Support for Polymeters

As a user,

I want to be able to use sequences of different lengths within a Pattern or be presented with different solution

in order to

achieve polymetric musical results that require overlaying sequences at different lengths that still play in a repetitive and recurring way without silence or otherwise interrupted playback.

As Maschine has certain logical limitations in the way it is built, where a Pattern always contains all MIDI events within a given group, today there is no such concept as multiple sequences within a Pattern.

The current workaround is to use Patterns (in different Groups) at different lengths, while it is understood that this solution has many downsides.

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Comments

Schmapps1

This would be very cool. Perhaps each ‘sound’ lane, could have its own translucent “overlay bar” showing how many steps it will advance before starting over?

tetsuneko

If patterns could be assigned to "sounds" on an individual basis, that could potentially be very powerful indeed. Lets say the behaviour in a group could default to a state where all sounds are assigned to a pattern by default, but you could then individually "unlink" each sound from this default assignment, and an unlinked sound could then be assigned any other pattern within a group's pattern pool? Something like that could be killer!

Antonio B

Yes! I have to use Group mode exclusively for individual instrument tracks because that's the only way I can record tracks that have different lengths. As an Ambient producer, I don't even think of measures - I just play and when the phrase naturally ends, that's when I end the loop (unless I want empty space) and then I go on to the next instrument/track. So yes being able to do that in sound mode would be more ideal simply because of the added utilitarian aspects.

ozon

I wouldn't want to lose the Group aspect of the Pattern as a collection of Sounds that belong together such as a Drum Kit.

Maybe this could be solved by introducing the concept of a Sequence which belongs to the Sound and initially uses the same attribute values for length and meter as the Group, but can be changed to use its own values.

Maschine already does have some sort of indirection between MIDI Events and Group/Sound Events as they have to be mapped using either MIDI Note or MIDI Channel to address the proper Group/Sound combination. This currently hidden indirection layer is probably the basis for a future Sequence object.

holonology

A good source of inspiration for this is the way Atlas does things. In there, when you select a lane you can simply drag to an independent length. The way I imagine this working on Maschine and with the hardware, is something like hold a pad (for a sound) and one of the dials below the screen allows you to see a "length" parameter or similar. From there, you can choose to alter the lanes in length, which could also work for loops as well as MIDI, which would help when layering loops from the library.