I’d like to see a global setting for this, but I think they made the right choice by having one master tempo. You can change between patterns in a live setting without unwanted tempo shifts. It’s one of those design decisions where either choice could have been perceived as negative, depending on the context. With only one option available, I think having a global tempo was the right decision, but letting users choose would be a nice option.
The point about tempo-synced effects freaking out is a really good one though. If the effects tails just stopped it would be like muting tracks on the OT (which immediately mutes the effects tails, and which IMO should also be a global setting option).
I haven’t used song mode on the A4, but on the OT, IIRC the tempo can be stored as part of the pattern chain. That’s another option for those who want to programatically store tempo information in association with a pattern.
This is my biggest disappointment with the A4. I’ve had to write tempos in my kit names so I can remember tempo changes. Unfortunately I can’t do an instant tempo change still. If you don’t want your tempo to change when going to a new pattern, just give it the same tempo. Or even implement a tempo ‘neighbour’ type setup so if you do decide to change tempo on the fly, the ‘neighbour’ pattern will be the same.
If I had to pick one option though, it would not be one master tempo. Makes no sense to me.
For tempo changes per pattern, you can always select a pattern and prepare the new tempo with [Tempo]+[Function]+[Level knob]; release the buttons and voilà.
I guess that if this was not implemented in the first place was due to a good reason, e.g. FX going crazy (they are dependent on bpm) or simply because of certain discrepancies with other time-related parameters or stored data.
If tempo p-locks for tempo would be implemented, then why not signature changes per step?
Although this could be feasible, which physical controls would be used? The level knob is already taken for the sound pool. Trig+Function+Level?
…this is a good spot to ask for my tempo trigs again, innit?
plocking tempo could lead to a mess pretty fast…
but tempo pro pattern IS A MUST!!!
so tempo trigs could only work on first bar…
or what so ever…
but i’m trying to run complete stage shows with an elektron rig (ot, a4)
and i simply can’t use the arranger for this…
but i need to be able to switch to another part which HAS NOT THE SAME FUCKING TEMPO at any time in one flow…no time for pressing a button and twiddleling an endless tempo knob to some certain position and then get out of the tempo menu again…no way…
it’s really really time to do something about this…elektron gear is beyond nerdculture and clubmusic now…grow up…i have to tease a seated theatre audience…so come on, make it happen…
could some, in all seriousness, explain why this so sort after?
why tempo plocking ?
I can’t think of anything other than wave sampling option and external midi that are needed on the a4, joystick recording and arp plock also would be first choice os feature requests
…i really, in all seriousness, don’t care if the a4 can do tempo p locks as long it follows tight to an octatrack which COULD plock tempo…
IN ALL SERIOUSNESS, i play shows with different cues for choreo and lighning and projection and interaction with perfomrers… i have to to follow or go up front for all of this and it’s ESSENTIAL for me to play all the different tracks of a such a show in all their DIFFERENT tempi…each of them…
is that serious enough for you… in venues with 2000 seats…?
[quote=“” reeloy""]
…i really, in all seriousness, don’t care if the a4 can do tempo p locks as long it follows tight to an octatrack which COULD plock tempo…
IN ALL SERIOUSNESS, i play shows with different cues for choreo and lighning and projection and interaction with perfomrers… i have to to follow or go up front for all of this and it’s ESSENTIAL for me to play all the different tracks of a such a show in all their DIFFERENT tempi…each of them…
is that serious enough for you… in venues with 2000 seats…?
[/quote]
Would love to see how this works, what sort of show is it were talking? Sounds complex.
“…less machine-like and more human…”–meaning more compositionally musical. I love Berlin School music and do my fair share but with Global Tempo on A4 with no option for different time signatures, ability to reverse or random sequences as well, it kind of baffles me when my 1999 Quasimidi Polymorph which albeit is totally digital, but can do all that and much more such as morphing into different time signatures AND it even will sequence external synths. My 2004 Radikal Technologies Spectralis also does all the above.
I am not dissing the A4 because it’s sound engine is really nice but it seems to be crippled by design rather than what many on this forum love to rather call “limitations”…well, grow-up and acknowledge this is few weeks shy of 2015. I all so well-know that no instrument is “perfect”. But as a long time synth/keys/hardware player, the A4 is incredibly hard to incorporate into one’s non-Elektron set-up and requires constant hands-on attention with cryptic key combos that I for one simply do not have enough hands, nor does it help when everything/patterns start sounding very same same with no individual time signatures per track which has relegated my A4 to actually being just an expensive drone machine for a background sound.
