I can't stand it anymore

Elektron Gear Analog Keys/Four
#1

Folks,
i’m upset. REALLY, REALLY upset.
I worked hard building up a track, nearly 14 hours nonstop working on it. I’m using the octatrack and the A4…i used all 4 internal tracks of the A4 for this one, manipulated the sounds and saved them to a new kit. When i switched off the machine and turned it on again right now, all of my sounds aren’t there anymore, the whole track is a MESS. Sounds and FX can not be edited to the state before switch-off anymore…patterns are all ok, but sounds are not. And i can’t get them to the point where i left my work yesterday…it’s like they all have been in a totally different basic setup yesterday before my work began and this basic setup is lost and not recallable anymore. So i can’t recall any sound of my work. I use the right sounds-by-name. But the sounds are wrong.

I really love the abilities of the A4. But to be honest: i don’t have ANY chance to understand the logic behind SAVING. And yes: this is an ABSOLUTE BASIC functionality that HAS TO BE DESIGNED to do what a USER wants. And this is NOT the case on the A4. I don’t have problems with the octatrack saving work. But with EVERY track i write on the A4 the fear remains, that i won’t be able to reload my work again no matter what i do. I lost SOOOO much work by the programmed illogical stupidity of it, that i really can’t stand it anymore. I read a lot regarding structures and logics behind the process of working with it and all of it rendered useless.

Bottom line: after one year owning it, i still lose my work because of the absolute inaccessible logic of saving it. Please give me some idea where i can find a REAL explanation that leaves no questions and insecurities open. Because i HAVE to sell it, if i lose my hard work just one more time while not understanding why this is happening.

Thanks for your help,
Gekko

2 Likes
Kit and Pattern :(
Own a Virus C, Looking for replacement?
#2

I save at every level because I too have had this happen(Sound, Kit, Song, Project ect). If you get in the habit of doing this you should never lose anything. I understand the frustration.

#3

True that I already lost some “work” on both OT and AR.
Each time I blamed my lack of understanding of how saving worked.
But I took the manuals, read them carefully until I was completely sure I knew exactly what to do.
Now I don’t loose work anymore.

I don’t know the A4, but if it was that hard to save the work done, I guess many people would scream as you did.
Maybe you have some homework to do and get a pristine comprehension of every little detail involved.

But I understand how you feel.

#4

Sorry to hear. Once you get the hang of it, its very easy to save your stuff.

The way i use it:

I turn ON the RELOAD KIT ON CHG in the GLOBAL settings. It is set OFF by default which is very confusing in my opinion.

Then, once I get something nice going on, I just save the KIT and thats it. Make sure you save it to a new place or to over an unused KIT. Unused KITS are marked on the KIT list.

Hope this helps!

1 Like
#5

I save kits before powering off and that always seems like enough to me. I appreciate the frustration, but I’d say before you go any further with the A4 spend a bit of time with the manual doing some testing. I doubt there’s something wrong with the machine. But maybe there’s something weird and unintentional that you’re doing when you save, like reloading the kit before you save it or something.

#6

So idk if this will help you but its worth mentioning b/c it yields the best understanding of it.

So lets forget for a second this are instruments. Lets assume its some kind of application, or some kind of database or computer on its own. The point im trying to illustrate here is a kind of hierarchical data structure. You’ll notice that the only things that auto save are things like inputs into sequencer steps in the patterns. Everything else is essentially “customizable” and any changes need to be saved.

Yes it seems a bit redundant, but think about it- if youre going to create new objects, it seems sensible that it needs to be saved(i say objects because thats basically what each snapshot/kit/pattern/track/patch really is). I mean in a file directory system, in order to recall something there has to be a reference to it, right?

Sorry of this sounds condescending- not my intent. Data structures and programming isnt a thing all musicians know. Having a different perspective might help :slight_smile:

#7

I think, but am no way sure, that if you make changes to sounds that already exist or make sounds from scratch that you need to rename them, then save them. Then save the kit afterwards to reflect the name changes.

I don’t understand where a sound sits in the memory when it is at it’s default name, ie sound 3. But I think kits just track where sounds reside rather than the sound itself.

#8

Nope.
Sounds are separate entities.
You can pull them into kits, then they are solely the property of that kit, the name is now a badge and any link to the sound is gone.
Every pattern refers to one kit, if that kit is used/changed/saved elsewhere … then, well … go figure.
To OP RTM and test your understanding before putting time into something you haven’t evidently fully understood - no point blaming Elektron and getting all shouty about it tbh

#9

I understand your frustration but maybe you should spend some time with just the A4 - Try out - and make mistakes but with unimportant stuff. So it dousn’ hurt so much when you loose it. I think losing work is a thing that happened to all of us in the beginning ( it’s a good way to learn tho ); It’s no a good idea to do giant work when you don’t know the machine-saving systhem by hart. It’s a very strait-forward and good systhem ones you know it. There’s a heep of explenations around here - I’ve posted some to explain it in a different way from the manual - but you’ll have to do some searching.
GOOD LUCK !

