Elektron Musical Instruments

Hi everyone-
I'm in song mode on synced MD (1.04) and MnM(1.19c), and have been 
experiencing lots of not consistently reproducible weirdness. Please 
speak up if you have experienced anything similar.

1) MnM only- after using up arrow key to navigate to the beginning of a 
song (000), and pressing [ENTER/YES], then pressing [PLAY], MnM plays 
the selected pattern, BUT ignores mutes from the XTRA column, or plays 
the last pattern it was playing. Sometimes this stops after I hit stop 
and then hit play again. Sometimes I have to hit stop and then play 
MANY times before it seems to have gotten whatever it was playing out 
of memory and loaded the first pattern of the song with everything 
correct.

2) When Identical loops are at identical positions on both MD and MnM 
sometimes one will ignore the loop command.

3) sometimes MD mysteriously jumps to the end of a song and leaves MnM 
playing solo.

4) [ this is reproducible] When I set up an offset in song edit mode, 
and then switch back to song play mode the length of the part with the 
offset changes to the sum of the offset and the original pattern length 
instead of the difference.

Please Please let me know if you have any solutions. I'm worried my 
memory is messed up, and I have a gig in a week.

Thanks.
jon/ retconned
http://retconned.com

On Mon, Sep 27, 2004 at 11:29:16PM -0400, Jonathan Lukens wrote:
>    1) MnM only- after using up arrow key to navigate to the beginning of a
>    song (000), and pressing [ENTER/YES], then pressing [PLAY], MnM plays
>    the selected pattern, BUT ignores mutes from the XTRA column, or plays
>    the last pattern it was playing.

I've not experienced this. but you should try pressing stop
before you press play again. it's just an "all notes off" but
maybe it will help.  I'm in the habit of doing it since the
early OS's with big bugs. :-)


>    2) When Identical loops are at identical positions on both MD and MnM
>    sometimes one will ignore the loop command.

I've not seen this one either; since I usually use different lengths
for each machine (both are usually maxed at 32 and 64 steps) and like
the independence.  try messing with the control-out messages on the
MD if it's the master...


>    3) sometimes MD mysteriously jumps to the end of a song and leaves MnM
>    playing solo.

does it jump to the end or does it just count a loop wrong (and end
up at the end of the song)?  I've experienced that one.  but it seems
to only occur when I'm writing and I've played a song over and over
several times.


>    4) [ this is reproducible] When I set up an offset in song edit mode,
>    and then switch back to song play mode the length of the part with the
>    offset changes to the sum of the offset and the original pattern length
>    instead of the difference.

is this while the pattern's playing?  let me know, I'll try to recreate
it....

>    Please Please let me know if you have any solutions. I'm worried my
>    memory is messed up, and I have a gig in a week.

it wouldn't hurt to try a reset....unless of course you have
un-backed-up work. are the bugs new since the most recent OS's? if
so, you might try downgrading to the previous release. but if you
can reproduce these bugs, that would be ideal so that others
can test them.

--- In elektron-users@yahoogroups.com, Jonathan Lukens <jon@i...> 
wrote:
> Hi everyone-
> I'm in song mode on synced MD (1.04) and MnM(1.19c), and have been 
> experiencing lots of not consistently reproducible weirdness. 
Please 
> speak up if you have experienced anything similar.

Jon,

I have experienced all of the problems you listed.  Add two more:

1. With MD synced to MnM, starting the song with MnM skips the very 
first beat of the first MD pattern.

2. Sysex dumps of songs crash.  Daniel is aware of this one.  Please 
send elektron support (support@...) your list.

-gerald

>    From: Joe <jmelnyk@...>
> Subject: Re: help BIG song mode weirdness
>
> On Mon, Sep 27, 2004 at 11:29:16PM -0400, Jonathan Lukens wrote:
>>    1) MnM only- after using up arrow key to navigate to the beginning 
>> of a
>>    song (000), and pressing [ENTER/YES], then pressing [PLAY], MnM 
>> plays
>>    the selected pattern, BUT ignores mutes from the XTRA column, or 
>> plays
>>    the last pattern it was playing.
>
> I've not experienced this. but you should try pressing stop
> before you press play again. it's just an "all notes off" but
> maybe it will help.  I'm in the habit of doing it since the
> early OS's with big bugs. :-)

I do. But it only works intermittently. Sometimes hitting stop once 
seems to purge the last pattern from memory so that the cued pattern 
will play correctly and sometimes I have to hit stop as many as 6 or 7 
times.

