Not really sure what the point of this is, but if you add some more parens you should get what you want: 
my ($start,$middle,$end) = $string =~ /^(.*?)(($pattern)+)(.*?)$/g;

[download]
By placing the + outside of the first "parened" $pattern, you allow more than one - then, put some parens around that to catpure the results to $2.

Hope this helps, :)

UPDATE:
Oops, almost got that right ... now we are trying to match 4 items, not 3 anymore ... so try this: 
my ($start,$middle,undef,$end) = $string =~ ...

[download]
UPDATE 2:
I like liz's and CombatSquirrel's suggestion to use a look ahead non-capturing paren group ... but none of these solutions (yes bart, including mine ;)) are robust. For example, none will work with the pattern BABABABBB ...

UPDATE 3:
split! of course! i like it!

jeffa

L-LL-L--L-LL-L--L-LL-L--
-R--R-RR-R--R-RR-R--R-RR
B--B--B--B--B--B--B--B--
H---H---H---H---H---H---
(the triplet paradiddle with high-hat)

In reply to Re: Regex help by jeffa
in thread Regex help by gri6507

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