KARMA 2: What determines exactly when each event in a pattern occurs

Note: this independently contributed article has not yet been reviewed for accuracy by Karma-Lab.

SK editing note: please see changes to Rhythm Group article regarding Rhythm Step vs. Rhythm Event, and comments in history. Thanks! SG editing note: the appropriate revisions are in progress

This article is under construction. Pardon the dust.

Expand with some annotated screenshots pairing different note values in the Rhythm Pattern with two different Phases: Phase 1 at 4/4 and Phase 2 at 8/4. Add a section explaining how total number of Rhythm Events increases/decreases with different TSig Numerators and different note values in the Rhythm Pattern. Add bit about how using Events as the Phase Length makes the other pattern grid movement easier to understand but won't always be musically useful.

Patterns, Events, Indexes and Steps — oh my!

There are a lot of special terms and concepts surrounding the timing of events in the KARMA Software. It's easy to get confused if you don't know exactly what these terms mean, so let's cover them briefly.

Many of the GE parameter groups have a pattern grid in them, which is in turn broken down into a number of steps. Each step in a pattern grid is represented as a column of cells like in a spreadsheet. The full arrangement of selected cells within the grid defines the overall pattern for that parameter group in the GE. So for example, if the first 16 columns of a pattern grid in the Rhythm group is filled with colored squares, then we say that "the Rhythm Pattern has 16 steps" or "the Rhythm Pattern is 16 steps long".

One exception to this general terminology is found in the Note Series group. The notes in this group are always (re)generated by KARMA itself every time you play new input notes, intervals, and chords, instead of being a static pattern that you define once and it never changes from there on. So even though the generated notes are laid out in rows and columns and form a type of "pattern" just like many of the other GE parameter groups, we call it a Note Series due to its constantly changing nature and present it in a visually different manner from all the other pattern grids. Keep in mind, however, that when we generically refer to "a pattern", we mean any of these pattern grids including the Note Series. And when we talk about "steps in a pattern" we mean both the columns in a pattern grid and the columns in the Note Series (even though the columns in the Note Series aren't clearly marked with vertical lines like in the other pattern grids).

Every pattern has its own unique index, which is a counter mechanism that moves forward (and sometimes backward) through the steps of the pattern. The index of a pattern therefore determines which step of the pattern to "play" at any given moment.

The index of every pattern in a GE moves whenever a Rhythm Event occurs:

• Rhythm Events can be driven by the MIDI clock (tempo), with each Rhythm Event occurring with a timing defined in the Rhythm Pattern in the Rhythm group. This is the most common method for driving Rhythm Events, and in this case the "timing" is a musical "rhythm".
• Rhythm Events can also be driven manually by you in a rubato fashion, or even in an arrhythmic fashion, by controlling the clock advancement of a KARMA Performance with manually-triggered Dynamic MIDI events. In this case the note values of the GE's Rhythm Pattern do not determine the timing of each Rhythm Event, because you are manually providing the timing. This is a fairly uncommon method for driving Rhythm Events, and might not even be a "rhythm" per se, but we still call each manually-triggered event a "Rhythm Event". This can be a powerfully expressive technique. For details, see KARMA 2: Expressive playing with manual advance and direct index.

The distance that an index moves through its pattern with each Rhythm Event (the number of steps and in which direction — forward or backward — that the index moves) is determined by a combination of factors and is one of the hardest things to learn/understand about how GEs work. We'll go into more detail on this subject in a moment, but an extremely generalized description is that there are two basic ways that the distance of each index movement can occur:

• One step forward through the pattern with every Rhythm Event for a certain number of times that depends on the defined length of each Phase in the Phase group, although there is also a way to cause some steps of the pattern to be be skipped over entirely if they fall on steps in the Rhythm Pattern where note ties occur.
• Any number of steps forward or backward (even zero steps forward, which equates to no advancement at all) as defined by the Index Pattern. (But remember, the Index Pattern affects only the index of the Note Series and optionally the index of some or all of the Drum Patterns.)

When the index of a pattern actually lands on a step in that pattern, this is called an event. For example, if the index movement through the Rhythm Pattern lands on 12 steps in the pattern by the time the current Phase ends, we say "there were 12 Rhythm Events in the Phase". If the index movement through the Index Pattern lands on 8 steps in the Pattern by the time the Phase ends, we say "there were 8 Index Events in the Phase", and so on. (And since the Index Pattern is always the driver for index movement in the Note Series, in this example we'd also say "there were 8 Note Events in the Phase".)

