What is the difference between patterns and scenes?

Patterns and scenes are two distinct levels of musical organization in the OP-XY. A pattern is a sequence of notes on a single track, while a scene groups patterns from all tracks together into a snapshot of your arrangement.

Patterns

Each of the 16 tracks can hold up to 16 patterns. A pattern is an arrangement of notes or sounds, and each pattern can hold a maximum of 120 notes. Patterns can be different lengths depending on how many bars and the track scale you set. You create and navigate patterns in arrange mode using the white encoder.

Scenes

A scene captures the current pattern selection across all 8 instrument and 8 auxiliary tracks, along with the volume and mute settings for each track. There are 99 available scenes, and a scene's length is determined by its longest pattern. You switch between scenes by holding shift and pressing the accidental keys.

Songs

Scenes can then be arranged into songs. OP-XY supports up to 9 songs per project, each holding a maximum of 96 scenes in sequence.

The practical workflow is to build up patterns on each track, group them into scenes representing different sections (verse, chorus, etc.), and then chain those scenes into a full song.