But the point has been made that you DO lose density … once you’ve scaled to have a sequence twice as long, you can no longer have 4 consecutive sixteenth notes, even with nudging.
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just saying.
MC-707 has 128-step clips, 16-step user interface for editing, and only 4 page LEDs.
if you need particular measure playing in cycle – you can just use first step/last step setting.
so it’s totally solvable.
… AND it handles 3 based time signatures very nicely (1 page = 1 bar).
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What limits are you feeling? Maybe we can crowdsource some workarounds?
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It be choice.
I use scissors all the time. Not to cut the grass though.
‘Don’t be a fool, use the proper tool.’ 
yeah point taken. but there isn’t simply anything in the market that has a) the handson interface and neat Elektron GUI + sound engine integration + almost perfect interface for live b) less limitations sequencer wise (prove me wrong)
MPC/Force.
Ableton Live + Push 2.
If I could have only ONE device (classing a laptop/Push 2 as one here too…), it’d be either one of these I think… I couldn’t live only with the A4… well, I could, I’d just make music strongly dictated by Elektron and not by myself, and I don’t want that.
Every single device has a compromise at some point, that’s how they get ya to keep buying… it’s never stopped great music being made though… people who can do that can do it on whatever they have in front of them usually.
sometimes you just need a 8-bar sequence of 16th notes with very few rests or no rests at all.
lots of EDM is 8-bar by design (like lots of rock is 4-bar by design). it’s not obligatory in each case – but very common.
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i don’t consider a laptop as an alternative because audience doesn’t like laptops.
and i doubt the MPC will feel like an Elektron, especially for improvising on top of your programmed stuff.
totally get the point though, 80% of the time i’m perfectly happy with the Elektron sequencer and its limitations (i really love it, don’t get me wrong. i’m not rich and quite picky regarding buying stuff but got like 4 Elektrons around). but some ‘workarounds’ in this thread are just cumbersome. and i totally get why people are hitting limitations, even if you take in account the limits of the machine in advance + sometimes its kinda meh having to think ahead in function of those limitations while composing.
I’m just going to fire an email over to Four Tet and Jon Hopkins to let them know they’ve been doing it all wrong… 
Of course an MPC won’t feel like an Elektron, they’re different beasts… which one is ‘better’ is subjective/meaningless, it’s a personal decision.
Feeding an A4 into an MPC is a very powerful way to go.
I also think feeding an A4 into a Roland SP404mk2, or a Boss RC505 looper, would be a great setup to get around 64 step limitations and catch longer performances of the A4’s 4 bars… or, as I said earlier, just go into Overbridge… I nearly always have a keyboard connected to my A4 and ‘play’ it way more than I sequence it, so I’ll regularly make long recordings into OB and use them as needed elsewhere.
sorry but this is kinda moot point for me, big class acts get away with this. and even then, last time i saw James Holden few years ago people in the audience where complaining about the laptop thing and he was clearly not at ease (probably a new setup, it kinda sucked at moments)
and i don’t disagree with you, but i totally understand if people are having a difficult time pushing against those limits. sometimes you just cannot plan and control the music writing process in advance.
I saw him a couple of weeks ago, in London. He had two smallish modular cases, a couple of effects pedals, and some mics for the drums and wind instruments his bandmates play. If there was a laptop, it was hidden.
Great gig, btw. Very trippy.
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looks great. i think its like 5-6 years ago the concert i’m talking about, so yeah probably a lot changed by now (laptop was centerpiece back then)
That’d be great!
Here’s how I play with patters atm:
A1 - intro
A2 - beat drop/jam
(Then I have a musical breakdown which is never less than 8 bars, usually 16 bars but I’ll keep it to two patterns for now, so I press Bank and then:)
A3+A4 - Breakdown (pressed together to line them up in a chain)
(then I time pressing the chain button again to turn it off before:)
A5 - beat drop 2
This is doable but feels finicky. Is this the most efficient way to jam like this (while not locked into a song structure)?
The other problem is when I trigger patterns after playing the chain that chain gets messed up and if I want to return to my 8 bar breakdown I have to line it up again.
Also when I come back to this project another day I can’t remember which patterns I had written to be played together, and there’s minimal visual clues, so I have to find the pair and remember to trigger them together again. I’m new to the Elektron workflow though so I’m looking to get ideas from you guys! I want 8 to 16 bar patterns like any musician, I get not wanting 8 pages, but I wish I could permanently link two 64 step patterns to play together.
That’s how I do it. It’s fiddly, and daunting, but so is playing piano, so I just accept it. Practice helps.
Do your A3 & A4 have to be separate? Are they really different? Could you squish them together using a mixture of scales, independent Track lengths and conditions? Could sound-locks help? Maybe you have two sounds that don’t vary between the two patterns, and have interlocking rhythms, so they could become one track using sound locks. Maybe you have a melody with a key change between A3 and A4? That could be two tracks which you play by unmuting one (and possibly using neighbour conditions).
I’ve written a lot of “what-ifs” but maybe there’s some ideas you’ve not tried yet.
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I’ve started using a notebook for precisely this purpose. Not a direct solution, but helps a ton.
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64 is great. More is great. Less is great. It’s a touch of math and a couple of button presses. Adjust your thinking. 
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64 is not bad, with conditional triggers not bad at all.
But 128 would be better.
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I’ve managed to make a few four minute tracks using one 64 note pattern lately. I’m getting better at making that work in a way that sounds a little less like that’s how I did it. 
I’ve also been making more use of song mode though too. Between the two though, you can do say four 64 note patterns with lots of conditions and probability, and come up with something good that doesn’t sound like it was completely done probabilistically. Things are good in Elektron Land.
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It can definitely spark some creativity. I actually prefer to keep patterns short and use conditional triggers and probability, especially for drums. But sometimes, when I have specific melody in my head, it would be nice to have more steps.
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