Just curious, is the Elektron sequencer patented IP or could a company like Akai for instance integrate the same thing on an MPC type of device? Or other synth makers for that matter. I love the sequencer so much, it would be awesome if synth companies that make great-sounding synths could start adding it. and an MPC-style device with that sequencer would be da bomb. But no one else is doing it so wondering if they somehow have it protected.
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Most of the Elektron sequencing workflow is on the Deluge fwiw. MPC just introduced per step probability. Drambo on iOS and the OP-Z has Elektron workflow all over it as well.
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I certainly hope it’s not patented, as the Oxi One does such a fantastic job of replicating it.
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ah, new names to check out. thanks for the info. Yes, i saw probabilit on the MPC come in. I really wish instead of that darn speaker on the Live II they put a step sequencer there instead. but, cant have it all. will check out these other companies.
There is a Step Sequencer on the MPC:
Interesting! Had a quick look at the Elektron website, manuals & support stuff & didn’t notice anything about patents, copyrights etc. But I’m prone to looking without seeing & know nothing about IP.
Don’t tell Uli Behringer.
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yes, but operating it is not a fun experience. I much prefer my 1000 to my live because I do not like the ipad experience. What I mean is, an actual sequencer in place of that speaker. XoX/elektron style, which would also input notes on the software part, but being able to use q-links to adjust and lock parameters like an elektron would be the jam.
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No totally get you. The best Sequencer on an instrument that i have is the Deluge.
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If Uli would slap an Elektron sequencer on all his clones, id buy all his clones.
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They been ironing this thing for 15 years now?
Releasing a copy would either trigger an avalanche of under the hood bugs, or not pay for itself in sales due to R&D cost.
a 16-step sequencer alone is almost certainly not patentable at this point. the p-locks and conditional trigs may be novel, but i’m not familiar enough with other prior sequencers to know if any had some combo of those features before Elektron’s. though if the Elektron model was actually patentable, i might have expected them to license it to other manufacturers (maybe)
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I understand why one would ask this question because every other sequencer I have tried that has a version of Elektron style step sequencing and plocks, is sub par compared to the “Elektron way” imho. I’m thinking of MPC One, Push 2, Maschine+, LXR, TR-6S, newer Sequential synth sequencers etc. Different audience? Players vs tweakers 
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Google patents searches for Elektron, Daniel Hansson, Anders Gärder, Mikael Räim, and Jonas Hillman only turn up a handful of software patents for a “Daniel Hansson”, but nothing related to step sequencers. I’m not even sure the “Daniel Hansson” in these patents are Elektron’s Hansson.
I assume that Google Patents only cover US Patents, but I assume the US’ place in the global music market would mandate US patents. 
Korg, Roland and Yamaha all have parameter recording that is similar to plocking, if not the same. Korg’s Electribe had motion recording before the Machinedrum was released. I don’t know if the SidStation had plocks. You can also argue that plocking is just an analog style step sequencer as on the MS2000 (or much earlier SQ-10 or any of the early modular sequencers) but with a slightly nicer UI. Maybe a design patent could work here? IDK.
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Well fuck it, I guess I am going to have to patent the Elektron Sequencer.
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I think it’s an interesting question. I don’t know a lot about the subject, but I’m under the impression that patents need to be filed in each country, so I wonder which pieces of technology are patented, and in which country. I think patents can also be filed for the whole European Union, rather than on a national level. I wonder which tech is patented, and where.
Something like a sequencer might be difficult to patent, but maybe there are parts of the Elektron sequencer that are unique to Elektron? There are several others that parameter locks, so maybe that’s not unique to Elektron.
Elektron would not be able to patent their sequencer, as they did not invent it at all. Elektron Sequencing is nothing more than a 90° rotated Tracker-Workflow that got fit into hardware and knobs. Beeing able to have different sounds pre step and beeing able to change sounds per step is what makes Trackers Trackers.
They did an awesome job with that approach, and I still wonder that it took so long, that others took over that approach.
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Ok, so in practical terms I doubt a step sequencer could be patented if it uses MIDI (a format designed to be utilised as widely as possible). P-locks, motion sequencing etc is essentially the same thing- setting a CC, NRPN, whatever value relative to a position on a timing system controlled by MIDI.
If the code that goes into an Elektron sequencer is jacked & ported into a different company’s bit of kit, in my legal ignorance I’d expect that to break some kind of intellectual property law.
If a developer writes code to do something roughly equivalent to the Elektron P-lock or Korg Motion Sequence function on their own, in my legal ignorance I’d assume that’s fine.
Seeing we’re >40 years into MIDI and even further along with sequencing electronic music I doubt anyone’s going to get that universal sequencer patent & a silo full of coins to swim through, Scrooge McDuck style. Sorry, HoldMyBeer.
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If the result that something generates defines, if something can be patented or not, there would not be many patents.
Nothing that somehow make sounds could be patented, because everything it does is a form of waves that can or could be generated differently.
No kind of Motor could be patented, because all it does is turn something, and that can be already done.
That’s not how patents work. Patents describe a defined „workflow“ to do something. For example: Frauenhofer had a patent on mp3 for a very long time, meaning companies that sold MP3 players or software that works mp3 had to own a license for it. MP3 is no rocket science. its is just a way to compress audio in a way to have the least impact on the listening. the way they did that, by separating stuff that’s mandatory for the human ear vs. stuff that is not etc. was patent worthy. The result, a sound file that was smaller than the raw sound itself, was nothing new…
(I am not 100% sure, if you had to own a licence, if you wanted to play mp3 in a software, or if you had only to own one, if you generate it).
To map that to MIDI: I am quite sure, that some of those mega-complex-MPE-Keyboard devices built technology that it worth patenting, event if all they do is generating MIDI that could be generated already, because their technology is somehow special.
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Actually all of these things existed in some form before Elektron and even before trackers too, you can’t patent evolution of an idea without a novel aspect not seen before.
Daphne Oram pioneered most of this stuff, in arguably more efficient and also somehow less (but also more) limited ways, an absolute genius.
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People talk about her Oramics machine now and then. I’ve seen it at the Science Museum. I really want to know how it worked and what it was like to use, compared with DAWs and Elektrons. I’ve not come across such an explanation yet.
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