First off I believe RTFM needs to be a continual process in order to come to terms with this beast. Also I’ve read Merlin’s doc three times now. I thought I had fail-safe approach by doing a “save as new” when I got to a point I wanted to keep. I had Project A, B , C & D all saved as incremental backups.
I’ve been careful (so I thought) to only make parameter changes through Scenes. So I have several scenes across two patterns & three parts. Project D was my last saved back-up,
So today after I fire up the Octatrack I load - change to - Project A but notice right away things don’t sound quite right, as if the track parameters had changed. Further I noticed that Parts 1 & 2 have asterisks but I hadn’t changed anything (I think). I then load Projects B, C, & D and they all sound a little different from when I did a “Save as New”. also the Parts in each of the back-up Projects have asterisks. In addition when I try to reload a part I get the “save Part first” message.
My questions are:
The manual implies that saving a Project saves everything in the state your presently hearing things. Is that correct?
If that is correct then aren’t Parts also saved initially? Or do Parts have to be saved separately from a Project save?
[Putting on my accountant’s hat] Yes, I do believe you need to save Parts if any changes are made to them, because saving the project does not do that…I think [never really sure, even while wearing the hat] For this reason, I obsessively “Save all Parts” and Project during the sound design part of my jamming, and when I get the sounds I like I try not to mess with Parts too much, concentrating more on the performance.
This aspect of the OT is my most hated one, because I would much rather be a lion tamer!
Boy, poonti, I’m really beginning to see your point about “accounting”! So besides keeping track of which sample goes with which track part, we need to keep track of saving parts. .And I thought Project saving was comprehensive.
I wasn’t sure about this myself, so I just did some testing:
I initialized a new project, created two patterns A1 and A2, and set them to use two parts 1 and 2. After saving the parts I started making changes in parameters, noticing that the crosses appeared to the parts. I did some power off/on with and without saving project first, and tested reloading parts before off/on, how it behaves.
My observations:
Save project command doesn’t make any difference when turning power off/on. The machine always reboots in the state that I left it. As the manual says, it autosaves automatically.
Saving project doesn’t do “save part” command. After saving the project, the crosses indicating changes remain in the parts.
If I have made changes to parts without saving them (=crosses) and save the project, the project contains both the saved parts and the unsaved changes to parts. If I then reload parts, losing the crosses, I can restore my “unsaved parts” by reloading project. The crosses reappear. (This may sound very confusing written…)
So, according to this test, Octatrack always autosaves its current state and “save project” saves a complete machine state, “unsaved parts” included.
I have been myself struggling with this issue sometimes and I could swear that Octatrack sometimes loses some settings when powering off. I’m not sure if it has been a bug, or more likely my own user error, but according to this test autosave seems to work as advertised.
I think even a slight touch of the fader makes the cross appear in parts. SO many times I´ve saved parts and whatever, then fooling around a bit more including moving AND leaving the fader at another position than it was when I saved. End session (power off). Returning next time = doesn´t sound the same as I saved. Lots of headscratching: ah, the fader!
Same ‘problem’ applies whenever you´re using the Arranger. Need to have that fader at the same position as when you arranged the rows. Otherwise, and you may not notice it first when pressing play and let the Arranger go thru rows. It could sound horribly wrong (i e like a track pitch parameter being totally off if controlled by the fader).
I decided to write down where I think some of my confusion stems from. It kind of a memo to self - hopefully not too confusing:
The main tripping point, for me, over parts has been really wrapping my head around the relationship between scenes and patterns. I’ve been going over Merlin’s thoughts on this and the manual trying to understand, still, why there seems to be subtle changes from time to time I didn’t intend. What I realize was some of my confusion had to do with the use of the term “pattern”. Both the manual and Merlin’s paper use the term to convey a selected pattern trig when in actuality they mean a set of track patterns associated with each trig. I think unknowingly it was setting up an expectation that each individual “track” pattern has a unique relationship with each Scene and is stored with it’s link Part.
Having to remember there are 16 Scenes for each part may seem simple enough but: and here is the point which I think kept messing me up; each Scene has an affect across ALL patterns where any parameter has been s-locked per track. The trip up comes when I when I would change to a new trig "pattern” (- a new set of track patterns). Now I have, perhaps different rhythmic movement, p-locks, etc. BUT the scene locks are the same as long as the Part hasn’t changed.
All of a sudden I don’t like what some of the Scenes are doing to my new trig pattern(s). The instinctive thing to do is to begin tweaking s-locks. BUT once you do tweak a s-lock, you have now changed that particular Scene’s effect on all PREVIOUS trig patterns associated with that track. If you have more than one trig pattern associated with specific s-locks and you begin tweaking the s-locks on any set of track parameters you can completely mess up your work, as I kept doing.
Solutions
Try to remember to save a Part after s-locks per track on the INITIAL track pattern once are where you want them set.
Try to remember to change Parts, via Part Copy if you want to tweak s-locks already in use. Or copy the track and associated patterns to an empty track slot.
Pay attention to which track parameters have already been previously s-locked.
Thoughts
Accounting for Scenes effects on track parameters is really really important if you don’t want to be surprised by the results. Now I know if I change a s-lock on a different pattern my original pattern will also change. Since Elektron’s fallback is the last saved part I need to be saving or changing parts if I don’t want to lose something I like. The biggest flaw in all this is the creative flow is not much of a flow, it is more of a disruptive process at times
Conclusion
I think having a quick snapshot (capturing everything including Parts) save command with unlimited undo would go along way towards supporting an adventurous work flow as opposed to a cautious one
For this reason, I obsessively “Save all Parts” and Project during the sound design part of my jamming, and when I get the sounds I like I try not to mess with Parts too much, concentrating more on the performance.