You’re talking about limits imposed on you, but these machines do not rule you. Use different aspects of sound and music to convey your message. Explore the outermost edges… Use tone, or timbre or harmony or dynamics to tell your story. Pitch is just rhythm speeded up… you can interchange them…
(Sorry, drunk and rambling, and I can’t find the youtube which explained the point I’m trying to make)
Sure, there are some melodies you can’t make with the “64 trigs” limit. But you can probably create much more interest, variation and contrast over a much longer span of time than it first appears, by using the scale modes and conditions.
Perhaps there is a way? 
Can you setup, say the Octatrack, in a similar way you’d setup a tracker?
On a tracker (say Renoise) you’d have 12 steps per quarter note and increase the speed of the pllayhead. With 12 parts per quarter note, you can easily program in straight notes and triplet notes without having to change the sequencer’s divisions.
Since you can change the relative speed of each individual track on the octatrack and increase or decrease the lenght of each track independently, I assume it should work in a similar fashion?
It’s been awhile since I’ve used elektron’s. Is there anyone in here who perhaps could check / already works like this?
Feel free to ask what I’m trying to achieve here if I’m not making myself clear 
1 bar should have 48 steps
i use all the slots on the DT for my live set per example. I think i still have 1 or 2 banks half free for new creations. But I organize that each 4 patterns are 1 pattern really, but different moments of the track. So for me its already a lot of consume. Maybe i can reduce that but this process is really working for me and keep my changes on the spot.
just set pattern scale to 1/2 for 128 or 1/4 for 256 steps
Agree with you. There are work arounds but still a bit cumbersome… Would be nice with proper 128 or more.
On my Polyend Tracker my shortest patterns are usually 64.
OK gang, something i have’t tried f**k with enough might have been the scale, arp settings and whatnot. I’ll give it a try again… i mean i thought i had covered that area but i’ll scan again. Thanks for your attention, answers to each below.
@rdh yes that would be my application. I’ve also done this. But i am a studio rat, i much prefer having all programmed a priori.
@djadonis206 conditional trigs works but to program pads or evolving its not gonna work.
@plragde no we aren’t.
@djr005 i don’t like the sequencer that static. I make the changes in real time, depending on the crowd feel or how bored i am in that moment w the track, i can play 2mins or 6 minutes of it.
@anguslocke lmao it’s a step sequencer, it works the same way, you decide wether your semantics are happy.
@reeloy explained above why they are precisou to me, i use it in a live set situation, i managed to fill my 1gb digitakt hd with enough content for 1h + live set. I need the slots. Your needs are not my needs. Somebody’s trash somebody’s treasure.
@Rusty well, i made a useful and justified request. I don’t know what it takes to implement it, i’m ignorant, not a programmer, don’t work for Elektron etc. Can’t possibly know.
There are some work arounds. they aren’t perfect, but they might help if you want one note on beat five the first cycle and a different note the second time you can:
set the first note value on beat 5 with a conditional trig of 1:2
set the second note value on beat 4 or 6 and change the micro timing as far as you can towards beat 5.
like you said it’s a pain to program sometimes, but lots of composing music is tedious.
Yeah. I’ve used those methods. It’s good to have the option, but stuff like programming two microshifted notes with different conditions on adjacent trigs is just a PITA. I’m not going to complain too much because the machine is what it is, I chose to buy it. Really I just need to get more comfortable with using up a bunch of patterns and chaining them.
Using conditional trigs a lot and think longer patterns would be just a pain in the ass with all the scrolling.
4 bar is totally fine to keep an overview about what’s going on.
Yes, you might loose 16th notes, but cam you follow every single trig of 16th notes on multiple tracks?
Well, you as the creator maybe, but not listener.
With arps and retrigs you can get plenty of steps in slower tempos.
So, to me that has never been a need or even limitation.
And to add to this, you’re not just adding 64 new steps with a MIDI note, length and velocity, you’re adding 64 potential new storage locations for p-locks and trig conditions. So you’ve either got to find enough memory to support that too, or else thin out the available p-lock capacity across the longer patterns. I expect the engineers wouldn’t like the first option, and the users wouldn’t like the second.
yes, that’s not my job, its Elektron’s.
Shortcut would be easy to implement.
memory… on Digitone or Digitakt, really is that a problem? Those machines are new, i dont think its a memory issue. But i don’t know, i like single lines of code, think Moroder or Eistein or God or Dawg.
i dont use slower tempos. I go 120-150. For me it sounds loopy… even with chained patterns unfortunately. So i’m playing pads by hand, but it sucks if i have to program stuff for a live set… i dont really play much keyboard guitar or wtvr, so i like programming.
I always see these limitations as the very thing that brings out creative workarounds.
It might not work as effortlessly or precise as you’d like, but there are workarounds.
These boxes are thoughtfully designed a specific way, and the limits they have are either a challenge to defy, or it’s just not the right machine for the job.
But why may I ask? With all the suggestions in this thread (scale per track/trig conditions etc) can’t whatever you’re playing be programmed on a track? Even for a progression that goes across multiple chained patterns can be done with a bit of planning…
I’d love to have 128 steps - it’s probably the single feature I want most for Elektron boxes. However, I’ve found a lot of success in using the trig conditions 1:2 and 2:2 to simulate 8 bars, as long as two hits don’t need to use the same trig. I can copy the pattern and make a second version and just chain them for 16 bars. Problem mostly solved, as long as the pattern is intended to be more loop-like. What doesn’t generally work for me is shoving a trig all the way left/right with microtiming and plocking it, as is often suggested. I can feel the timing difference even if I can’t hear it, and it often doesn’t sound quite right, at least on percussive sounds.
making multiple patterns is the best move i think since that microtiming trick can end up not working. i think i suggest it because people don’t seem to want/be able to use multiple patterns and it might help(?)
generally though, i personally don’t use it for the same reason as you
It’s probably been said upthread already… I think it’d require a total rethink of the sequencer interface, which means a hardware redesign. There’s already plenty of complaint that there’s no way to restrict playback to just one page of the sequencer. Imagine if there were eight pages rather than four, or even sixteen (for 256 steps). We’d need a new control, and would definitely need a way to temporarily restrict playback to just a subset of pages. At that point you probably need a UI like the Deluge or OXI.
Problem would be easily solved by introducing another row of buttons for pages/bars above the step buttons (eg 16 more buttons above the row of 16 steps on the Analog Four/Rytm) - instant upgrade to 16 bars instead of only 4. In that way you could easily switch around between pages while also having visual feedback where the playhead currently is. Wouldn’t need any changes to the workflow (with arguably a better/faster workflow) while only taking up minimally more real estate. A side benefit would be that those buttons could also be used for other stuff (eg have more octaves, one row for solo and the other row for mute, one row for pattern Bank and the other for pattern, etc).