Analogue-sequencer

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> 
> > Well, I had thought that what this meant was that the 'entire pattern' was 
> > determined by when it reached the last step in the pattern. But it isn't. 
> 
> It can't be - you might have skipped the last step, so it would never reach 
> it. 
Hmmm - I thought about this, and I still think that this would be an attractive option - i.e. to determine one repeat by whether the sequence had reached the last step. It is up to me to program the pattern so that it reaches the last step. If not, then it will never go beyond that one iteration of the pattern. The Polymorph manual even warns you that this is a possibility with their various triggering options - that it is up to you to avoid a sequence never being triggered.
I really think that it would be great to program a pattern that takes its own damn time getting to then end, and when it finally does, it moves on. In order for it to work properly in the example you bring up, you'd have to define the pattern level last step to be the ACTUAL last step - instead of, e.g. step 16 which is always skipped.
Reading back over it, I'm still not sure I understand your (Colin's) explanation of how one repeat is determined exactly, but it seems to me that the sequence could move on before an elaborate pattern of steps is completed, which somehow seems wrong to me. It forces you to avoid chaining the pattern in a playlist (I think) if you want it to play all the way through.

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> Reading back over it, I'm still not sure I understand your 
> (Colin's) explanation of how one repeat is determined 
> exactly, but it seems to me that the sequence could move on 
> before an elaborate pattern of steps is completed, which 
> somehow seems wrong to me. It forces you to avoid chaining 
> the pattern in a playlist (I think) if you want it to play 
> all the way through.

Obviously I didn't explain it that well...
The pattern will play all the way through if chg=P on the playlist step.
Let me try another explanation...

After each step in a pattern is played, P3 has to calculate which step
should play next.
It does this using a number of different methods depending on the
pattern 'direction'.
For 'forward' it just adds one to the position until it finds a step
that is not skipped.
If, while it is stepping through the pattern looking for a non-skipped
step, it passes the last step, it jumps back to the beginning and a flag
is set to indicate the pattern wrapped round.
Then it checks if either chg=P and the pattern wrapped, or chg=B and the
current global 'beat' has reached the end of the global bar.
In either case, one playlist 'repeat' is counted, and if all repeats are
done, the next pattern is selected.

So, if chg=P, the pattern will continue to play for as long as it takes
to 'wrap' round.
If that isn't happening, it may be because of some other factor, such as
a part chain. Or it could be some weird bug I've not found...
A sysex dump of a pattern that contradicts this behaviour would be
interesting.

Cheers,
Colin f