It happens to me every now and then, I do not write it down. It is kinda funny, the machine plays on as if nothing happened but you cannot stop it. So you need to restart it. I do not play live so I don’t care. And it seems to save almost everything until the last change. Even MIDI clock continues. I assume they will be able to fix it.
That’s weird 'cause Elektron support always has been very responsive to any issue I had (I currently have 6 Elektron devices). They haven’t tried arguing away my AR freeze problems at all.
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Sorry to say that, but I guess these problems receive silence, because there is nothing else to say than contact support and get your unit fixed/replaced.
If there would be a problem common to ALL sold units, this forum would have got already flooded with reports.
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Elektron could make a post here and say that they aknowledge the bug, that they are working on it, that it is hardware or software related, just communicate a little bit on peoples problems. This is a really long thread, so it´s not uncommon.
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I’ve been told by support that they’re working on it.
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When you want to communicate with them, then contact support, because that’s their official way of communication. They reply (normally) fast and on the point. Just because some employees are posting somewhere else doesn’t mean that’s now the new official way. In most cases these employees comment on topics where they are personally involved (like the Grandmaster of Elektron Manuals).
They can only acknowledge it as bug when they have clearly identified it as that. Until then, there is nothing they can acknowledge.
And, of course, they are working on it. When units needs to be replaced or fixed by them, they also looking into the causes, because it cost them money and customer trust. It would be simply stupid to ignore looking into the causes.
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I understand that Elektron doesn’t want to use this forum for “official” tech support. If they did that, they’d have to deal with too many problems in too many places. I think it’s better that they ask people to submit tickets via their website. I think that it would be wise that they watch these forums though (and I’m sure they do) so that they have their feelers out there gathering real time info on what users are running into.
the freezing, overheating, other stability issues…
is it a good buy right now or should one wait for some improvements to come through?
appreciate any insights you guys might have
Never had any issues with my MKI, cant speak for the MKII
I’ve had it since a couple weeks after it’s release
MK1 is not entirely stable, in my experience, but crashes/freezes have been rare for me.
Hi - I just purchased the MK2 and had a single freeze. It hasn’t happened since. I was able to get sweetwater to push on elektron for actual information regarding the freeze. I have a “most recent production run” according to sweetwater.
The freeze is caused by large capacitors not fully discharging on power cycles. If you allow full discharge (approximately 30 seconds) then your unit won’t freeze - at least because of this particular bug.
Being an EE myself, I would guess that the charged capacitor causes one of the many PCB chips to start in a weird state. While their software should be hard setting state, there maybe some stuff they cannot control.
Said differently - don’t quickly power cycle your unit. Off. Wait. On.
Can some of the other folks with freeze bugs try this and get back to me? I still have the option to return this unit, but love it and don’t want to if this truly is the solution.
EDIT: apparently this already known to many owners. The capacitor discharge addresses the boot freeze and not the run time freeze.
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Very interesting! How on Earth did you learned this? Was it support communication?
It was support communication from the US rep to sweetwater and then echoed to me.
If anybody else has a freezing unit I’d really like to know if this helps you.
In the dt this instruction about waiting 30 seconds to restart after power off is in the manual, first few pages I think. Maybe it is in the rytm manual too
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Good info!
so have these issues been fixed now or is it better to wait for improvements before purchasing an analog Rytm?
Thats nothing new unfortunately and they told me the same thing - to reference my post in this thread from back in September 2018:
Not sure if you are asking me, but I’m going on my 4th replacement unit at this point. Elektron is trying to convince me that their $1500 drum machine randomly locks up on boot due to “normal capacitor behavior”, and that the units I’ve sent back to them are apparently perfectly fine. They then suggested that the units were failing due to a variable on my end (power), and so I did the following before sending my last unit back to them:
- Originally I had it plugged into a Belkin surge protector (Model BE108000-08-CM which is highly rated on Amazon) which also powers a Tempest, TR8S, and a couple of Strymon pedals. The RYTM failed to boot about 40% of the time.
- I then moved it and plugged it directly into the wall, with the same results.
- Finally, I plugged it into a spare $3000 Smart UPS I have at work which is spec’d to power a network IDF and conditions power very well. Again, the RYTM still had the same issues turning on.
To elaborate - they were of the opinion that I was quickly power cycling the RYTM MK2 despite explaining to them numerous times during my multiple RMAs that the issue was outright freezing during usage - not just on start up - amongst other issues like MISSING:CAL PADS and failed UI checks during bootup diagnostics (assuming the units I was being sent successfully completed them).
In general though they are correct: allowing the unit to properly discharge between reboots is always a good idea, but not always the source of the problem unfortunately.
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Ok, this is not really what I wanted to hear, but I’d rather know now. It was weird to me that I explained “froze in use” and they responded “froze at boot.”
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Does not explain, why units freeze randomly while operating them
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Yep. That’s just about freezes on boot up and it is a common problem with lots of electronics not only Elektron machines.
Freezes during operations are a completely different thing.
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