Is there a way to remove the link between a kit and a pattern so when entering extended mode to apply parameter locks without the kit changing, it’s doing my head in
Many thanks
Each pattern will be associated with a kit.
One kit can be used for several patterns.
If you change the kit settings and change patterns (and the next pattern has the same kit) the settings will remain changed when you switch patterns (it won’t revert) very useful for live playing.
As far as I know, there is no way to break the link.
After a pattern is created, you can choose a different kit to be used, but the pattern will then be associated with the new kit you chose.
Mute settings are global, if you have everything muted except track one and you change patterns and the new pattern has a new kit, only track on will play (quite useful for live performance).
Just keep fucking around, you’ll get it.
Here’s a fun little exercise. Make 1 pattern.
Copy the pattern to 7 different spots (so you have 8 patterns of the same program).
Make pattern 1 & 2 kit 1; make pattern 3 & 4 kit two etc…
Play the pattern, mute, tweak the fuck out of it and change from A1 TO A2 to see what happens, what you’ll notice are all the messed up things remain messed up, than change to pattern three, all of the sudden your back to a normal sounding kit as you’re playing a pattern with kit #2 etc… In doing this you’ll understand how things link up, and why the machinedrum is so popular.
It takes a little time to get used to how the Elektron workflow operates. It’s confusing at first, but eventually you’ll start to see that the way they’ve set things up gives the machine a huge amount of flexibility, especially for live action.
A great undocumented feature that you must know is that you can press the FUNCTION and EXTENDED/CLASSIC buttons at the same time to reset whatever kit you currently have loaded, to it’s most recently saved version. So, in other words, you can tweak the heck out of a kit’s settings, and if you want to go back to where you started, just hit those two buttons simultaneously and the MD will instantly reload the kit. But beware, this does NOT reset the trigs of the sequencer. If you want to alter the trigs of a pattern, it’s best to just copy and paste to a new pattern (which will also carry over the current kit).
A really good habit to get into is copying and pasting several copies of any pattern that you want to keep, so you can always go back if need be. Also good to save lots of kits, or versions of kits, for the same reason. You’ll probably lose a lot of work until you start to really get a grasp on how things work, but that’s normal for all new Elektron users!
Combine FreeFall’s suggestion of FUNCTION + EXTENDED to reset a kit with the FUNCTION + Data Knob way of altering all the tracks at once (kind of like a CTRL-ALL machine, in free form) and you now have a way of taking the MD into complete mayhem and chaos, and then back down to earth!
This is probably the coolest thing ever devised on a synth/drum machine/groovebox/etc.
Edit: to be a bit more clear, use FUNCTION + Data Knobs to create chaos in your kit that the pattern is using, then use FUNCTION + EXTENDED to revert your kit to normal. Just try it!
My MD arrives soon. Thanks for these great tips, guys!
Hi,
As a new MD user, i thank you for these valuable tips 