The only "safe" pattern is the one saved with the project?

Elektronauts - help me check my understanding: It seems to me that there is no way to recall a pattern once its been edited unless you a) never leave the pattern, in which case you can use “reload + pattern”, or b) stop the sequencer and reload the project. Put another way, while in a session or show where you can’t stop the sequencer, you can very easily get into a situation where you can never get back to a pattern as it existed when you first loaded the project. I’ve come to this conclusion because the second you leave the edited pattern then return to it, the reload pattern function only reloads the pattern as you left it, not as you saved it. The only way I’ve found to have a “safe” pattern to return to, is to make a copy and only edit the copy, never touching the original.

Do I understand this correctly? Is there truly no foolproof way of returning to a given pattern state unless reloading a project containing the given pattern state, or by remembering to only edit copies of the pattern?

3 Likes

greetings from a big analog 4 and Elektron fan that can not decide to buy a4 2 or othet elektron gear because of that.
The machines are SO inviting to play around and go back to saved state. But as im always worried to accidently change pattern or similar and loose the saved, i dont feel invited to buy another product with this great sequencer. Unfortunately
Im sorry to always say the same, didnt visit some time. Thanks to everyone

To be correct on a4 there is the possibility to
Copy pattern, reload pattern, paste to othet place, save kit with other mame, save, save Pat
Is it foolproof? No
Is it funproof ? No
Liveproof? No

Sorry i stumbled over this post after long absence ( mostly because of above)
Im just sad because everything else is great on a4 and this forum.
Sad also because above and absence i got massive burn in on screen,
Also i wouldnt care much about messed screen if the machine
Would let me play around ( percussion, pads) without worries

I have just verified this behaviour also on the A4MKII.

If you change to another pattern and back to the modified one, neither does [YES] + [PTN] reload it nor can you reload it with the pattern menu. Only reloading the complete project brings the saved state back.

This is definitely a bug. Please report it. I will do the same for the A4MKII.

1 Like

Its not a bug, (i think, no expert and only have a4)
But i have a massive bug in my brain because of that, because it seemed no one else cares much about that ( i asked several times, sorry great forum)
Also a bug in my head because im too lazy to make whole tracks on compu and a4 2
Would be perfect to jam and have fun without worrying if i could turm on, play save or save nothing, turn off)
I was absent and im not shure about other products but think digitakt is similar)
Have a nice day everyone

From my experience the ARmk1 has an autosaved restore point from the last time you left that pattern so when you switch to it you can add/remove trigs and then use the pattern reload feature.

The “pattern save” feature seems only to work while your in the pattern. If you switch to a pattern, make changes and then save pattern, it creates a new restore point different from the autosaved initial restore point mentioned above…

In any case, when you leave the pattern it is autosaved again, overwriting any use of the save pattern feature…
The moral I guess is make sure you like the pattern before you leave it, or reload before you leave.

I keep meaning to write Elektron and ask if this is intended, I though it would create a permanent restore point, but alas, it does what it does…

Are you kidding me? Of course it is a bug!

What should pattern reload do in your opinion? IN MY OPINION It should reload the state of a pattern from the saved state on the +drive.

When you reload the complete project the pattern gets restored to it’s stored state.
When you change a pattern and perform a reload it gets also restored.
But when you change a pattern, switch to another and switch back again, you cannot restore it from the +drive (only reload complete project restores it again).

1 Like

I dont have ar, so no expert sorry.
And mostly because of that autosave thing didnt use a4 much lately.
I asked several times how to deal with it.
On a4 you can toggle autoreload kit when change pattern, but not autoreload pattern :frowning:
And thats where the plocks and fun is…
Im just writing in bed after long absence
But it just gives me a bug in my head because otherwise i love elektron sequencer so much

Sorry, Mike, but this autosaved restore point, is bullshit. If it is meant to be autosaved, then why can I reload the project and get my original pattern back? It’s neither fish nor flesh and isn’t transparent to the user.

From a user perspective what should happen when you execute “reload”? You want your original pattern back, isn’t it?