The Analog Keys my buddy has, has reached this same impasse even with the keys because the A4/Keys is like a 2 year old with ADHD requiring constant attention and when you have 8 or many more proper synths with keys and rack gear, one simply does not have the time to attend to the tiny screen and button combo presses to make everything seamless and SOUND MUSICALLY HUMAN RATHER THAN A MACHINE…that just happens to have a synth engine.
^ oh dear, limited time and imagination manifesting as definitive product condemnation, what was the point of that ! If it doesn’t work for you, trade it up, use it as a paperweight or maybe learn how to make the best of it, put some HUMAN in your programming, it’s not a conventional instrument, but it’s as close as you’ll get in terms of finding a performable electronic machine with the skills required of instrument playing, invest some time in it and come back with something positive to contribute for once
…let’s stop all this…well, so maybe it’s not the right thing for you…
it’s really not too much to ask, if all that’s missing is nothing but the option to make a difference between a master tempo and individul pattern tempi…
i mean, seriously again, even my oldest mpc (over twenty years by now) can do this easily…you got a song editor where each song has it’s individual tempo…you have single sequences, each with an individual trmpo…and you can switch to a master tempo at any time…
what’s the fuzz here…!?
and i bought in elektron in first place for having nothing but real instruemnts on stage with me…fitting in a small rig and doing it all…no heavy duty mpc, no computer, no additional controler, no interfaces…just great sound to touch straight forward in little black boxes…
i’m playing round about 200 shows a year and i just can’t use the elektron gear for it full on because of this little stinky item…
if we’re really talking pro here, elektron better do something about it…
at least the ot MUST get there…
it’s simply asking to be the master clock…
ot in slave mode is a mess you can’t count on in front of a big audience…
so please elektron, would you finally hear that call…
… to be fair, i clearly wasn’t taking any issue with those who were bemoaning the lack of tempo saving, that’s something i sympathise with, i just see a lot of this “it’s useless … i’m entitled … synths from the 17th century can do that … make it happen now … it’s in its box 'til i get this” and sometimes, like ^above^, the forum is relentlessly used to pour out lazy unimaginative criticism, yeah, i’m calling that post out (did you actually read it !), some of us come on to get solutions and offer solutions, to learn and to move forward, sometimes that means pointing the finger at Elektron, which i do, but it’s not the SOLE reason i post here,i criticise constructively (more-so than your abridged quote implies wrt the above too, to be fair) and i put in far more than i get back in return
instead of venting constantly on the forum in the hope it’ll get noticed, just ask them outright, ‘is it going to happen, everyone wants it’, see what they say
i took a few months out from here because it became a total drag, can we not just elevate the debates (critical or otherwise), maybe Elektron would join in a bit more, quite a few helpful contributors have vanished, not disconnected to the calibre of discussion i’d suggest (let alone getting passed the 504s, of course)
so we finally get individual tempo options without sticking to an arranger…
because, surely elektron has a glance in here once in a while…no doubt.
is anyone using more than one elektron machine on stage and actually really use this damned thing…?
i can imagine a lot of nice things to do with it in the studio…but i’m talking live situations here, and really don’t see a chance to work it out with arranger options…
…playing some dance music live set, hanging on with one tempo or just tweak it once or twice to lay out one long track based set can’t be all to leave with in all these long gone years…that is pretty oldschool, indeed…uncool oldschool…
i love the elementary aproach of eleltron gear but…
you could run so much more events, locations, happenings and occasions if elektron gear would only let us handle tempo on free flight without taking care of it all the time…and without being forced to stick with some pre fixed arrangements…
i’m aware of the fact, that the heart of all eletron machines is the sequencer, and whatever you do in realtime, it keeps going…
so individual pattern tempi might be not that easy to realise…
but we don’t need the usual madness of free to go anywhwhere any time like it is with all the other options to find here…
so i’m not asking to be able to change tempo per step…
i’m just asking for ONE tempo per pattern each, while running free with a perfomance beyond ordinary disco or nerdy show offs…
This please!!!