New pattern save logic - why?

Elektron Gear Digitakt
#1

TLDR: is the new temporary pattern save logic “better”? For who?

I’m trying to figure out why Elektron changed this in OS 1.03?

Was it based on user feeeback? For the first time in a long time I felt we were given a solid, easy to understand save method that was also super quick and easy to access. It seems like Elektron have taken a step back from their oft repeated aim of making the Digitakt more accessible and beginner friendly.
Now we’re back to having to remember to menu dive and “save pattern to project”.
Temp pattern saves from the quick save now give you a non destructive “snapshot” meaning that getting back to original pattern from quick reload is not possible - this seems like a trade off but I’m not sure who it’s meant to benefit.

Also quick “save project” now seems misleading/redundant because you need to have saved pattern via menu for this to really have saved your project in entirety…

Feels convoluted and not seeing massive benefits - the destructive quick save was perhaps deemed too dangerous?

Thoughts opinions please …

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#2

Wait a sec. In the new OS. Save project doesn’t actually Save the Project??? That’s terrible. Why would they implement this change?

#3

It does but my understanding is that you will have to “save pattern to project” first, from the menu, not the quick save.

Edit: I’m still on 1.02 and reluctant to upgrade so can’t test myself.

Anyone on 1.03 care to shed light on this? Cheers!

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#4

I’m on 1.03 but didn’t really find a clue for this somehow ‘complicated’ step.

As far as I understand it should open another creative moment when temporarily storing a project (with its mangled patterns) in an ‘in-between-step’. Hm…

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#5

Yeah I understand it same as you @TheDiePie but it seems little gain for the loss of the previous simple quick save.

#6

100% agree!

For sure I will forget most of the times which one is ‘really’ stored and which not.

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#7

I think I’ll prefer the new system. it’s been too easy to overwrite patterns for me. It also gives another saved-state later to use in performance, which is cool.

of course it’s possible that I’ll keep forgetting to ‘save project’ now and will end up disliking the change, but for now I think it’s a good idea.

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#8

You get another save state to return to when tweaking and trying out stuff that doesn’t fuck up your saved project.

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#9

The dual layer approach has saved me a couple of times already. Maybe it’s because I was paranoid about crashes at the start, but whenever I do something to the pattern I like, I save the pattern and every so often save the project. Doing control all edits and hitting func+yes instead of func+no have fucked things up but the project save has allowed me to reset to an earlier stored version.

#10

wait, the useful ‘Reload Ptn’ function still works, no??

#11

While i see the win of the new one i personally would like to work with the old one.

should be a useroption IMO. probably per project

2 Likes
#12

Its in there to protect you from accidentally writing over your song with a bunch of changes you made… pretty dang easy to accidentally hit function yes a second time instead of function no when playing around and saves you work of manually undoing all the stuff you just accidentally applied… Function save project should still save the pattern to my knowledge its more of a save all I think. Now I am second guessing, either way 1.03 has me going into the menu to save ( only a few extra clicks ) because of the unstable shortcut for save proj currently.

#13

I wonder if there’ll ever be an elektron machine where hitting ‘save project’ actually saves the project…

5 Likes
#14

I’m still on 1.02 and never had an issue with [FUNC] + [cogwheel] to save. Also when saving projects, it saves everything you’re working on pertaining to that project.

Perhaps the problem roots from naming patterns and projects. If you left it as “Untitled”, I can imagine how many Untitled patterns it has to sift through until it finds the one you want. Not saying you don’t name stuff, just my 2 cents.

#15

My understanding of the change was that the shortcut for pattern save wouldn’t be written into the project save until the project was saved, either with the shortcut (FUNC + :wheel_of_dharma:) or by going into the project menu.

Am I wrong? Otherwise, what is the point of having a save project shortcut?

2 Likes
#16

I like it. It lets you save everything in one pop and use function save ptn for temporary pattern saves to do wild stuff like Ctrl AL on the fly and also not have it be such a primary function like saving a pattern for the project itself with that command vs using it for something just in the moment but not affecting the overall hierarchy and save of your session etc.

#17

What I would have preferred is a way to save the current pattern into another pattern slot, w/o switching to that slot. That way I can create as many “checkpoints” as I like while playing, and organize them as I wish. Add to that a way to swap to another pattern “now”, and you’d have a far more flexible save/reload for messing around.

I hardly need 128 patterns in a project (esp. as they must share the same 128 samples). But, 8 groups of up to 16 related patterns (the banks) is just about right. Then, rather than juggle the concepts of temporary save, in memory version, in project version, and in project in +Drive version (!) - I could just manage patterns.

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#18

Banks of project and/or pattern Snapshots would be good. Super simple to save/activate and would take away any confusion. ‘save project’ literally saves everything. ‘save pattern’ saves pattern. For everything else use save/load snapshot (obvs being able to do this without stopping sequencer)…

OT has Parts + Scenes for this kind of thing, gives almost endless variation options within one pattern and the ability to revert to any of those multiple states you’ve stored. Hopefully this is the kind of area they’ll flesh out on DT. I don’t really see it as being one of the things they need to hold back with on DT to avoid OT sales loss (slices + timestrech + scene fader + stereo + Rec buffers + mem card is plenty to separate the two and keep the prices justified)…

#19

I don’t get it. Can someone just explain it to me, from the beginning?

Context:
Let’s say I got a nice groove going. Split up over three patterns. I save the project from the cogwheel menu.

Turn off the Digitakt. Do something else for a few days. Turn it on again. Start a new project. Work with that. Save it.

And then, I want to load my old project again, and return to that, and just elaborate on those three patterns I had.

Doesn’t it load all the stuff that went with it? Sounds, patterns, samples, whatnot?

I’m sorry for asking stuff that I’m sure have been answered all over the forum, but I haven’t read a single answer that helps me understand. Please excuse my daftness and just throw a bone here. Thanks.

2 Likes
#20

I didn’t upgrade to 1.03 yet @andreasroman but my understanding is that for your scenario to pan out positively you’d need to manually save each “pattern to project” for that first project to be in the state you expect.

Edit: unless “save project” does in fact also save all the patterns current state. The manual is unclear on this. We are told that Projects “contain patterns” and various “state”. The Settings Menu section of the manual makes no definitive statement about how patterns are treated during a project save.