The dirty details on the distance and timing of index movements within a pattern

The three most difficult things to learn about KARMA are:

• The way that note pitches are chosen to be played by a GE
• The way that the various patterns in a GE are randomized
• The way that steps in each pattern are chosen while the GE is playing, which hinges on what drives the distance and timing of index movements for each pattern in the GE

Of these three, the mechanics of index movement are by far the hardest thing to wrap your brain around. If you can assimilate the following information, you will be well on your way to mastering KARMA.

Index movements through the various patterns of a GE always have two components: "when" and "how much", otherwise respectively called the timing (aka rhythm) of the index movement and the distance of the index movement throughout this article. (You won't see "timing" or "distance" used as terms in the KARMA interface or the KARMA Help — these are just concepts I find useful to explain how pattern events work. And I prefer to use the word "timing" instead of the word "rhythm" because the timing in some cases can be extremely rubato or even completely arrhythmic.)

All about the "timing" of index movements

As described earlier in this article, the index of every pattern in a GE moves whenever a Rhythm Event occurs, and a Rhythm Event comes from two possible sources:

• A step in the Rhythm Pattern where a note value is actually played (not a step where an Absolute Tie or a Random Tie is played). In this case, the Rhythm Pattern is being walked through at the tempo of the MIDI clock, so the "timing" in this case might also be called the "rhythm". This situation is configured in the Control group in the Performance Editor:
  • Clock Advance Mode of the entire KARMA Performance is set to Internal.
• A manually-played Dynamic MIDI event whose Output is Clock Advance. Because you could trigger each Dynamic MIDI event in a rubato or even arrhythmic fashion, these events might not be strictly "rhythmic" but we still call these "Rhythm Events". This situation is configured in two different groups in the Performance Editor:
  • The DynMIDI group defines the Dynamic MIDI event itself
  • The Control group defines the Clock Advance Mode of the entire KARMA Performance to be set to DynMIDI.
• There are other Clock Advance Modes that combine the effects of both the internal MIDI clock and Dynamic MIDI inputs/outputs, but it would add too much complexity to go into these in this article.

These two sources of the timing of index movements only specify when to move a pattern's index to "another step in the pattern" — they do not specify how much to move the index or in which direction to move the index (i.e., how many steps forward or backward each time the index is moved). Which brings us to…

All about the "distance" of index movements

The distance an index moves when a Rhythm Event occurs depends on two factors:

• Which type of pattern you're looking at — some play by different rules than others
• Which type of Advance Mode is specified for the pattern

Distance in the Note Series

The distance of index movements within the Note Series pattern is always determined by the events that occur in the Index Pattern. The steps in the Index Pattern define a sequence of index jumps forward or backward through the Note Series that occurs at each Rhythm Event. For example, a 4-step Index Pattern of +1 +2 0 -2 could translate to moving the index of the Note Series forward by 1 step at the first Rhythm Event, then forward by 2 steps at the second Rhythm Event, then no movement forward or backward (0 steps) at the third Rhythm Event, then 2 steps backward at the fourth Rhythm Event, in that order.

To put it another way, the Note Series is watching the Index Pattern, and the Index Pattern is watching Rhythm Events. Each Rhythm Event first advances the step of the Index Pattern, and that defined Size of the index jump at that step tells the Note Series index which step in the Note Series to jump to next. This is a subtle distinction because the index movement within the Index Pattern itself might be skipping certain steps within its own pattern depending the value specified for its Advance Mode parameter.

For example, if the index movement within the Index Pattern in our simple 4-step example should skip the second step in the pattern (going from Step 1 to Step 3 to Step 4 and then back to Step 1 again during the four Rhythmic Events, then the actual sequence of "jumps" within the Note Series would be +1 0 -2 +2, which would result in a totally different sequence of note pitches being played than in the first example above.

This mechanic for index movement within the Note Series is covered in more detail in the KARMA 2: Note Series group overview and KARMA 2: Index group overview articles.

Distance in the Drum Patterns

The distance of index movements within Drum Patterns is by default always 1 step forward with each Rhythm Event generated by the Rhythm Pattern. Another way to think about it is that it's as if there only one Pattern Advance Mode for Drum Patterns by default - the Independent - 1 Step Per Rhythm Event mode, which we'll describe in more detail further below. (Note that there is no Advance Mode parameter in the Drum group — this is just an analogy.)

