Pattern change behaviour across Elektron gear

Elektron Gear
#1

Evening all. I’ve been loitering here recently and received some good advice/opinions from my first post a few days ago so thanks to everyone for that.

Basically I’m looking for my first hardware groovebox and I want to be self-contained, at least for a while, with the one device. One thing I’ve been trying to establish is if the pattern changing behaviour is consistent across all or most of the Elektron boxes. It sounds like the Digitakt and Digitone both have the same behaviour - that the sounds/patches saved with a pattern load from memory when you switch patterns, so if you’ve tweaked parameters during performance they will get “reset” to the saved preset when you change patterns. So, if I understand, you can’t carry across your parameter changes between patterns because all the parameters will “snap back” to the saved settings when you change patterns.

Have I got this right? I’ve read some PDF manuals and watched a lot of videos and I’m still not 100%. I appreciate this may be a deliberate design decision and that you can still do plenty despite this behaviour but I’d like to be clear before I spend the money.

I’ve watched a number of videos about the Analog Four MK2 and Analog Rytm MK2 and I can’t work out if this behaviour applies to these machines. The high end Elektron devices seem to be more geared towards live performance and have features to accomodate that, but does the pattern switch behaviour still apply - the parameters will “snap back” to saved state?

In case it helps - I’m looking to stay away from my computer because I get a bit burned out after a day of coding and I’d like to be able to jam/perform/improvise with step sequencing to make some basic electronic music for my own enjoyment.

It seems me that even with just 4 voices on the Analog Four it’s possible to make some great tunes and the sounds I’m hearing from youtube videos from BoBeats, Dataline, Cuckoo etc are very encouraging. If these higher-end machines are more performance friendly and allow more “continuous” performance by letting sounds/parameters/etc travel across patterns then that would be great and I’ll consider spending the extra money.

Thanks for reading this absurdly long post!

#2

The dt and dn don’t have traditional kits and behave how you describe. The other boxes have kits which exist outside of patterns and behave how you would like.

You can do continuous performances with the dt and dn but it takes a bit more work.

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#3

To add to this, yes, the Analog Four MK2 and Analog Rytm MK2 allow adjustments to the sound parameters to carry across to other patterns as you switch over to them…because several patterns can “point to” a single kit.

On the Digitakt and Digitone, the “Reload Pattern” feature allows you to instantly reload the pattern and sound data to their last saved state, super handy for doing all sorts of fun stuff.

On the Analog series, you’ve got even more control, as you can independently reload (instantly, of course) either the pattern data, kit data, track data, or sound data. Super powerful.

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