Parameter locks: preferred vs. actual behaviour

hey,

i’ve run into some limitations and/or bugs regarding parameter locks.
specifically some behaviour that one would expect from something called “parameter lock”.

  1. when locking, for example, the filter cutoff (trigless) for 16 steps, i would expect this value to be held (aka locked) for 16 steps, meaning every actual trigger that would occur up to 16 steps after the parameter lock would have the previously locked filter cutoff value (except for triggers where the filter cutoff has been locked to a different value).
    instead, the paramter lock only affects triggers that came before it, needlessly limiting the potential of parameter locks. it also makes the parameter-lock length pointless in most cases - it just takes the currently playing sound and changes the parameter to the new value, regardless of trigger-length.

imagine the possibilities when combining this with conditional triggers.
you could, for example, transpose a 4-page sequence differently every few iterations, just by having a parameter lock with a length of 64 steps somewhere near the beginning of the sequence.

  1. triggering the lfo in sample-and-hold mode via a parameter-lock currently does nothing.
    what i would expect is for the lfo to sample the first value of the lfos function and hold it until the lfo is triggered again - you know, like a sample-and-hold circuit would.

i’m still not sure if this is a feature request or a bug report.
it would be great to get some feedback from the elektron guys/gals on this.
for an outsider it just seems like a few shortcuts were taken while implementing the parameter locks.
the post-launch updates the digitakt alone has been getting are crazy good, and i don’t want to downplay that, but the parameter locks more and more seem to me like a missed opportunity.

please correct me if i’m just using them wrong and this kind of behaviour is achievable in the current OS.

Thank!

Seems like a parameter hold, rather than a lock? It would mean that if you only wanted the value on one step you’d have to lock the next step back to default?

Personally I prefer the current way, it is easy enough to achieve the result you are after by locking the value for each step. Versus only wanting the lock to last one step, then having to reset all the other steps.

I see what you mean, but I don’t think any corners were cut, maybe send it in as a feature request as an option, I can’t see (and would not want) it being changed.

no, thats where the (currently useless on parameter-lock trigs) trigger-length would come in.
in this scenario you’d just set the parameter-lock trig length to 1 step. reverts back to default after that.

this change would require working with parameter locks to be more deliberate, yes - making it an option rather than the new default behaviour would be a good idea, i agree

You mean the LEN parameter? That is for note length, but you want it to determine for how many steps a lock is held?

that would be the idea, since it currently doesn’t really do anything on parameter-locks