Reported!
I knew it!
Busted!
Why are you here exactly?
You can still add pattern 2 by holding pattern 1 on your addition of pattern 1. I don’t actually think chains is a great proper replacement for a song mode tho as at the end of the chain it just starts over unless you set your length to infinite but that can potentially change how your patterns play. Chains are better off used to set up a little cycle midway through the song before you transition to your song ending pattern.
But yeah that is just the thing about the digitakt is in its current iteration it is a live performance box and not a back up band member. Part of the fun of it is you can just be feeling a song and do something new with your patterns live for better or worse. If it is an ethos of what elektron wanted the digi boxes to be I’m not sure and elektron doesn’t really owe people a song mode if that wasn’t part of the vision but it would also be cool for a lot of people if it did. I dunno I personally enjoy the performance side of pattern switching and would prefer elektron to put there energy on more performance oriented features, stuff like assigning sound locks to key groups and properly transmitting midi mod and pitch bends on midi tracks would be much higher on my personal wants.
OMG why does digione have the sound locks to key groups but not digitakt? It would be almost as nice as slices with octatrack.
Monomachine is the only Elektron that survived at my home. I use kits and songmode all the time. I guess it does not make sense to crave for a feature not in a box years on the market. It would make sense to look first into the possibilities.
What does this mean? That you can lock different sounds using sections of the keyboard on DN?
@gerkinear I agree, but it still doens’t make sense how Pattern Chaining is implemented on the Digi line.
It just doesn’t make sense you cannot save your created pattern chains into your project. If they can at least fix this, which shouldn’t be hard to do.
Then we are practically done as to what can be done with the Digi boxes.
If the Pattern chains are saved into the project, we can then let a 3rd party Elektron project manager like Elk-herd fix the rest and let us manage our Pattern-chains via the App.
Which makes it like a simple form of Song mode.
I would be extremely happy with that and totally satisfied. That is all what we can expect at the least.
So again. We can already make Pattern chains in the Digitakt/Digitone’s memory, so it doesn’t make sense it’s not possible to save this into the project, so all your work creating these chains isn’t lost with each power cycle. It’s just stupid and why I just don’t bother using it at all in its current state.
Yeah I think they introduced it to digitone with the digitone keys… just being able to finger drum some choked drum groups live into the digitakt would be pretty nice, it’s odd that both the digitone and analog 4 have this feature but the fully drum focused device lacks it.
Yep. Together with the mentioned choke groups & live recording of retrigs. Which has nothing to do with the topic, but is actually more important to me than a song mode.
Song mode, THE update I hope…
Disagree…MIDI RETRIG 
Oh and LFO and CC assign to retrig value.
Hello all,
I just received the digitakt I ordered from Sweetwater today and I would like to shed some light and perspective on an aspect of the song mode issue that has not yet been discussed. but let’s first talk about the concept of “generally accepted minimum viable product” and how that changes with time:
Since the late 1980s, almost every basic midi hardware sequencer had a pattern chaining function that could be saved, typically this is rudimentary functionality of “song mode”. The ability to save and automate this feature at the most rudimentary level, while once optional, is now considered “table stakes” in basic midi sequencer design over a certain price. So much so that buyers are possibly surprised to learn after point of purchase that the pattern chaining function can’t be saved to a project.
I found this thread because as I started to read the manual and power up my Digitakt; one of the first things I was looking for was pattern chaining. The product descriptions are somewhat vague in this regard, but I purchased based on this being “table stakes” of basic hardware sequencers for 30 years, unless you are talking about step sequencers or really cheap stuff. generally speaking at this price point there are larger “table stakes”. once I saw the manual was also lacking in full description of how to save a chained pattern, I went online and found this thread. I suspect I am not alone, even though some in this thread are shaking their heads. In general, the folks saying “you don’t need it, etc” are “brand loyal” and also more aware of the feature/functionality of electron products.