However, you can optionally choose to override this default manner of index movement distance by instead telling some or all of the Drum Patterns to use the GE's Index Pattern to drive the distance of index movements within the Drum Patterns, in exactly the same way as the distance of index movements works in the Note Series. You can specify this override behavior independently in one or more steps of the Phase Pattern over in the Phase group, by selecting the appropriate cell in the in (use index pattern) row of each Drum section in the Phase Pattern.

One thing to remember about Drum Patterns is that the note value of each step (column) in a Drum Pattern is the same as the note value of the corresponding step over in the Rhythm Pattern:

• Every step (column) of the Rhythm Pattern must have at least one note value specified in it.
• If a given step of the Rhythm Pattern has an Absolute Tie in it (or a Random Tie that is actually triggered during a play-through of the Rhythm Pattern), then no Rhythm Event occurs at that step of the Rhythm Pattern and the index of the Drum Pattern is not moved, but there is a hidden index under the covers in the Drum Pattern that still advances with every single step of the Rhythm Pattern. You could think of this "hidden index" in the Drum Pattern as something that just keeps track of how many steps in the Rhythm Pattern have been moved through so far regardless of how many Rhythm Events have occurred. Another way to think of it is that this "hidden index" keeps track of how many steps in the Rhythm Pattern have been moved through regardless of the existence of any ties in the Rhythm Pattern. Why is this "hidden index" important? Because it determines the behavior of the ri (resync indexes) row of each Drum section in the Phase Pattern
• If a given step of the Rhythm Pattern has more than one note value in the column, these are a "pool" of possible note values and only one of them is chosen by the randomization used in each play-through of the Rhythm Pattern.
• So one way or another, regardless of whether ties exist in the Rhythm Pattern or whether one note value or another is used for any given step (column) of the Rhythm Pattern, the point is that as far as each Drum Pattern is concerned, every step of the Drum Pattern has a note value that matches the note value of the corresponding step over in the Rhythm Pattern during each play-through of the Rhythm Pattern. Some examples should help explain this:
  • If the Rhythm Pattern comprises a single row of 32nd notes, then each step of the Drum Pattern is a 32nd note, so the entire 64 steps of the Drum Pattern equates to 2 full measures at a 4/4 time signature for the Phase length.
  • If the Rhythm Pattern comprises a single row of 16th notes, then each step of the Drum Pattern is a 16th note, so the entire 64 steps of the Drum Pattern equates to 4 full measures at a 4/4 time signature for the Phase length.
  • If the Rhythm Pattern comprises a single row of 8th notes, then each step of the Drum Pattern is an 8th note and the entire 64 steps equals 8 full measures at 4/4 time

Where things start to get tricky with index movement through Drum Patterns is when you have Absolute Ties and Random Ties in the Rhythm Pattern, or when you have a mix of different note values in the Rhythm Pattern.

• When you have ties of some sort, the visible index in the Drum Pattern (and therefore the notes from the Drum Pattern that are played at each Rhythm Event) moves forward exactly 1 step regardless with each Rhythm Event. So if ties are involved, the Rhythm Pattern is actually skipping every step that actually "plays" a tie. For example, if you have 16 steps in the Rhythm Pattern but 8 of those steps contain Absolute Ties, then the index of the Rhythm pattern lands on only 8 steps, and only 8 Rhythm Events occur. So the visible index of the Drum Pattern moves forward by exactly 8 steps during the play-through of the Rhythm Pattern. But the "hidden index" has moved forward by 16 steps (remember, the hidden index doesn't care about ties) At this point:
  • If the ri (resync indexes) cell for the next Phase in the Phase Pattern is selected, then when the Rhythm Pattern restarts again the next time this Phase is played, the visible index of the Drum Pattern will appear to jump ahead inexplicably by a distance of 8 steps and start on step 17 of the Drum Pattern for this playthrough of the Rhythm Pattern.
  • If the ri cell for the next Phase in the Phase Pattern is not selected, then when the Rhythm Pattern restarts again the next time this Phase is played, the visible index of the Drum Pattern appears to "normally" move forward by exactly one step and start on step 9 of the Drum Pattern for this playthrough of the Rhythm Pattern.
  • Tip: This seemingly inexplicable behavior drove me crazy when I was first trying to figure out how Drum Patterns worked. Any time you see the visible index in a Drum Pattern skip some steps, this mechanic might be the reason. Or it might be happening because the Phase Pattern is set up to override the default 1-step-per-Rhythm-Event distance of index movements in the Drum Pattern with the distances specified in the steps of the Index Pattern, which brings us to…

When you override a Drum Pattern's default index movement with the Index Pattern, the "hidden index of the Drum Pattern is still keeping track of the current step in the Rhythm Pattern regardless of any ties, just as described above. What's different in this case is that the visible index of the Drum Pattern will be jumping all over the place backwards and forwards, or not moving at all, with each Rhythm Event, just like the Index Pattern causes the index in the Note Series to do.

