Maybe someone can point me to a resource or explain this to me in a way I can understand.
I've had nanoloop on various Android devices for something like 5 years now, currently 3.9.1.
I really like the 'right amount' of limitation on the program, and I can see it'd be genuinely useful to my work and play, but I've never really got over a problem in the main pattern editing window, and I'm not sure if I'm using it wrong or just not getting the paradigm. I've been using computers in music for coming up for 40 years, and maybe I'm just stuck in the wrong brain thinkings. Or just stupid.
In the main pattern editing window, as I understand it, the letters on the lower bit represent instruments, and the numbers 1-8 patterns (I've seen these referred to as channels, though I don't quite get why, maybe this is relevant).
I create (for example) 3 instruments, bass, lead and kick on a,b and c, all on pattern 1. Fine. I change to pattern 2, and create 3 different patterns using the same instruments. In my mind, it seems I should now be able to hit 1 and hear the first 3 patterns together (to me this is 'pattern 1'), hit 2 and hear the second pattern together, but it will only change the pattern of whatever instrument I've got selected, everything is instantly jumbled up and I have to select each instrument and pattern to get them all playing together again (it's like every time i want to hear a pattern I have to reassemble it, or program it into the song window), which seems madness and totally breaks up what should be a really fast workflow.
I just don't get how to work with it, get frustrated and end up ditching it for another year just because of this strange (to me) behaviour, then try 'one more time'...
What am I doing wrong or not understanding? Or is everything as it should be and I'm just not compatible?
Thanks in advance
Andy