Kit buffers - how exactly do they work

So the analog devices have temporary buffers for a number of unsaved kits.
It’s kind of counter intuitive how they work. I believe to know the devices pretty well, but I still lose kits even after years of intensive use. This is caused by forgetting to save kits sometimes.

The problem is that multiple kits are kept in temporary buffers, i.e. you can switch between multiple patterns which have multiple unsaved kits linked to them, and the kits’ behavior is indistinguishable whether they’re saved or temporary. That is, until you power down the device. Some of these unsaved kits are then lost, but not all of them (?). So for me, it kind of happens that I forget to save kits because functionally they appear to be already saved.

One could say it is user error. But it’s a pretty weird design quirk imho.

Anyone know how these temporary buffers work exactly?

To prevent losing kits, I guess the best way would be to enable “kit reload on change”, that way it’s a bit more consistent because unsaved kits are then always lost when changing to a different kit. This would probably “train” my brain to more consistently save kits, because you then always have to save them manually if you don’t want to lose them on a simple pattern switch.

On the other hand, it’s kind of neat to be able to switch kits without having to save individual ones, because then it matches the behavior of the patterns. But it only “simulates” the auto-saving behavior of patterns.

(I guess I would like to have an option to auto-save kits, as well as a method to more quickly load kits, something which is as quick and easy as assigning sound-locks.the kit load menu isn’t much fun, especially if you want to try & audition several kits in the current pattern to see how they sound. Switching patterns - easy. P-Locking - easy. Loading kit - weird multi-column menu which could be faster to invoke and which automatically closes even if you don’t want it to close.)

1 Like

I’m with you on this (and as we both know, subtle nuance changes are afoot to perhaps muddy the waters a little more)
.
I’ve a vague recollection that Simon stated there were 2 working temp buffers, but I forget the context
.
It’s one thing doing a trial and error experiment, but it’d be much more informative to have the expected behaviour (and constraints) laid out (officially)
.
fortunately, for me, this doesn’t affect my workflow, but I’ve noticed some inconsistent (with expectation) things on the AR (cough) recently !
.
total clarity would be nice :+1:

yea I too remember Simon talking about it but don’t know where…
the muddy waters thing - yep. I only partially understand what it does…

I wonder if HQ ever conducted internal experiments with different save behaviors. I totally would love to experience different ways of saving/reloading just to get a feel whether they wouldn’t work better (subjectively).

In particular, two checkbox options in the globals:

  • pattern reload on change: would revert to last saved pattern state when switched to it. Could be good for performance where you don’t want to accidentally mess up existing patterns, requiring to save explicitly.
  • auto-save kits: would save the current kit

This would let the user choose how to do it, so it could better fit the users’ mental model. Should be trivial to implement, but maybe there is something about this where they decided it’s bad bad bad.

well, and as mentioned above a quicker access to kits would support this significantly. I dunno, maybe using the bank+trig pattern-switch mechanism, but holding function could load a kit.

1 Like

Simon:

You need to save your Kits even if your Project is active, they do not autosave at all (however, they do temporarily stay active)

The working memory will only keep two (iirc) unsaved Kits in memory so to speak.

http://www.elektronauts.com/t/saving-projects-confusion/18233/148448

1 Like

thanks Peter! :slight_smile:

so it’s maybe 2 kits…

Just tried it. It’s 6 or more kits which are kept in unsaved buffers (I stopped at 6 patterns/kits). After a power cycle, all except the latest one have reverted to the default kit. I’m now assuming that you can have 128 unsaved kit buffers, as long as you don’t switch off the machine or load another project, and when you do it keeps one kit in a buffer which survives the reboot.

So yeah imo this is kind of a design flaw, the kits look and feel like they’re saved but they’re simply not, and there is nothing in the UI which shows you how it is.

So… if the first thing you’re supposed to do after switching to a new pattern is to either save the current kit to a new slot (to prevent messing with other patterns’ kit) or to load a new kit, and then save it before leaving… could there not be a piece of UI design which takes this mental load off the user?

1 Like

The kit pattern relationship is a bit confusing…I’ve been saving kits in Max MSP and resending them to the current Kit RAM, to quickly audition different kits. Its annoying that there is no easy way (that i know) to change the kit number associated with a pattern.
I noticed that pattern sysex has a kit number defined near the end, so it should be possible to change the kit number by changing the pattern sysex data, although it seems like overkill…

Can anyone help me on how to unpack and repack the Rytm sysex messages? In particular, it looks like there are 15075 bytes to unpack in a pattern dump, but that isn’t a multiple of 8 , and I’m not sure what to do with the extra 3 bytes…

1 Like

From the manual:

Within an active project, all changes made are automatically remembered by the Analog Rytm, letting you switch back and forth between patterns and kits and edit the patterns, kits and parameters in any order you like without the need to save each adjustment manually. Patterns, the active kit Sounds and settings, songs and glo- bals are remembered even after the power is turned off. However, regarding kits (the main entity for editing and collectively storing a complete set of Sounds and effects), when the Analog Rytm is switched off, only the set- tings of the active kit are preserved. If, for example, the kit linked to pattern 1 is edited (kit A), another pattern is selected and its kit edited (kit B) and then the power is turned off, only the changes to kit B (the most recent active kit) will be remembered. We highly recommend that you specifically save the kits you have been working on manually using the quick command [YES/SAVE] + [FX]. Find out more about kits in the section “KITS AND SOUNDS” on page 19.