However, the same behavior described for the ri row of the Phase Pattern still applies in this case too. When the next Phase begins, if the ri cell for that Phase is selected, then the visible index of the Drum Pattern will jump to the position of the "hidden index" and the index jumps in the Index Pattern will proceed from that point.

Distance in the Rhythm Pattern

The distance of index movements within the Rhythm Pattern is very straightforward. The index jumps in sequence to each step in the pattern that has a note event, skipping any steps that contain an Absolute Tie or that contain a Random Tie that was actually triggered in that run-through of the pattern (a Random Tie might not always be triggered, because it is "random"). Some examples will help to explain this:

• If the Rhythm Pattern comprises sixteen 16th notes in a row, with no ties of any sort, then the index walks through steps 1 to 16 in the pattern in sequence (one step for each of the 16 Rhythm Events, which in this case occur with a timing of a 16th note between each Rhythm Event).
• If the Rhythm Pattern comprises eight 16th notes in a row followed by four 8th notes in a row, with no ties of any sort, then the index walks through steps 1 to 12 in the pattern in sequence (one step for each of the 12 Rhythm Events, which in this case occur with a timing of a 16th note for the first 8 Rhythm Events and a timing of an 8th note for the last 4 Rhythm Events).
• If the Rhythm Pattern comprises sixteen 16th notes in a row, with Absolute Ties defined for steps 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, and 15 of the pattern, what you effectively have defined is eight 8th notes. So in this case there are 8 Rhythm Events that occur, and the index literally skips all of the 8 steps that have an absolute tie. So the index jumps from step 2 to step 4 to step 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, and 16 in the pattern in sequence (two steps for each of the 8 Rhythm Events, which in this case occur with a timing of a 8th note between each Rhythm Event). If these had been Random Ties instead of Absolute Ties, but all 8 of the Random Ties had triggered, the effect would be the same. Just remember that the actual index of the Rhythm Pattern will always skip any step that has an Absolute Tie in it, and will always skip any step with an Random Tie that is actually triggered.
• The preceding bullet is an especially important point to understand, because it affects one of the options for controlling the index movement in the remaining GE pattern types described in the next section.

Distance in all other pattern types

The distance of index movements within all the other pattern types in a GE is also fairly straightforward. (These other patterns being the ones in the Duration, Index, Cluster, Velocity, CCs, and WavSeq groups.) All of these patterns have a special parameter named (Pattern) Advance Mode that controls how the index movement behaves in the pattern.

• Independent - 1 Step per Rhythm Event mode causes the pattern's index to move forward exactly one step for each Rhythm Event that occurs.
• Lock (R) - Lock to Rhythm Pattern and Ties mode causes the pattern's index to jump forward in the exact same increments as the Rhythm Pattern's index is doing. So if the Rhythm Pattern has steps that are being skipped because of Random Ties or Absolute Ties at that step in the Rhythm Pattern, the same exact steps are skipped in this pattern too. So using the last example in the preceding bullet about the index movement in the Rhythm Pattern, where the Rhythm Pattern's index jumped from step 2 to step 4 to step 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, and 16, the current pattern's index would likewise jump from step 2 to 4 to 6, 8, 10, 12 and so on.
  
  See how this is different from the preceding Independent mode?
  • If the current pattern was following that example Rhythm Pattern in Independent mode, the current pattern's index would move through steps 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 — one step for each Rhythm Event generated by the Rhythm Pattern.
  • If the current pattern was following that example Rhythm Pattern in Lock (R) mode, the current pattern's index would also move through 8 steps — one for each Rhythm Event — but thes would be steps 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, and 16.
• Lock (D1) - Lock to Drum Pattern 1 mode causes the pattern's index to follow the index of Drum Pattern 1. The Lock (D2) and Lock (D3) modes work the same way, only following the index of Drum Pattern 2 or Drum Pattern 3, respectively.
  
