tl;dr version: my SysEx Project restorations are incomplete after being received by the Digitone, specifically missing the Sound Pool and Settings data. I’ve tried every imaginable thing I can think of to get it to work!
I just got my Digitone back from repair recently. Elektron recommended backing my machine up before sending it in, so I performed SysEx dumps of all of my Sound Banks and Projects and captured them in MIDI-OX. After getting the machine back I was able to easily restore all of my Sound Banks from the SysEx files with Elektron Transfer. Restoring the Project files has proved to be a lot more troublesome, however.
For starters, the SysEx files crash Transfer, and sometimes the Digitone along with it. I tried it on both a Windows 7 and Windows 10 machine and the program was having nothing to do with my Projects. It manages to send about 5% of the data and then becomes unresponsive. I can’t even fully close the process in the Task Manager until I disconnect or power cycle the Digitone. To that end, I can’t open the Digitone’s port in any other programs unless I power cycle after Transfer crashes. C6 also doesn’t appear to handle the file and crashes after sending about 10% of it.
Undeterred, I loaded MIDI-OX, the same program I used to capture the files in the first place. It took some fiddling with the buffer size but eventually I successfully transferred a Project file and the Digitone received it. Yay! But my feeling of triumph was premature. While all of the Patterns from the Project were restored on the Digitone, none of the Settings or the Sound Pool were. I use a fair amount of Sound locks in some patterns, and without the Sound Pool being restored, all of those locks revert to a default sine patch. This will not do.
What’s curious about this is that I can visibly watch the Digitone receive all of the patterns, A01-F16, but by that point the file is only about 60% complete when looking at the progress bar on my computer. It sends for an additional 20 seconds or so, which gives me hope that the Settings and Sound Pool are somehow buried in there still!
I even went so far as to hook up the Digitone with a USB to MIDI interface and 5-pin DIN cables. Transfer doesn’t work at all this way. Interestingly, C6 can suddenly handle the file from start to finish when I am sending to a MIDI interface, but the Digitone doesn’t receive anything. Same result with MIDI-OX, the file sends successfully but the Digitone seems to completely ignore SysEx over MIDI. I tried two interfaces with multiple output ports and all the same result. Does the Digitone even receive SysEx on the 5-pin jacks? I know my settings are correct -I’ve tripled checked them.
Beyond that I’ve also tried different MIDI cables and ports, different USB cables and ports. I have received in SysEx dump mode, outside of Sysex dump mode, and have loaded an initialized project more times than I can count. I’ve played with every conceivable combination of MIDI settings. And that’s all on top of multiple computers and operating systems.
A friend of mine tried to help by testing one of the files with Transfer on his Mac. The SysEx file sent successfully but his Digitone only received a couple of patterns during the Sysex receive mode, and they didn’t even stick when he tried to use them, so that’s a failure too!
At this point I’ve run out of ideas and the support email chain to Elektron is moving slowly, so I’m posting here in search of further recommendations.