Just a POS hobbyist here looking for clarity. This is possible on the hardware but brutal to do?
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Yeah, possible, but probably around 5-10 minutes minimum per pattern. You have to save all the track sounds, copy the pattern, change the project, paste the pattern, load the track sounds. Then hope you didn’t p lock a bunch of different sample slots on the DT.
On the OT, it takes much more than that, like a good hour or so.
For a full Bank:
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Noting samples names and number from both Sample Slots lists, which tracks points where in which pattern
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Check & write down the different P-locked samples and their slots numbers and names in each pattern
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For each part, Copy Part, exit project, load the other project and the Bank/part where you want to paste that part.
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Same for patterns
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Reassigning the different samples and make sure there’s no link broken/forgotten.
Some time is required to go back and forth between projects for each copy paste. If you did not lose track on what has been copied paste, you’re good to try and listen if it sounds a bit like it used to.
You also need to check the MIDI tracks point to the right channels (you probably use a consistent workflow but for older projects…)
PITA.
My biggest issue is that i started creating many projects in my first uses of the OT before understanding its architecture. I thought Project = song.
Also sometimes you just want to work on an idea and you boot up a new project. You don’t know where/how that song will end, especially if you have several music projects in different genres going on. Same if you want to remix one song from a project for another.
After 1h of doing all that copy/pasting, you can understand the idea you had to remix has long time gone… and the next time you just give up with the idea knowing what’s waiting for you.
Edit: I also don’t remember what about Pages settings, maybe they need to be identical before pasting anything, unless they are included in the Part settings. Same for Pattern and Track settings.
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Ouf, I’m happy that I compose my Tracks on only one Pattern!
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This response is checked as the answer
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Sign my change.org petition to have Ask Elektron integrate “Elk-Herd” into its software.
Moderator Edit Note : We don’t welcome nor permit such an approach on Elektronauts, nor spamming, we have an established process for logging interest in all new functionality. Petitions are a ridiculous notion when used for such trivial matters and are not going to be effective in any case.
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To be honest this is asking for something impossible.
They don’t need to incorporate elk-herd. They could/might expand the functionality of Transfer. I’ve been asking for this a few times here and there but it’s just not very high on their to do list from what I gathered. Unfortunately. So it might be a better idea to change the petition to ask for sample and pattern management similar to the capabilities of elk-herd.
I really hope this will happen some day.
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If Elektron would be open to making the Digitakt project binary file format documentation available, I’d look into adding some form of project management to DigiChain - I just do not have the free time to dedicate to reverse engineering that, and then it’d be subject to being broken with any future firmware updates.
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I think ElkHerd might work through Sysex transfers, but I recently tried to read through a pattern and a project dump and the structure wasn’t immediately legible to me, (though I’ve only done very basic work with sysex before).
Edit to add: I recently got around to trying DigiChain, and I just wanted to say a hearty thanks for your work on that, it’s magnificent and working with samples on DT is starting to click with me because of it.
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I believe elk-herd does use sysex, in a similar way to Elektroid.
For DigiChain, I want to be able to open the project file and pull out the pattern/sample/sound settings (it already pulls out the audio files if you drop a dtprj in), and have a minimal UI to move patterns between projects, where DigiChain would then output a new dtprj file for the user to send via the Transfer app.
So not a straightforward as elk-herd, but I want to continue to support Safari/mobile users who can’t use web-USB/MIDI.
Thanks for the kind words too! I’ve been working on other things, but I’ll be spending some time on an update this month 
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I would imagine that the structure and limitations of the sound pool are the reasons why Elektron hasn’t implemented this feature. If you copy a pattern from project B to project A, how would you handle conflicts? I’m sure there could be several different options, like “overwrite,” “ignore,” “overwrite and shift upwards,” et cetera, with clearly laid out rules for what happens in different edge cases, but this would approach Octatrack level of complexity—an old shady past that I think Elektron is trying to leave behind.
Essentially, while I can appreciate that this feature is important for a very small minority of users, I believe it would only confuse most users who wouldn’t be willing to engage in the necessary mental gymnastics to get it right. This confusion could lead to unexpected results with patterns that suddenly don’t sound as they used to, all the while adding bloat and yet another thing for Elektron to manage and update. Judging by their recent product designs, Elektron seems to be following a philosophy akin to Apple’s, where users are shielded from the possibility of messing up their setup, even if they want to.