>>    3) sometimes MD mysteriously jumps to the end of a song and leaves 
>> MnM
>>    playing solo.
>
> does it jump to the end or does it just count a loop wrong (and end
> up at the end of the song)?  I've experienced that one.  but it seems
> to only occur when I'm writing and I've played a song over and over
> several times.

It jumps to the end. And yes, it normally occurs after I have played 
through the song a few times. (thankfully it hasn't happened at a show)

>>   4) [ this is reproducible] When I set up an offset in song edit 
>> mode,
>>    and then switch back to song play mode the length of the part with 
>> the
>>    offset changes to the sum of the offset and the original pattern 
>> length
>>    instead of the difference.
>
> is this while the pattern's playing?  let me know, I'll try to recreate
> it....

On closer inspection it seems that the offset works correctly but 
displays incorrectly. To reproduce: enter song edit mode, select a 
pattern to play on step 000, offset it's length. Next enter song play 
mode, and then number displayed in the length column will be the sum 
off the number in the offset column and the remaining number of steps 
in the pattern, ie if I have a 16 step pattern and offset to start on 
4, the number 20 will be displayed; if I have a 32 step pattern and 
offfset to start on 15, the number 57 will be displayed.

>>    Please Please let me know if you have any solutions. I'm worried my
>>    memory is messed up, and I have a gig in a week.
>
> it wouldn't hurt to try a reset....unless of course you have
> un-backed-up work. are the bugs new since the most recent OS's? if
> so, you might try downgrading to the previous release. but if you
> can reproduce these bugs, that would be ideal so that others
> can test them.

I will work on making the others reproduceable before I reset. And post 
my findings here. Thanks for your input.

Have notified elektron as well.

Jon/retconned
http://retconned.com

On Wed, Sep 29, 2004 at 10:22:35AM -0400, Jonathan Lukens wrote:
>    I do. But it only works intermittently. Sometimes hitting stop once
>    seems to purge the last pattern from memory so that the cued pattern
>    will play correctly and sometimes I have to hit stop as many as 6 or 7
>    times.

hmmm.... definitely something wrong then. which sucks; intermittent
problems are difficult to find, much less solve.

>    It jumps to the end. And yes, it normally occurs after I have played
>    through the song a few times. (thankfully it hasn't happened at a show)

probably won't happen at a show unless you do the same song
several times.  but still, it needs to be fixed.  I think I've
talked to them about this before; they said the same thing as
above - they need to know how to recreate it to solve it.

>    On closer inspection it seems that the offset works correctly but
>    displays incorrectly. To reproduce: enter song edit mode, select a
>    pattern to play on step 000, offset it's length. Next enter song play
>    mode, and then number displayed in the length column will be the sum
>    off the number in the offset column and the remaining number of steps
>    in the pattern, ie if I have a 16 step pattern and offset to start on
>    4, the number 20 will be displayed; if I have a 32 step pattern and
>    offfset to start on 15, the number 57 will be displayed.

OK. I tried it. here's the problem: when your pattern length is less
than 64, the edit window doesn't change the length as you change
the offset.  so for example, when my pattern length is 64 and I set
the offset to be 16, the length is automatically set to 48 (and the
play window displays a stop position of 64, as it should).  BUT
when my pattern length is 40 and I set the offset to be 16, the
length stays set at 40 and the play window displays a stop position
of 56, which doesn't exist in the pattern.  so you need to account
for the length manually at present IF your pattern length is less
than 64.  the manual doesn't indicate anything regarding this, so
I would assume that it's a bug. at the heart of this is a greater
problem - song mode can be programmed to play sections of patterns
that aren't there!

>    I will work on making the others reproduceable before I reset. And post
>    my findings here. Thanks for your input.

definitely post here if you find a way to reproduce these problems
so that we can inspect them as well.