Wikipedia on compound metres[1].
What is the problem?
The sequencer and the grid, with the multiples of 16 steps, is not very intuitive to use for music in compound metres.
What do you want to achieve?
Improve the experience when making music in compound metres.
Are there any workarounds?
Yes, but it’s a less intuitive experience. You can set a track length of 48. But the mental gymnastics required for remembering that the 3rd beat of the second bar is step 19, which is the 3rd step on page 2, does not align with the otherwise great visual overview of your sequences on the Plays.
One of the key strengths of the Plays is that you can look at the sequencer grid and immediately understand what is happening when – as long as you stick to 4/4 beats. Bringing the same great overview to compund metre music would be a huge workflow improvement.
Any links to related discussions?
Didn’t find any.
Any references to other products?
This is a common problem with a lot a of hardware sequencers that mostly have 8/16/32/64 steps.
On the Volcas from Korg, there’s an Active Step feature, allowing you to turn each step on/off. With that, you can turn off every 4th step[2]. That is one way to improve the workflow for compound metres. Another way (probably easier for the Plays) could be to add a “Compound” Play Mode for tracks, which will skip every 4th step, as illustrated by the selected steps on the photo below:
[1] I hope I’m using this term correct. Listen to the beat in Moderat’s A New Error to be sure we’re on the same page.
[2] The Active Step feature also allows you to do a lot of other cool things on the fly with your sequence, but it’s out of scope for this wish.