2 Likes

:+1: yep, slightly awkward, if, like me, you’ve brandished an ‘RTFM’ in annoyance before !

yeah, this has been somewhat ‘confusing’ at times for me as well :expressionless:
adding a simple hint in the UI would greatly help i think. whether it’s a flashing LED or a symbol on the LCD, it would avoid surprises the day after :sob: :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Simple yet brilliant idea !

being from the early days of computers, ive grown up just reflexively saving things ALL THE TIME… so thats a good habit to get into with electronics

the YES + KIT combo is whats up… im always doing that

especially with analog sound design, because sometimes tiny tweaks can change the whole sound and its easy to lose what you were working on

i also do YES + PATTERN a lot too, just to be safe… like i said, its reflexive for me at this point

I constantly do this for both kits and songs. I don’t really ever save patterns or tracks since they’re automatically saved.

I don’t get it; i do YES + KIT and YES + PATTERN automatically after i’ve done something worthy, always.
And most of the time upon finishing i do a SAVE PROJECT as well, just to make sure. Yet last week i’ve lost a track i was super happy with. Also lost the kit and i clearly remember saving it and even the exact name i gave it…

Lost some other stuff a few weeks ago too, but didn’t give it much thought, but now i’m getting slightly paranoid about this.
(Do regular sysex backups too, but lost the stuff just inbetween those.)

Anybody else have stuff missing in action when they are sure they saved it? Could it be a little bug perhaps? (happened after upgrading to 1.30)

This is interesting to me. Last week i wanted to mess around with my patterns but wanted to save my kit. continied to save my kit but when i reloaded the project, it reverted to a previously saved kit. So I do actually think you have to save not only the kit but the project state itself as well. Realized this because i have two kits by the same name in two seperate projects but they are not the same kit. Kits are saved inside the state of the project, not on the plus drive?

Can anyone confirm this? Because i also clearly remember saving the kit before reloading the project.

Just as invisible acropolis stated, it needs to be come reflexive.

If I like a kit, I save it, immediately and name it, then if I change it and want to save the changes, I skip the naming part, and just save over it.
If I’m being stupid lazy I’ll save kits using the default names.

If I like a pattern I save the pattern, and so on.
Nice thing about saving patterns you like, is tweaking them on the fly only to “reload” the pattern.

I save the project, every time I shut down unless I dont like what was happening.

Sometimes it seems like I’ve lost a kit after saving one, I usually check to see if I somehow saved it, but it didn’t assign it to the pattern or some wackiness, but if I look the kit I saved will exist in the “kits” as long as I saved the project before shutting down.

Honestly not saving all the time is just careless and lazy.
It’s pretty simple stuff.
I do it wether I’m working in Photoshop, Maya, Ableton, or Elektrons.
Loosing work is just a part of all this, it happens, and lack of saving is user error.

Elektron could build in a safety net such as a prompt “You have unsaved kits?” or something, but then people would complain about having to do that most likely.

I have been known to leave my machines on overnight, just because my lazy ass couldn’t decide if I was committed to saving.

The way it works now, makes you do things deliberately, focused, on purpose.

What happens if you save the project? Does it automatically saves all the unsaved kits?
In my experience, it doesn´t seem like it does… but it would be a nice way to save everything at once.

I don’t believe it does from what I’ve read recently

no, it doesn’t… that’s part of the crux, there’s just situations coming up where saving is easily forgotten, but the machine doesn’t tell you in any way… and you only notice when it’s too late, aka when the kits are lost.

even if it happens occasionally, it can happen…

the yes+kit part is easy… but when in the middle of jamming, going into the menu & entering a name is a multi-step process which, when one doesn’t remember to perform it at the right moment (e.g. when your brain is immersed in the music, maybe a complex transition or whatever), leads to lost kits…

i mean it’s not that big of a deal, but some sort of safeguard to prevent lost-kit frustration would be cool imo.

1 Like

the way you want to think about it is by saving a named kit FIRST, before you start jamming or composing or whatever… then you can just save that kit over and over, and if you need an alternate, just put a number after it, like 1, 2, 3, etc.

at the end of the day, the machines are tools - you still need to come up with your own style of workflow and organization on your own, and even tho the boxes will dictate that to a certain degree, you still have to do the work yourself

really, its all about getting into a habit… something routine and reflexive so its not an issue, its just second nature

2 Likes