Hey folks,
I tend to do what you suggested. Not using loop mode, I’ll make a split at the measure I intend to have a new pattern, lift the excess after the playhead to delete, place the play head there, hold record, hit the next pattern. Not always pretty, but if there’s a good hit on the downbeat in the pattern, it works out alright. This method creates some issues if there are any time-based effects in the engine going to tape. In that case, if I have the empty tracks, I’ll stop the pattern at the end of the last beat of the last bar, allowing the time to hangover, and then use another track to punch in… then bounce those to one track. I think all that just made sense. :-/
you can often get reasonable results with a well-timed play button hit. might take a couple tries; if you hit it too early, the unrecorded gap can be much more noticeable than a tiny overlap at the start.
i would like this feature too. i often get 1. phasing on the start of the loop & 2. cutting short of the end of a loop. seems like the only way to do it at the moment is to turn off looping, record performance going over the last bar, go into tape, rewind tape to end of last bar, cut tape, move playhead forward, lift excess tape, restart tape to start of loop, recreate the looping in/out times.
Holding the key board note to trigger the pattern can be good and quick to release ,allowing FX tails to carry on recording.