  This behavior is the most unpredictable because of the many factors that can affect the distance the visible index movements in a Drum Pattern as described above. The KARMA Help that describes the effect of these Lock (Dx) options is a little misleading because it leads you to think that these options will result in the pattern's index always moving forward 1 step at a time no matter what, but this really isn't the case. Instead, the pattern's index could move forward one step at a time for a given number of steps and they suddenly make a huge jump forward many steps if the ri row of the Phase Pattern is being used for the Drum Pattern. Or if the in row of the Phase Pattern is being used for the Drum Pattern, then the Index Pattern is effectively driving the movement of the index for this pattern, so the index might jump around wildly forwards and backwards, or seem to not move at all for some Rhythm Events.

continue here in the next revision pass. All of the following is rough first-draft material that needs to be revised or tossed.

If the total number of Rhythm Events in the Phase is less than the total number of steps in the pattern, the pr row in the Phase Pattern for this GE group determines whether the index moves back to the first step of the pattern when the Phase starts over, or whether the index stays put and continues moving forward from the current step the next time the Phase plays through.

The following GE parameter groups can use their own independent index for the Clock Advance within their pattern, or they can sync to the index of the Rhythm Pattern from the Rhythm group (this is very common). Generated-Drum GE types can also sync to the index of any of the Drum Patterns:

• Duration group
• Index group
• Cluster group
• Velocity group
• CCs group
• WaveSeq group

The concept of "Rhythm Steps" is helpful to understand how the Rhythm Pattern's index drives the index of other patterns

The Rhythm group's pattern grid defines a sequence of note values (some of which change randomly on each play-through of the Phase) and it is the discrete rhythmic events created by the play-through of the pattern grid that are considered the "steps" of the Rhythm Pattern, which are referred to throughout the GE Basics and GE Overview articles in this wiki as "Rhythm Steps" This subtle distinction is explained in more detail in KARMA 2: Rhythm Group Overview, but the key points to understand right now are:

• It is very common for the timing and total number of Rhythm Steps in the Rhythm Pattern to be different in each play-through of a Phase, because of the effect of random ties in the Rhythm Pattern. This is one of those powerful randomization features that make KARMA "feel" very dynamic and alive.
• It is very common for most GEs to have real-time parameters exposed in the keyboard that enable you to change the length of a Phase. When you make a Phase longer than its default length in the GE, the total number of Rhythm Steps in the Phase increases. When you make the Phase shorter than its default length, the total number of Rhythm Steps decreases.
• The next section explains why it's so important to understand this concept of "Rhythm Steps".

The "Clock Advance" of patterns is most commonly driven by "Rhythm Steps"

Every pattern in every GE is ultimately driven either by the Rhythm Pattern in the Rhythm group, by a Dynamic MIDI event, or (for Generated-Drum GE types only) by one of the Drum Patterns in the Drum group. In the vast majority of cases, it is most useful to drive the various patterns in a GE from the Rhythm Pattern, so that is what this section is going to focus on.

To elaborate on the preceding section, the specific "Rhythm Steps" that occur in a play-through of the Rhythm Pattern during a Phase each have a particular time interval before the next Rhythm Step occurs. This timing is expressed as a note value, such as a 16th or a dotted-8th, etc.). The total number of Rhythm Steps in a Phase depends on the Length Mode parameter in the Phase group. The details here get a little tricky, and the official Help for the KARMA Software won't explain it the way I'm about to. I'm overgeneralizing just a bit but it's easier to wrap your head around it this way at first.

