I’ve had a Tracker Mini for a while, but recently got the Synth. I’ve run into some trouble trying to save my work tho and either not saved it or accidentally overwrote an existing scene…
Any tips on how to best go about creating new scenes without overriding especially? What is the process you use to save your work?
Tips Recap:
Scroll to the target Pad number (P01-P60) before saving to choose where it goes
For non P## pads it doesn’t seem to matter alphabetical will be used, so scroll anywhere after P60.
Use “shift” + “Save As” (text will change) to avoid overriding patches
For reference there are existing threads about it:
My experience so far:
I read most of the manual but didn’t find quite the answer I was looking for
Scenes and Patches/Presets don’t seem to follow the same workflow for saving
Scenes
When doing init it’s not 100% clear to me how to save it
Opening and saving seems to override the patch it was on (even if changing the name)
Bit confusing coming from the tracker I would have expected it to simply create a new one with whatever name
Scrolling down to an empty name
There’s a “shift” + “save” to “save as” mentioned in the manual but as far as I can tell the interface looks the same (holding shift doesn’t show “save as” on screen) so I’m not 100% if/how it works.
Patches/Presets for synths
Hitting save on anything but changing the name will result in a new preset (what I’d expect, I think it’s safe to save something that way)
Hitting init and editing without first saving can be dangerous
If opening the preset/engine menu again and scrolling I think it will “clear” the patch when previewing another sound back to init from my experiments → So it’s safer to save first without scrolling (not 100% if it behaves the same on a saved patch, it might go back to saved but loose unsaved changes?
It doesn’t feel intuitive to me but that’s subjective, which is why I’m looking for tips I might have the wrong assumptions about how it works and that can be solved easily with the right info (if I’m not the only one it might even be a useful manual addition)
(I just updated to the 2.0 beta, not sure how much that impacts the scene workflow)
If you are on a Scene that has changes made to it, and you INIT a scene, you should get a dialogue asking if you want to Save the current Scene. If you say Yes, you get the option to name it.
Now that an INIT scene loaded, go back to the Scene page, and if you HOLD Shift, The “Save” option should change to “Save As”. This way you can give a name to your INIT Scene you just created and should help with saving it when switching to a new Scene or INIT.
For Synth Presets, it’s pretty much the same thing. When you’re in the Engine/Preset list, if you hold down Shift, Save should change to “Save As”.
It is a valid point that the “Do you want to Save the Current…” Pop up like you do for the Scenes is absent for Synth Presets.
Save as seems to indeed preserve the previous scene, tho I need to get used with how it works in 2.0:
In P## slots it seems to take the slot selected before pressing “Save as” and move the previous scene to 0## slots
In 0## slots it seems the number doesn’t matter at all
Save is the one where override is possible
But it depends on init as well, I think in the P## slots doing an INIT and then as save will move the previous P## scene to 0## scenes and not override it
Probably I need to read about the P slots again.
Still not sure if I like the workflow… I’d almost rather have the default (non-shift) action do a non destructive save to new slot and the shift option do an override or perhaps as the other thread mentioned a confirmation before overriding . I’ll have to experiment a bit more and see if I get used to the flow.
Details
Take scene 1 (or any other one)
Change some param
Scene
INIT
Do you want to save the current scene
yes + name
Scene P1 has been overriden (with the name yes but it’s gone, or it moved below to non P scenes?)
So the save is for the given “slot”, changing the name renames it.
Then I’m on the init scene
Change a param
Scene
INIT again
Do you want to save?
Yes + name
Now I’ve saved an init scene in slot 1
I guess my assumption is that like on a keyboard synth I might init the patch but I get the option to choose where I want to save it later.
I think I was also thinking of it like a project on the tracker but maybe if I think of the scene like a saved preset/patch on another synthesizer it makes more sence there’s limited slot and I have to save somewhere rather than naming a file.
Now I’ll skip saving the init patch, other than taking the previous name as starting option I’m pretty sure I’ll get the same result (override scene 1 slot).
So now on init again
Scene
Shift + Save as
Name
Again saving to slot 1
Also
INIT
Scene
Scroll to an empty slot, i.e. 067.
Shift + Save as
Name
Save was saved under slot 5. (no P)
If it was a traditional synthesizer I’d expect it would have saved to slot 67 not moved it :). I named it “1ttt67”, so it looks like it got inserted Alphabetically in the scene list.
INIT
Scene
Scroll to P4 (note what name is there)
Shift + Save As
Name
Confirm
Whatever was in P4 was moved to 0… below and the new patch saved in P4
INIT
Scene
Scroll to 001.
Shift + Save as
Name
Confirm
Whatever was there was moved corresponding to the new alphabetical order. So Save as seems to work without overriding… but the order is alphabetical for the non P slots.
Next I’ll experiment with the patches based on your tips
Other question, is there a way to do a cursor in the name input to move around to edit the text or is that not a feature currently?
and either not saved it or accidentally overwrote an existing scene…
(if I’m not the only one it might even be a useful manual addition)
. I’ll have to experiment a bit more and see if I get used to the flow.