So why this a problem for Elektron despite strong sales, and why is it causing a debate that gets more heated over time instead of dying out:
helpful Analogy on how minimum viable product market expectations change over time : In 2020, it’s not your own dumb fault if you buy a car, drive it off the lot, and only once it starts raining realize the windshield wipers are on a hand crank. the dealer shrugging his shoulders and saying “the wipers are there, what’s the problem, you never asked, somewhere in the fine print it says hand crank wipers…” is kind of missing the point…
I think this is why there is some level of “heat” to this debate. because it seems a bit deceptive(or massive oversight) to put the pattern chain function there and then not allow it to be saved. If it was a massive oversight, then since 2017 it might have been fixed, as often happens with products like this post release. in fact, the oversight is so egregious for anyone who wants to use pattern chaining, I suspect in the beginning, they probably had faith that elektron would fix this issue in short order. So for those users they see it less like an “entitled” request, and more like “I should have returned this thing but I didn’t in good faith that surely this would be corrected, and now I feel duped”
Now the debate is getting more heated and accusatory, not less, because it hasn’t been fixed and is being ignored, which means for many patient digitakt users who see this feature as not “nice to have” but “table stakes”, they feel that the unit may be intentionally hobbled, because why else would Elektron allow such an egregious oversight to perpetuate?
I just bought this and am within my return period with Sweetwater, mine can simply go back now that I have discovered the “hand crank wipers”, and I have a few days to decide what to do.
For those who would want to say to me as they have said to others: you should research etc etc: I’m a pretty smart guy, I did my homework, I knew it had rudimentary pattern chaining which was all I needed, the docs were vague, and in 2020 why the hell would there be volatile memory for pattern chains?
So back to the car analogy: my purchase experience was more like “yep, I see the wipers” only to find out as I pulled away the hand-crank awaiting me. luckily since I noticed right away: grace period I can take it right back.
So to Elektron: this was my first try with your product, and I spend multiple thousands yearly on gear, every year. I found a product hobbled for my needs, with a description that didn’t clearly point out this “oversight” and in fact describes “pattern chaining functions”. I watched YouTube videos of your existing customers using that function. turns out your product does not meet my needs and could be going back. What I suspect: you have other customers who were less savvy, and maybe didn’t discover this until it was too late, OR they trusted you would fix it quickly in an update.
My point beyond hopefully clarify the intensity of this thread for those who feel “stuck” with the digitakt:
In 1955 the windshield wiper hand crank is a quirk or oversight. In 2020 it’s kinda bad faith and hurts your “Brand Integrity Perception“ across All Products, and makes buyers like me not just consider returning the product, but think really hard about ever trying your brand again. Even if I keep the product, adding to your sales total, I am less likely to look at Elektron in the future. I say this from experience not malice: previously good brands in many industries have declined sharply over less. it just takes awhile for the sales decline to catch up to the poor experience/perception. what tends to happen is: 1. The word gets out, and new users jump to a competitive product that delivers 2. The users that felt burned leave the brand, but this takes a few years because those users will live with what they have now and only “punish” the brand when they go to refresh in few years. 3. The brand acts smug because sales are currently peaking, and fails to see the peril or correct course until too late to save brand perception. At that point the mass market jumps ship, and Elektron could be left with the 20% of brand loyalists talking to each other on this forum about how dumb the mainstream users like me are, for not knowing about the “hand crank” before we purchased.
Peace to All
Sell it…move on. It’s not for you.
This thread is pure entertainment, how riled up and angry people get about a this topic is hilarious. I can understand the need to suggest it as a feature request, but thats been done to death on multiple threads. There is no song mode, there will not be a song mode, accept and move on. Like it = Buy it, Don’t like it = Don’t buy it/sell it. Not sure why it needs to be more complicated than that.
You think that’s bad, I bought a DFAM. It doesn’t even have patch memory!
Moog should be ashamed of themselves!
I feel you. Thing is: it might still be for me, but my thread was more about meeting implied expectations. no hostility, I just “see the problem”. IE if the product had no pattern chaining function at all, there would actually be less debate and confusion.