There is a single saved state (that the user intentionally saved) and than there are temporary states and there should always be a way to switch back to the saved one. It shouldn’t matter if you switch around to different patterns.

If it really should work this way, then they should at least document it correctly and add another feature (restore from +drive) to the pattern menu. Well, ticket filed. Let’s see what happens.

1 Like

What would happen is that i would be a happy future elektron customer
( even happier if they would do an update on a4)
if they would add a turn on machine, dont save anything until you say yes i want to save this on this spot- function.
But sadly for me it seems not

I’m just reporting my factual findings on the situation for reference…
I’ll let everyone else analyze and form opinions on it… :smiley_cat:

1 Like

Me, too :slight_smile:

Since I’m a software developer myself I understand the need for temporary/auto save states, but these states shouldn’t interfere with what a user wants to do.

And the user doesn’t expect that nothing happens when he executes a “reload pattern” (knowing that there is an original state on the +drive, which a reload project will rescue).

1 Like

As our OT expert here, how does the OT handle a “reload pattern”? Does it fetch the original saved one or the autosave (aka “does nothing after pattern switching”)?

As far as I now the OT does not have a pattern reload… You can copy it when you land, store a copy somewhere else, or you can save the entire bank of 16 patterns and reload the whole thing, and that bank save will always load as you save it…

Here’s from ARmk1 manual:

Note that it says: “in addition to the general, automatic, saving of patterns which occurs when patterns are changed”.

I think the thing is there is only one save buffer and it gets overwritten when you change pattern…

I’m all for a permanent pattern save by the way, plan on writing Elektron about it…

1 Like

Ohhh. Now I get it.

The “save/reload pattern” functionality has nothing to do with how a pattern is stored in a project. It’s just for temporary usage (like the clipboard on a computer) when editing an active pattern and it looses its functionality when you switch to another pattern.

Well, that’s kind of a bummer :frowning: … never expect that save/reload perform a real save/reload …

Remark for myself: to save a single pattern to disk => save project

Conclusion: there doesn’t exist a real reload single pattern from disk functionality on AR/A4 yet.

4 Likes

Yep. You get it. So in answer to my original post, once you start editing, there is no way to get back to the original pattern unless you reload the project, or never leave the pattern… right? Ouch.

By the way, Elektron told me straight up that the save pattern/reload pattern functionality is operating as intended, no bugs. I’m inclined to agree with you though, tnussb- I find it super counter-intuitive.

Yeah, as it is now it’s just a temporary undo functionality for the active pattern. Switching to another pattern overwrites this so called “save”.

Making copies for modifications, as you already suggested, is the only way to keep the original in memory (until you can execute load project again).

Well, this is not the end of the world, but it is quite a lame workflow (not really flowing), especially live.

2 Likes

The whole file management has a confused/confusing MS-DOS like UI, rather reminding of last century’s 80s, than of ANY contemporary interface structures you meet nowadays. It looks like a funny, self-contradicting, garage freak style concept from decades ago. As a result

  • on one hand it has a lot of useful functionality making sense, and you can achieve a lot of what you want to achieve: that’s what I really like a lot about the haptic surface and the rytm functionality
  • on the other hand, the way you get there is often weird, up to complete freak-style, like in wrong named functionality discussed here (where “save” in fact has nothing to do with the commonly used sense of that word), and nowhere near a modern and fluid UI experience.

I always imagine, how fast and transparent the workflow on my AR Mk2 could be, with at least the same basic drum machine functionality, but with a fast, intuitive colour touch screen surface well connected to button use, and an SD card slot for data backup and management. Add well done midi import and export, and this would be “THE” drum machine.

But they seem to be light years away from that. No wonder something like Overbridge turns out to be completely out of fast reach for this kind of managing and programming team. They have great ideas about drum programming, but obviously not so much about modern UIs connecting well to nowadays users.

1 Like

To be honest - I never really understood Elektron’s thinking around this stuff.

Always nervous of losing my work as a result.

Even a confirmation screen, before saving actually happens would potentially help.

2 Likes