Analog Four MKII backup

[RickeyE]

Hello everyone,
I’m new to Elektron, I just got an Analog Four MKII. So far, I think it’s pretty incredible. I’m learning the workflow and it’s a little different, but I like everything so far and it’s fun to learn something new.

One question I did have is about backing up sound banks and Overbridge. It looks like OB doesn’t really function like a true librarian, ala Novation Components or something like that. Kind of a bummer, but ok.
So, how do you guys back up your sound banks? I bought a couple of the commercial sound packs to help me learn the device a little and eventually I’m going to want to do a backup of my sound banks. I like to have a baseline to work from.
The manual isn’t very detailed on this process. But it looks like you can send SYSEX from the sound manager. The Elektron transfer dealie worked for sending sysex to the A4, but doesn’t seem to want to receive. So what is everyone using for a sysex editor/capture to import them? I haven’t used sysex in YEARS, this seems a little archaic to me.

Thank you!

[LyingDalai]

First, you should be able to use C6 or sysex librarian.
Secondly, a new version of Transfer is coming son that does this all.

[RickeyE]

Thanks, I used sysex librarian .
But holy cow, the process of selecting each patch individually, sysex…etc…

Yeah, some kind of better librarian feature would be more than welcome here

[PeterHanes]

@RickeyE

the process of selecting each patch individually, sysex…etc…

In case you didn’t see it, you can send ALL SOUNDS in the SYSEX SEND menu, or any selected sounds in the SOUND MANAGER.

[RickeyE]

I did see that, but I didn’t see a way to export the individual sound banks.
Did I miss it somewhere? I guess I assumed all sounds meant every sound on the device since there wouldn’t really be a way for a sysex message to break them up.

[RickeyE]

I used the sound manager, but in order to select a whole bank, I had to arrow down checking every single sound in the bank, then do the transfer.
It just took way longer than it should.

With Overbridge controlling parameters in real-time/etc, there’s some kind of data transfer protocol happening over USB. It seems like a librarian is small potatoes, I guess designing the interface is probably the hold up and not a priority, that’s understandable.

[JPM]

@LyingDalai

Secondly, a new version of Transfer is coming son that does this all.

Did elektron detail date/features of new version of transfer? I have been toying with figuring out project + samples backup on rytm so maybe they done this already!

[Normalogic]

Hoping on this topic. It’s as good as any similar one speaking aboug A4 backup, and seems the most recent.

I tried to backup some of my A4MKII projects this afternoon (slow snowy sunday), and tried to restore some to see if this was working properly. For some its ok, for some others the loss is pretty important (loss of length for some steps, loss of automation, loss of tempo, etc.)

Is this normal? Is saving/restoring by sysex dump still the preferred way? Should it be 100% lossless or should I expect some parameters not to be saved?

Edit: amongst other problems, some sysex files dont load totally (so I guess they are improperly saved in a corrupted -unloadable- state) and sometimes sounds are lost (Every sound is the default sound).

[PofM]

@RickeyE

I used the sound manager, but in order to select a whole bank, I had to arrow down checking every single sound in the bank, then do the transfer.
It just took way longer than it should.

You don’t have to do it that way.

[Pro Tip] You're backing up wrong!

Just a fresh bump here as I needed to look up how to do this again and I encourage everyone to always backup Here’s a better description: If you want to back up ALL your sounds, make C6 receive sysex, on the A4/K go to the SOUND MANAGER, tap a trig so that all the trigs light up and you can see all banks (or just tap one bank if that’s all you want), click right, click SELECT ALL, then scroll down to the bottom and click SYSEX SEND. Now save it in C6 and you’re golden.

[PofM]

@Normalogic

Is this normal? Is saving/restoring by sysex dump still the preferred way? Should it be 100% lossless or should I expect some parameters not to be saved?

That’s not normal. It should save and restore losslessly.

[Normalogic]

Have you tried backing up recently? I’m on 1.50A and got the same results using MidiOX and C6.

[PofM]

No, not since I updated to the latest firmware

[Normalogic]

Here, have an example.

This is a simple one-pattern Totoro cover:

This is the sysex I get when doing Sysex Dump > Sysex Send > Whole Project:
Totoro.syx (2.2 MB)

This is what I get when opening a new project and doing Sysex Dump > Sysex Receive > Anything > Receive Any. Pretty botched. For some reason the kick survived.

(This small track only uses factory sounds)

[PofM]

Maybe a silly question, but worth checking: did you save everything to the project before doing the sysex dump?

It will dump what’s saved to the +Drive, not the active working state that’s currently in memory.

[Normalogic]

There are no silly questions. The example Totoro project itself is loaded from scratch before exporting so I guess it’s all saved? But maybe there’s a way to save it even more and I didn’t do all the right steps?

Should I save the kit?
Edit: Saving the kit gave 1/1 result, trying on other projects (most notably the one where the automation was botched)
Edit 2: Yeah ok saving the kit was the missing step in my case…
Edit 3: Restoring a sysex dump doesn’t restore the correct global tempo information until I noodle with the tempo, but I can live with that.

[RickeyE]

Thank you!

Extremely helpful!

That would have saved me a lot of time, lol

[Tapepusher]

Is there really no way to backup projects with their tempos intact? I hope this was fixed, soon to find out.

Also, good to know you HAVE to manually save kits for sysex backups to work, didn’t know.