Analogue-sequencer

> You'll probably hate me for this but... supposing playlists worked
> like parts do? I mean, you can play parts in series starting at the
> first you hold down and ending at the last you hold down. 

> If playlists worked the same way you could have the same flexible
> interaction that would feel intuitive because it's used elsewhere. You
> could select each step individually and it would play the pattern
> (along with any transpositions and chg mode) but if you selected two
> or more they would play round and round with the repeat setting coming
> into place in the same way as parts...

I think I see where you're coming from Paul.

OK, how about we think of playlist steps as 'pattern selections', and the
current pattern selection is chosen by pressing the step keys 9 to 16 in
playlist (to be renamed 'pattern selection') edit.
Holding one step then pressing another would enable a 'pattern selection
chain', equivalent to a playlist with a length > 1.
Each pattern selection can be thought of as having a repeat count and
transpose setting akin to PXPos and PCReps for parts.
The relationship between each track and its 'pattern selections' would be
much the same as the relationship between a bank and its parts.

There would need to be some way to assign the pattern for a particular step
without having to make that the current step, or upset the chain start end
endpoint - need to think about that one. 
The underlying data structure would remain the same, except you would need
to be able to have your playlist start on any step.
The playlist length variable is currently a full byte but only holds a value
from 1 to 8, so this would be easy to retrofit without affecting the current
setup or any saved banks. I would make the high nybble the start 'pattern
selection', and the low nybble the end. Since the high nybbles are all 0,
and the low nybbles the playlist lengths, existing playlists would translate
perfectly into 'pattern selection chains'.

I hope I'm explaining this well enough - I think it may be pretty cool.

Cheers,
Colin f