Problem with Whole Project sysex backup, looking for guidance

Elektron Gear Analog Rytm
#1

Hello,
I’m currently working on a liveset and it’s becoming a little race against the clock. All the while i have been making sysex dumps of the various states of my project. Now i’m about to make some important changes in this project, so i wanted to make sure that the saving actually went alright.

IT DIDN’T; if i send my whole project dump (.syx file) from C6 to a new project i get my kits, incl. samples and everything BUT only about 20% of the patterns i’ve written… And can’t get the missing ones loaded.

I think i’ve done things (& settings) in a correct manner, but i’m not sure as i’m new to this and it’s a lot to grasp. Or is it a bug maybe? Any help would be much appreciated!!

I’ve worked hard and i would like to have the peace of mind (again) that all will not be lost if some worst case scenario would occur.

(Perhaps i could re-save pattern-for-pattern manually, but it will take much time plus i want the Project backups to go in a smooth manner)

#2

nvm, i’m doing it bit by bit now. Takes way more time but at least i’m sure that i have my stuff secured. (would love it if all would be well with a single ‘Receive Any’ Sysex command though)

Edit: allright have backed the whole thing up now. But it comes down to a couple of hours of tedious, boring work. (And i am pretty organized with my names & files etc.)

editedit: still curious how others tackle this issue…

#3

I tried to backup once and i couldnt, took too long and i wasnt sure it was backuped ok at all, had to stop the transfer. I wish there was an easier way than using MIDI protocol.

#4

Yes, me too. I was desperate enough to do it and not stop until it was done, but it’s quite a bit of work. Especially placing the samples in their respective slots. Once done it feels great though. Next week i have quite a few scene’s and perf’s to write + save, hope it won’t be as cumbersome as today’s job. (but i guess that will be easier, probably do an “all kits” backup or something)

p.s. i manually checked all patterns and had to adjust some bits (samples) afterwards to get the proper settings back in order.

#5

After being totally afraid of losing 1 year worth of patterns, kits, beats etc I just the other day decided to backup a pattern. I also offered to upload it for someone on this forum since he was interested in some tips I had on kick drum super punchy designs.

Before uploading, I tested it by making an empty project. I then sent the sysex to the RYTM - when it was done it gave me a display of how many kits, patterns, etc were transfered. It was an EXACT replica of my other project. Now I feel safe that I’ve got a proper backup that I can use any time. The other thing that impressed me was it loaded all the samples in the correct slots from the +drive so all samples worked too.

For me the main trick was making sure overbridge was off, USB only was on. Make sure midi in/out are set to USB only. In C6 on your computer, have RYTM selected on both in and out midi devices. Have C6 in receive mode, go to sysex dump on RYTM and send the whole project. This will show you as it’s transferring how many patterns. Sometimes it takes long and seems like it will hang. If it doesn’t look like it’s completed, it probably didn’t. Try again! When you get a successful transfer save it to your HD on C6.

Then you can make a new empty project and test with it. You can receive sysex of the whole project or just kits or just patterns etc. For me it worked to just do the whole project.

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#6

Hi thank you. Yes i did exactly as you described (except the overbridge stuff, which i don’t use). And everything went well, except pattern data. I would only get about 20% of my patterns. And i’ve tried multiple times. This freaked me out so much that i started saving pattern for pattern. Anything better then losing months of work.
I don’t know; either i’m dumb or my unit is not 100% fit. (i’ve encountered other weird behaviour)

#7

I’ll check again when I’m at my machine tonight and make sure that the patterns are all there. I have about 80 or so patterns on there and I’d hate to have to back them up 1 at a time.

#8

That would be very kind of you, thank you

#9

Any advice or tips would be highly appreciated. Time is tight and i’m not looking forward to the labourious task of having to ‘hand-save’ everything. It should be so simple; hit SAVE WHOLE PROJECT and sit back and relax

#10

Allright, got it working now. Still not 100% troublefree, but after a few passes, and with the help of another SySex program i get the desired whole project backup.

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#11

For me SysEx wasn’t working until I restarted computer. Mac OS 10.13.5, Rytm MKII. Just in case.

#12

I’ve been wasting in my pants reading about these backup issues with the ARMKII. Just got mine a couple months ago and love where my sound is going with this wicked little unit. Followed ON-OFF-ON instructs and was able to effortlessly reload my last project complete into a new project. Flawless baby. I mean I store my music project backups off-site… If the shit burns down, it must go on… No way we should confine our art to fragile little boxes…

Thanks again OFO!

#13

How long did it take to send the SYSEX file back to the rytm?
It took about 20 seconds to download from it, but it’s taking about 15 minutes so far to send it back and only like 60% of the way through … ??

I’m also using MIDI-OX on windows to do this because both Transfer and C6 crashed everytime I attempted to send the sysex with either of those :o

EDIT: nope now MIDI-OX crashed too says it ran out of sysex memory or something!?

What’s going on?
Is it possible to send sysex project files back to the rytm???

#14

Yes. One often-quoted tip for speed is to ensure that MIDI input on the AR is from USB only, not “MIDI+USB”.

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#15

By chance I did this just the other day. I used SysEx Librarian. It took longer to send the data back to RYTM than it took to send it to the laptop, but it wasn’t 20 times longer. Although it’s not a massive project (20 kits+patterns)