A4 saving/sysex

pre55ure · 2013-11-28T04:37:46.000Z

Hi all,

So I’ve been getting near to filling up my A4’s memory, and have been atrting to offload stuff via sysex to my computer. However, there really doesn’t seem to be much info on the best way to organize the A4’s data. The manual isn’t great at explaining whats going on, and I seem to keep accidentally overwriting important stuff and needing to go back to my “full backup” (which is cool but takes like 10 minutes to load.

So is there anyone out there with a good grasp of organizing stuff on the A4 that could perhaps write a quick tutorial or some advice?

Some specific questions I have-

Is there any way to dump all 128 sounds at once? Under the sysex dump menu there are options for:
full backup
all kits
all paterns
all songs
all globals

but not “all sounds”
So does this mean that it’s necessary to dump each sound separately into c6?

- when I dump a sound into c6, it just shows up as “recieved data” with no name or anything. So do I then have to save and name each file individually for all 128 sounds?
Sysex kits+patterns saves the 4 sounds that coincide to each track of a kit, correct? But not the sounds that are sound locked to different steps.
So does this mean that I cannot remove or replace any sounds that have a little lock icon next to them? And-theres no way to even know what pattern or kit is using these soundlocks, correct?
Is there a general “tried and true” method for saving/storing data on the A4? Or for creating live setups etc…

Thanks for any info.

NRain · 2013-11-28T06:02:09.000Z

If you can, be patient and make do until presumably early to mid December. There is an OS update coming that unlocks the +Drive and will allow storing 128? projects on the A4 which includes all sounds, patterns and kits.

smo · 2013-11-28T12:46:43.000Z

""pre55ure"":

…“full backup” (which is cool but takes like 10 minutes to load.

Hi, I’m doing a full backup all the time. If you set-up a global setting with midi only via usb and use elektrons c6-tool than it goes much faster.

""pre55ure"":

Is there any way to dump all 128 sounds at once? Under the sysex dump menu there are options for:
full backup
all kits
all paterns
all songs
all globals

but not “all sounds”
So does this mean that it’s necessary to dump each sound separately into c6?

yes. as far as i know thats the case.

""pre55ure"":

when I dump a sound into c6, it just shows up as “recieved data” with no name or anything. So do I then have to save and name each file individually for all 128 sounds?

no, you can send all your sounds to c6 in one rush, press save and have all your sounds in one syx file. same goes for multiple patterns, kits songs, globals or a mixture of those…

""pre55ure"":

Sysex kits+patterns saves the 4 sounds that coincide to each track of a kit, correct? But not the sounds that are sound locked to different steps.
So does this mean that I cannot remove or replace any sounds that have a little lock icon next to them? And-theres no way to even know what pattern or kit is using these soundlocks, correct?

correct.

hope that helps

billywood · 2013-11-28T17:25:07.000Z

I keep reading the title and thinking it says “A4 having sex”.

It’s been a long day.

gbravetti · 2013-11-28T19:43:35.000Z

""billywood"":

I keep reading the title and thinking it says “A4 having sex”.

It’s been a long day.

Same here! Good to know that I’m not the only one.

PES · 2013-12-19T16:59:56.000Z

Did a USB sysx dump now, but had MIDI out set to MIDI+USB, meaning it sent slowly and took some minutes to complete.

Anyway, the sysx file ended up at around 500kb, while my earlier backups (USB only) are around 2200kb. Did a dump again with only USB MIDI enganged, and the file ended up at 2200kb.

So why the size difference?

crypticresonance · 2016-01-19T18:01:42.000Z

Hi!

Having some problem receiving sysex dump via USB.
C6 says (after correctly recognizing instrument) “receiving: 0 bytes”. A4 says “sending…” and supposedly finishes it after a short while, but it’s still 0 bytes indefinitely at the receiver side.
midi out on a4 is set to ‘usb’
I have no problem sending sysex (soundbanks) on the other hand.
Any help would be appreciated!

vitek · 2016-01-19T18:13:22.000Z

same problem here … sometimes when I want to send the patches to the machine I have to restart bot A4 and C4, but now I’ve tried it several times and still doesn’t work … any ideas would be appreciated … I really need backup, I’m going oldschool and try it over DIN cable

crypticresonance · 2016-01-20T14:20:25.000Z

Interesting. Now I tried this with my good old SysEx Librarian and it works like a bliss.
C6 seems to be at fault here…

colaba · 2016-03-02T03:04:22.000Z

Make sure you check the A4 MIDI config settings to make sure that MIDI out is also going to USB. I was running into issues where it was just hanging at “waiting to receive…” until I saw usb was not enabled. For some reason.

It can’t ever be easy…

Manoeuvre · 2016-03-02T14:48:55.000Z

Set midi out to USB only for efficient saving.