Accumulate, Metropolix style?

[mvdirty]

Some use this in their techno and whatever sets to have a patterns that returns and provides some basic structure but that changes over time so that it is not too boring. There are variations to that theme (replacing notes over time etc.) but that's the basic idea.

I find this style interesting for a few reasons and one is definitely because it is (like many other things in electronic music) borne of technical limitations but subsequently became identifiable with/as a style or genre. When you only had a couple very simple sequencers (or even just a couple sequential switches and some voltage sources,) but wanted variation, you either alternated between them or summed their output. Sum them. Clock/reset them differently. Bam! New Genre!

Together with a good quantizer, as we often have these days, pitch summing of simple sequences can still create really compelling results. (And I often find they can fit the genre better than a single more complex sequence, because by virtue of using that mechanism they more easily inherit its traditional perceptible traits.)

A lot of people seem to be obsessed with prime numbers as the lengths

Guilty as charged.