Sysex loading vs snapshots?

Elektron Gear Machinedrum
#1

Dear Elektronauts,

I recently bought an SPS-1 MK2 + and i’m having some problems understanding how snapshots behave. (sorry if it’s in the manual but i can’t understand)

I understand most of the global menue but samples / presets loading remains dodgy to me…

So i’ve used and ajusted an industrial factory snapshot to play around and get a feeling of the machinedrum. From one of those kits loaded with that snapshot i created my own kit. All is fine.

Then i loaded some presets (the 1.50 presets from elektron website) into that global and my custom kit (place 64) was gone while the factory kits in that preset (place 2-3) were still there…

If you experienced users could give me some insight on how this happened, that would be really great.

Also some extra info on how snapshots behave would be really welcome because i’m a bit comfused.

Thanks alot
peace!

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#2

When Elektron first made the Machinedrum, the only way to backup what was in the MD’s memory was to transfer the data to a computer using MIDI SysEx messages.

Later, they added the +Drive feature. The +Drive is a storage space in the MD that contains enough space to hold 128 backups (“snapshots”) of the MD’s internal memory. So you can backup the whole of the MD’s memory without the need for a computer.

When you loaded in the factory presets, you (probably) overwrote what was in the MD’s memory including your custom kit, unless you had backed it up beforehand.

If you want to backup the current state of your MD at any time, save to a snapshot. Don’t use snapshot 1, because that will be overwritten with the factory sounds if you ever do a full reset of the MD.

Practice a bit until you understand how it works, and don’t be afraid to lose some of your custom data while you are figuring things out.

Ask here again if you have any more questions.

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#3

Thanks alot. That’s kinda what i was thinking :slight_smile:

But the part i dont understand is why i can’t load kits into for example slot 3-4-5 without erasing kit 6?

Or do i have some setting wrong? Because thats more or less what happened.

#4

A Snapshot is simply a store of the entire state of the MD’s memory, so loading one Snapshot overwrites everything that is currently in memory.

To load a specific kit from a Snapshot, load the source Snapshot, copy the kit, load the target Snapshot, and paste the kit.

OR

Save the desired kit via SysEx to a computer and reload it when required.

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#5

Yea okay but but i think you don’t understand my question.
I understand what snapshots are now and thank you for that.

What i dont understand is why loading kits from my computer erases the kits that are allready stored on the elektron memory, even when i select empty slots… He still erased other slots that didn’t get anything new.

Understand what i mean?

#6

I will try to clarify my understanding. Previously, you said that you “loaded some presets”, by which I assumed that you loaded a snapshot. But maybe that wasn’t a correct assumption on my part, because just now you said that you “loaded kits from my computer”.

If you load individual kits or a range of kits from a computer using a SysEx message then you can choose to load them by the “ORIGINAL PLACE” method or the “SPECIFIC PLACE” method. See pages 67-69 of the MD manual. Can you remember which method you used? This might explain what you experienced.