#10

Damn…
Yesterday I had crafted a very nice session. Before losing everything, I thought of saving all I had done. Went to the right menu. And in a moment of awkward fatigue, hit “reload” instead of “save”.

:sob:

I had a thought for you @Gekko-man :dizzy_face:

1 Like
#11

When i use elektron, many time i am a looser too
I try to be active with daging, but way too many times, things go wrong. Many times i dont know what i did wrong. For me, this is the only thing that sucks on elektron gear.

#12

Going to bookmark this thread! The file structure kits/sound/pool/etc still kinda confuse me and I like to have my files managed in a way that i can easily understand how to save and re load things. Thanks for clearing some things up guys!

#13

for the last year or so, I came across pretty much 3 occasions where I was like: W T F !!! I cant believe I did this murky shit…

on 1 occasion, I had 2 people next to me… I said (to the singer and to the writer) here, I have THIS prepared for you …

then I waited a little bit… said, I was sitting on this for quite a while, … I said … boys I said, you know my style, but this is kinda newish, I bet you will like it …

then I waited some more… asked if they wanted water, if they were comfortable …

you know… I was kinda getting them into the mood I wanted them to be in when I would go BOOOOM , motherfuckers, that s da shit , roight=?===?=?===??==

pressed play… and it was jack shit! …

…

there were 2 more occasions where I was like: neither pressed save nor did I do anything wrong here, or different to the last 200 times …

It was different… ghost in the machine, bug, user error, or fatal rtfm. … it happened to me too, 3 times for sure…

…

I usually go with “lets not add fuel to the fire” threads… no bashing, no finger pointing ( cough cough) … but I really do feel OP, happened to me too!

no need for anybody to comment on this answer from me…thx

#14

Both options are vulnerable to unwanted loss of programmed sound if i’m not mistaken.
[ul]
[li]When it’s set to OFF, a quick change of patterns will reload the kit and reset your sounds to where they were before you saved them.[/li]
[/ul]
[ul]
[li]When it’s set to ON, you can change patterns, your sounds will stay. BUT if you switch to another pattern with the SAME kit, do some changes there, save it, then go back to your first pattern with the same kit, do some changes there, save it, you will see only the changes you made last because you overwrite the kit.[/li]
[/ul]
Another possible cause could be the OT sending cc’s to the a4 and thus changing params. It happened to me often too, especially osc1 tuning goes down to zero sometimes. I’ve configured the a4 to accept nothing but clock/transport from the OT because of this.
I think it could have been easier implemented too. For a start, let every pattern be connected to its own kit by default. You could always load an existing kit if you wanted. The whole “switch to new pattern and connect to previously selected kit” is not very transparent imho

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#15

. For a start, let every pattern be connected to its own kit by default. You could always load an existing kit if you wanted. The whole “switch to new pattern and connect to previously selected kit” is not very transparent imho

This wouyldn’t be interesting as every pattern would reload a Kit and so modulated sounds would jump to their initial values; I don’t Use a OCTA so I don’t know the quality of that sequencer.But I never have problms with the A4 . Maybe it’s because I haven’t been using other sequencers for the last 2 years but to me it’s very clear and a joy tu use.Putting the reload - KIT OFF is very useful if U wanna experiment with changes in the KIt without the risk of definitive change. U can even swith between KITs and patterns without changing the original KIT this way…

#16

I printed the manuals and have them on my ipad and computer. Look through them all the time. I do think the file structure could maybe be explained in a different (better?) way. I think its just written in a way that is difficult for me to relate to. Not saying its not well written. just in the way that I understand things. I do better at diagrams and visuals and maybe just have to draw up my own.

#17

On the AR, I find it rather cool to have always the same kit on.
The thing is, when I start a new pattern, first thing I do is saving the current kit + save it as a new one : this way I start my pattern with the same kit as before and can tweak it without doing some nasty things to the previous kit.
If I want the previous pattern to sound the same I can always link it to the new kit.

So @SB-SIX you may be right, I’d rather see the kit saved and duplicated for the new pattern. Then IF I cant it to be the same as the previous pattern, get rid of the new kit and select the previous one.

Choice of conception. The important thing is that with the current logic that was implemented, I found a workflow that get rid of the risk for today’s need :slight_smile:

@rgraphic If I may, try to spend some time on this matter until it’s crystal clear.
Once you get it, write it in a way that make sense to you. Maybe on the forum, so that other can use it (or correct it if needed). :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

#18

Are you using it with another piece of Elektron Gear? I had similar problem, but it was because the Octatrack was sending CC’s from the audio tracks. You can prevent that from happening in the midi/control project preferences.


so, to prevent CC’s from being sent, change the ‘Audio CC Out’ to INT only.

I also prefer to save kits per pattern. And I always save the project before powering off.

#19

I agree - found out most stuff myself :zonked: and by reading around here …

#20

@rgraphic if you ever find a way to present this in a visual way that makes sense, don’t hesitate to put it somewhere here :wink:

I guess you’ll make some happy people :smiley: