Saving projects confusion

I’ve definitely lost work until I realised kit saving, unlike pattern saving, is not automatic. I still lose (by failing to save) kits occasionally if I’m tweaking lots of them in a single session.

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A good practice to never loose work again is to select “load kit” every time you start a new pattern, and choose an empty spot in the kit list. This way the kit is automatically named and connected to that pattern.
You could also choose save kit, but then you are bugged with naming the kit, something that distracts from my flow. I really don’t care how kits are named, as long as they are connected to my pattern. This way you only need to save your project once you switch to another project.

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It is a very bizarre design choice. Within the data structure the kits and patterns are both part of the project. I would kind of understand if the kits were shared across projects (but that would be too strange of a choice too…).
Currently, the design solution is kind of like - imagine a word document which you save. When you hit save however, it saves only the content and not the formatting. Every formatting change you’d need to save with a separate command.

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It is a very bizarre design choice. Within the data structure the kits and patterns are both part of the project. I would kind of understand if the kits were shared across projects (but that would be too strange of a choice too…).
Currently, the design solution is kind of like - imagine a word document which you save. When you hit save however, it saves only the content and not the formatting. Every formatting change you’d need to save with a separate command. [/quote]
Very good analogy! And now imagine that you change and save a particular format for one of your documents, only to go back and find that many other of your documents using that format are now royally messed up!

I am also a huge proponent of each pattern has its own kit, and I work that way. Even if I make a minor tweak to a kit for a new pattern, it always gets cloned and renamed. Something that Korg nailed ages ago with their Electribes…each patern has its own kit…period.

Is this a design choice by Elektron? Or simply an oversight… As most Elektron design choices seem pretty logical! I wonder what the best way to get through to the right people might be? Perhaps I should email support. To clarify why kit saving is not locked into project saving…

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.

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Haha, even after having this thread in my mind, this morning I boot up the A4 and the patch is nothing like how I remember it. I guess I forgot to save the kit again.

It’s really baffling that saving the project does not save the kits. Makes operating this machine a bit paranoia-inducing, because when powering down it’s not enough to save the kits you were just working on, you need to remember to go back to every pattern you touched during the session and save those kits too.

Even just a function in the kit menu called “save all kits” would make things much, much easier.

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It’s a long shot, but I messaged support. Asking if this (ill)logic has the potential to be improved upon…

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I have found the automatic kit reload helpful, since it forces you to press Yes+Kit every time you want to save changes. It’s a bit weird design choice, but on the other hand in a live performance you can tweak the knobs as much as you like, without fear of overwriting your work.

I’ll take another analogy.

Say you’re playing a video game.
You’re just before entering the room where the Boss awaits you.
You save.
After an epic fight, you finally get rid of him and loot every single stuff he left.
What do you do : you save !!

I know you want it to work another way, but if you think of it this way, it makes more sense I guess.
Key thing for this design choice is the fact that you can reload any time, like really tweak your sound to some crazy place and come back safely.

I have found the automatic kit reload helpful, since it forces you to press Yes+Kit every time you want to save changes. It’s a bit weird design choice, but on the other hand in a live performance you can tweak the knobs as much as you like, without fear of overwriting your work.[/quote]
Of course, that’s why autosave wouldn’t work here. But still, a ‘save all kits’ function wouldn’t affect the kit reloading feature and would make it muke easier to save with confidence knowing that every kit will be intact, even if you only touched it at the start of a long session and then forgot about it.

A save all kit sounds quite dangerous and I can see it causing similar issues where previous kits have been overwritten after forgetting a previous kit had been changed.

It also seams quite a redundant feature anyway as you only really work with one kit at once. I just use the quick shortcuts to save and reload kits as I develop them. Once I got the flow, everything became second nature.

I do really like the easy reload functions, it makes noodling lots of fun .

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I can’t imagine many situations where you’d want to turn off the machine and have it not revert to its last state when it was on, but if that were the case then the ‘save all kits’ option would still be, well, optional… Everything would still be the same except one handy new function for those of us too scatterbrained to remember to save kits individually as we’re working on them.

Anyway, this is clearly user error on my part and I feel like a bit of a plum begging for the machine to be dumbed down for me. Will definitely be more rigorous about saving kits from now on.

I don’t see it as user error really, its just not a very obvious system for many people, myself included. I have only had the machine a couple of weeks and it didn’t take me long to start losing kits. I then spent a good portion of the day going through the reasons for losing and ways to avoid it.

Since then, I have only been concerned with managing kits as everything else takes care of itself. So, for me it was just a shift in focus more than anything.

Now I am more dexterous at annoying the neighbours with this delightful black box. :slight_smile:

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I can’t imagine many situations where you’d want to turn off the machine and have it not revert to its last state when it was on, but if that were the case then the ‘save all kits’ option would still be, well, optional… Everything would still be the same except one handy new function for those of us too scatterbrained to remember to save kits individually as we’re working on them.

Anyway, this is clearly user error on my part and I feel like a bit of a plum begging for the machine to be dumbed down for me. Will definitely be more rigorous about saving kits from now on.
[/quote]
The thing is, you only really need to save the Kit (Yes + Kit) as long as you don’t swap to another project.
So you can more or less concentrate on this feature only.
And when you switch to another project, saving is asked so you can’t really forget it.

Saving a project only saves the project - not the Song -not the Kits - not the Patterns.
I like it this way.

  • ofcoarse patterns are auto-saved when switching patterns.But you still have to save Kits and Song yourselve.

what I would like to see is a function ( will never happen I guess ) that could erase all patterns not used in a song.
*
A save-all function could be usefull but dangerous asswell. Ass long as this would be a second option > no problem - but I like to have the choise :slight_smile:

Good evening elektronauts and thanks a lot for all your discussions. very interesting and often funny.

Oh this topic with kit save drives me literally crazy. and it somehow limits my lust to just screw around a bit for fun on my a4.

With projects i don’t care, although it would be nice if saving and switching projects would be a bit easier.

but as i asked some months ago, I still don’t know how it is best to change patterns live. i mess around with a pattern and kit i like and want to go to another pattern, then i have to push pattern reload, because there is a nice kit auto reload when change function BUT not a pattern auto reload.

or simpler a let myself or friends mess around with every knob, turn off and its like before mode.

I still don’t know how you guys do live, with a lot of copies, and some of them you don’t touch or you save a project on computer?

Its a bit too much thinking and preparing for me, sadly because i really love the a bit soft sound for robert hoodesque stuff and the sequencer, more than for example my dominion 1 sound, this and the buggy sequencer etc drives me crazy and makes me want to sell the dom1, but at least i can mess around without worries.

thanks for the forum and sound enthusiasts. Good night

Read the manual and learn, and that’s no allways fun. It’s a very simple system ones u get it - but not without effort. If you still don’t know how to change patters live - than what do you know about this machine?
I too have a Dom 1 and ofcoarse you can just twist knobs and save - nothing hard about that - enjoy :joy: another thing is to master it so you know how to get where - and surprize , that to will ask study and effort for the DOM 1 As with all things in life - you want to be good at it - prepare yousrselve to work hard.
To automate stuff is fun for those who don’t want to go deep or work hard , but when you go deep and start to grasp the system it’s pretty genious - I know some won’t agree with me .
I have no computer and manage easely, but instead of making songs right away I first learned the machine and stopped myself from going to fast…and lost alot of work… that’s sometimes painfull or boring but pays off at the end. And I’ve read and still do, every post up here.
I repeat - it’s a simple system that asks for some discipline - it’s been explained a thousend times on this forum, the work you have to do yourselves - understanding it dousn’t come by some kind of magic.
I don’t mean to offend you or anyone else , but I’m tired of explaining things over and over again while they are explained so many times allready - here - and in the manual. One thing is to really don’t understand something , another thing is to be lazy and expecting no suffering or loss
while
learning - only fun… maybe sometimes the greatest joy comes after effort that’ isn’t so funny :wink:
but to answer your qeastion partly > Whatever you tweek > SAVE IT AND MAKE A COPY AND WORK ON THE COPY - YOU LIKE IT - SAVE AGAIN and go on like that >>> only patterns are auto-saved WHEN SWITCHING PATTERNS !!!
So you have to save the kits and the song and sometimes the patterns - that’s 3 things to remember

  • that dousn’t seem hard do in my opinion :wink:
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thanks a lot vos for this and all your other posts here.

but to answer your qeastion partly > Whatever you tweek > SAVE IT AND MAKE A COPY AND WORK ON THE COPY - YOU LIKE IT - SAVE AGAIN and go on like that >>> only patterns are auto-saved WHEN SWITCHING PATTERNS !!!

reading this forum and learning is fun.
Just thats exactly what i mean, if i didn’t do copy of something i liked or while live it gets super complicated with copy reload save.
If i did a copy (of pattern/kit or maybe better but more confusing project) and not live its nice n easy with a paper sheet.

And its not possible to let others mess around or myself put or remove trigs
AND turn knobs AND switch patterns without worries if or where i made copies.

If i wouldn’t like a4s sound , sequencer and this forum so much i would care less.
thanks good night

Well, I asked support for the saving of kits within projects… This was the response:

Elektron Support | March 21, 2016 11:59:08 AM
Hi, Well, it’s true - but the issue is not so much with how Projects are saved. I think the issue here is the fact that Kits are kept in the volatile memory - but limited to one unsaved and one active Kit. It’s not so clear to the user that they should always save their Kits. You always need to save your Kits, and this is not an issue if you keep that practice. The Patterns however will save automatically as soon as any data in them is altered. Regards, Simon

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