So, in summary, I don’t see this happening 
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It’s the actual lack of tools that leads to a complicated gymnastic.
“The slot number and sample name don’t match. Do you want to continue or search for the sample and assign it to an empty slot? Automatic / Manual search”
That’s more like Apple 
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I’ve been staring at this sentence for five minutes now and I’m still confused about exactly how it would work 
Well, this tool IS already existing.
Its called elk-gerd and it worked.
It just doesnt work with the last update because its creator stopped working on it.
So the question how or if this could work is irrelevant.
A user created this, so elektron should also be able to do it.
Or at least pick up on his work!
But he (mzero) once said that elektron never contacted him.
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AFAIK elk-herd was never open sourced, which is a real shame. It would still be working if it were, most likely.
Not always an easy decision to open source something like this though, especially if you think you might make money off it at some point or the code is crappy or whatever, so I totally understand why it’s not.
And I totally understand the author disappearing, I did similarly with a tool I built years ago as the maintenance burden was too much and I had other priorities (that one was open source so it made doing so guilt free a bit easier). You do feel a sense of letting people down so it can be easier to just do nothing, especially if you’re busy or have other stuff going on in your life.
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I’m sure it’s neither of those. Open sourcing also means having to document a lot of stuff and offer some support. As you say he probably has better things to do :). It’s unfortunate but it is what it is.
Afaik He initially build the tool for himself to manage his projects and was kind enough to release it to the public.
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For me, Elk-herd really does make composing on the DT far easier and less error-prone. I think comparing it to playing a guitar is a bit unfair, because a guitar doesn’t have a file management system in it, or frets that only appear after you’ve fingered other frets.
But let’s be constructive here. These elk-thirsty threads are, for sure, silly. And probably even unwelcome by mzero, who clearly has their own priorities and doesn’t need to be pestered about some software that a few dozen people happen to like.
So here’s what makes elk-herd so useful to me, and what I wish Elekton would take inspiration from, if and when they release another update:
The big one for me is just being able to easily (and NON-DESTRUCTIVELY!!!) swap patterns around.
When I’m composing, I don’t know in advance what will be the first, second, or final part of a song, and the Copy/Paste/Clear Pattern route is not only time consuming—it inevitably leads to accidental deletions and overwrites. (Also it makes a ton of clickety-clackety sounds that drives Mrs Duppy into murderous rage.)
But I think this issue could be largely solved if the DT had a “Pattern swap” feature where you could simply trade the places of two patterns instead of having to write one over another (a la the SP404-II.)
For instance, FUNC+PTN twice, pick any 2 patterns, then hit “Yes.”
Yes, Song Mode now helps with this, but it’s still so much easier to remember a large number of songs if you can group, say, all the verses or choruses together.
The second feature would probably have to be in Transfer or Overbridge—showing what samples are used in what patterns, to make it easier to free up space, see if there’s a sample you maybe forgot about or maybe isn’t on the +drive, or just to see which patterns are similar to each other. Convenient but not essential.
As for the future of elk-herd, the choice is pretty simple. You can have elk-herd, or you can have Song Mode & the new timestretch stuff. Both are cool; both can be worked around.
But let’s give it a rest maybe? It’s not like there’s some magic number of posts that will make elk-herd 4.0 appear from the ether.
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So, your thinking is to take deprecated code that has been abandoned by the original author, hand it off to an entirely different team who is unfamiliar with the source and programming practices, and say, “Here, make it work!” Should be easy 
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I think you might be underestimating the developers at Elektron a bit. I’m confident they don’t need to look at this code but can built it into transfer themselves. But a vital thing is needed: time.
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So long as you memorize what’s on the paper eventually!
A while back I saw an band who shall remain nameless, and 2 out of the 3 people on stage were sitting at Moogs with their heads buried in their spiral-bound notebooks the entire set. Never even looked at the audience or each other.
They looked so bored by their own music! It was ridiculous. Memorize, people! Make eye contact!