu to copy, alias kits.
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check a kit (A1), copy to… list of available slots, check A2.
Now your pattern A2 has a copy of kit A1. if you modify the sounds on A2, A1 won’t change. -
check a kit (A1), alias to… list of available slots, check A2 (name becomes A2←A1)
If you change A2, A1 will change too. -
default kits would be marked with *
Finding a name for kits in the Analogs take times so I name them… like the above (the pattern slot)
If we could change kits on the fly while playing a pattern, that could be a lot of fun!
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You can go anywhere with KITT, but it can be confusing.
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But that defeats the purpose of kits: to have continuity-first pattern progression.
You can but it’s fiddly. You have to go into the kit memory and load a kit.
Oh, I meant with the Digis
Oh sorry. My bad.
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There are pros and cons to both kit and ”kitless” song writing/mixing/sound designing 
It would be awesome if there was a setting to make both camps happy. I think both systems are great for different use cases.
Kitless for early sketches/free flowing creativity. Would then be super cool to transition into a kit structure when you are arranging and finalizing the track! 
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To me there’s absolutely no doubt that has biased the design.
Caveat: I only know the models and am interested in digis… however now I also own an mc101 (where tracks are not constrained to live in a pattern) I feel I have a box that gets me more quickly to where I want to be.
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I don’t see how that would be affected. The kit would automatically be copied over from the current pattern 1 to pattern 2 as it does now but any changes to pattern 2’s kit would be saved to kit memory slot 2 leaving kit 1 the same is it was. That way all changes are saved and there isn’t the hazardous situation of losing the original kit from pattern 1 that you forgot to save. Naming and shuffling, copying etc can be done later. If this was offered as an additional mode it would keep users from both camps happy… although probably not.
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It’s not a bias, it’s a well designed instrument.
The Machinedrum was inspired by the Roland X0X’s. The current instrument design is closely related to the MD. They do what they do and they do it very well.
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I would love to see a system where we could set the behavior on pattern switching. Something like “when we switch to this pattern, load these sounds” or "when we switch to this pattern inherit the sounds of the pattern we switched from. It would be awesome if we could do this per track. It might help clear a bit of the confusion with kits maybe?
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Yes ! I guess it would need a lot of work from Electron team, but as they could make ARMKI/DT/ARMKII OS transitions with obvious shared DNA, it seems technically possible.
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thats from Techno Rebels the renegades of electronic funk by Dan Sicko (with foreword by Bill Brewster).
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Right: the Digi way.
I like that the current kit is linked to the next pattern by default. It suits how I think about making tracks. I’m content to put ip with the risk of making an unwanted change due to jamming in Pattern 2 as fair exchange for the convenience of “one kit per song, of whatever patterns I want”.