Elektron Musical Instruments

> this could be interesting, but it will only work for some patterns, and 
> at the end it would be like creating new patterns because you would 
> need many global setups.

Yeah, very good point.  But it would still save me the work of programming new variations.  But I suppose that makes me sound like I’m lazy. ☺  The Pattern Shift feature could aide in this for me though to speed up the process.

> Does the MD triggers patterns instantly when you press keys?
> if so, then pattern length is not a problem, because you could trigger 
> a pattern before the previous one has finished playing and stop that.
> If it doesn't work this way, then this could be an option.

Yeah, the pattern length has never really been the issue with the Scale setup.  Plus you can trigger patterns in different ways via the new Map Editor settings which is nice.  But again no offset.

> About pattern offset: this is going to be difficult IMHO.
> it goes against the way the MD was designed to work.

I suppose, but since they implemented this in Song Mode, why couldn’t it be in Pattern Mode?  But at the same time the MD is already stuffed full of features so I’m not complaining by any means.  I’ll find other ways to do what I want to do.

Just to give you a quick background on what got me thinking this way... I recently got the new Future-Retro Revolution (http://future-retro.com) and it has this great "remix" feature built in that will remix your acid patterns on the fly for you which gives you enormous power in terms of acid variations for live situations.  But you can also use it to "remix" other gear.  It sends out a sequence of midi-notes, and depending on the remix setting it will determine the playback order of those notes.  I thought, wow this would be nice to use to remix the MD with, apply fills, etc.  Of course I can do this with programming new pattern fragments on the MD, but I was looking for a solution to map those midi-notes to regions of a MD pattern and play back the pattern fragments in different ways using the FR Revolution and still have the opportunity to tweak MD parameters live too.

> May be some kind of real time control on pattern playback, a function 
> like swing or accent that lets you choose the starting point and 
> switches to that when the pattern has finished playing.
> Or a new song parameter, something like loop but with realtime control.

Endlessnessisticman sort of suggested the same thing but in terms of control machine of some sort.  I actually proposed the same thing last year when the control machines started to come out. (See http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/elektron-users/message/9172) It would be a rather cool thing to be able to change the start and end points of pattern in real-time via a CTR machine.  But I’m not sure if this is technically possible.  

> I think a feature like this should have been planned during 
> development: we know that the guys at Elektron like to keep the UI 
> straight and simple and usually don't add functions when they don't 
> have an appropriate control for that.
> Try asking Daniel if this could be done (and they are willing to).

I’ll propose it to them, but I doubt they’ll go for it because it isn’t an in demand feature.  And I’m making a lot of assumptions about how the OS is structured from a code perspective.  But I suppose it is worth asking.

> hey, ask for track muting via midi too :-)

Okay, will do.  That would be a nice feature as well.
cheers!
-nate