We already include an option to follow the pattern or not - the reasoning being this is two people jamming: one is programming notes & stuff in Renoise, the other is copying and arranging stuff on the fly using Grid Pie. It’s sort of a recording mode already, and IMHO things would get too complex if something started to override the existing options in specific situations? But nevertheless, it’s the first kind of recording mode I considered - but I like your approach even better.
Absolutely, there really isn’t such a thing as an empty clip - it’s always pointing to somewhere within your song. If this wasn’t possible, you couldn’t create a Grid Pie’d arrangement from scratch (if someone dared to do such a thing)
BTW: did you read my own suggestions for improving this tool?
http://www.renoise.c…post__p__257231