• When the Length Mode is AC - Actual, the total number of Rhythm Steps is determined by when the Index and Cluster Patterns reach the end points of the playback portion of the Note Series (or for Generated-Drum GEs, when you reach the end of the Drum Pattern). For Generated-Riff, Generated-Gated, and Real-Time GEs, therefore, the total length of a Phase can be wildly different on each play-through of the Phase, and therefore the total number of Rhythm Steps can be wildly different on each play-through of the Phase. To put it another way, a Phase might last for less than half of a measure on one play-through, slightly more than half a measure on the next play-through, longer than a full measure on the next play-through, etc. Yes, this is funky and confusing and complex and although this can be useful for some GEs, you won't find this setting used in too many of the 2000+ preload GEs in your keyboard, and you probably don't want to use this setting in most of your custom user GEs either.
• When the Length Mode is **TS - Time Signature, the total number of Rhythm Steps is determined by the timing of each step and therefore how many Rhythm Steps fit inside the length of the Time Signature. The KARMA 2: Rhythm group overview goes into details about how this works, but in essence:
  • If your time signature is 4/4 and you have sixteen 16th notes in your Rhythm Pattern, those fit perfectly into one measure of 4/4, so there would be 16 Rhythm Steps in the Phase, each with a 16th note timing.
  • If your time signature is 8/4 and you have sixteen 16th notes in your Rhythm Pattern, the Rhythm Pattern would effectively play twice during the Phase, for a total 32 Rhythm Steps, each with a 16th note timing.
  • If your time signature is 4/4 and you have four 8th notes followed by eight 16th notes in your Rhythm Pattern, those fit perfectly into one measure of 4/4, so there would be 12 Rhythm Steps in the Phase: the first four Rhythm Steps would each have an 8th note timing, with the remaining eight Rhythm Steps each having a 16th note timing.
  • If your time signature is 4/4 and you have six 8th notes followed by eight 16th notes in your Rhythm Pattern, then the full Rhythm Pattern would not fit into the length of the Phase, so the Rhythm Pattern would be cut short after 10 Rhythm Steps: the first six Rhythm Steps would each have an 8th note timing, with the remaining four Rhythm Steps each having a 16th note timing. At this point you've hit the equivalent of sixteen 16th notes, which is all that will fit into a measure of 4/4 time, so the Rhythm Pattern stops here, and the Phase ends.
  • Where things get tricky is when your Rhythm Pattern has random ties in it. This can effectively make some of the Rhythm Steps longer or shorter, which effectively means a different number of Rhythm Steps will fit into the Phase's time signature on each play-through.
• When the Length Mode is EV - Events, this means to play a certain number of Rhythm Steps each and every play-through of the Phase, regardless of the timing of the Rhythm Events and regardless of the length of the Rhythm Pattern:
  • Assume that the Phase is 16 events long, and your Rhythm pattern is 16 steps long, with no random ties (just to keep things simple for this example), and comprises sixteen 16th notes. In this case, the Phase is the same length as the Rhythm Pattern, so the Rhythm Pattern plays through one time and then the Phase ends. The total length of the Phase was sixteen 16th notes and there were 16 Rhythm Steps in the Phase.
  • Assume that the Phase is 12 events long, and your Rhythm pattern is 16 steps long, with no random ties (just to keep things simple for this example), and comprises sixteen 16th notes. In this case, the Phase is shorter than the Rhythm Pattern, so the Rhythm Pattern plays through its first 12 steps and then the Phase ends. The total length of the Phase was twelve 16th notes and there were 12 Rhythm Steps in the Phase.
  • Assume that the Phase is 16 events long, and your Rhythm pattern is 8 steps long, with no random ties (just to keep things simple for this example), and comprises eight 8th notes. In this case, the Phase is twice as long as the Rhythm Pattern, so the Rhythm Pattern plays through twice and then the Phase ends. The total length of the Phase was sixteen 8th notes and there were 16 Rhythm Steps in the Phase.
  • As you can see, using a Length Mode of EV - Events can result in Phases that are unevenly long if you start throwing random ties into the Rhythm Pattern, so while this is a useful option for some GEs, it won't make it easy to make the Phase Pattern match up with the time signature of the music unless you avoid using random ties in the Rhythm Pattern and you manually create the Rhythm Pattern to match the event length of the Phase in a way that works out to a specific time signature.
• Programming Tip: Hopefully you can see from all these examples that a Phase length expressed in a time signature is usually the easiest to work with and the most "musical", because you typically want your Phase changes in the GE to match up with the measures in your music. However, the other two Phase length options can have interesting effects and there are times when they might be a better choice for the effect you're trying to create with a GE.

So what does all this mean for all the other pattern grids in the other GE parameter groups?

the rest below is really really old scratch material that needs to be cleaned up or tossed.

The pattern grid in each of the following GE groups can be set to synchronize to the Rhythm Pattern, which effectively means that the timing of each step and total number of steps played before the pattern restarts at the beginning will be driven by the timing and number of Rhythm Stepsof each step in the pattern will occur a

in a GE that use pattern grids in a GE are usually set up to synchronize to the Rhythm Pattern in the Rhythm group, so as a general rule

This same exact timing is used for the steps in all the other pattern grids in the GE too (excepting the Note Series group and the Phase group, which aren't directly driven by the Rhythm Steps). When Rhythm Step 1 occurs, Step 1 occurs in the Index group, the Cluster group, the Duration group, etc. When Rhythm Step 2 occurs, Step 2 occurs in these other groups, and so on.