Updated Timefactor-still not getting patch names plus a bug?

[EdDrake]

Are patch names supposed to transfer over when sending them from FactorLib to the Time Factor or do you have to name them on the pedal itself? I can transfer patches over to my pedal but even though the patches have names in FactorLib there are only numbers on the Factor pedal. 

I've updated my Time Factor to the newest beta and have used the new Factorlib to download and upload patches so that's good but I'm not getting any patch names. I was hoping to be able name my patches from the computer and not have to do it from the pedal (ugh!).

In the System menu I changed the Bypass type to DSP plus EFX but the setting won't stick because when I go back into the System menu again it's back to to DSP every time. Is this a bug?

Thanks for any help!

Ed

[EdDrake]

OK replying to my own post after more experiments. FYI I am using a Mac running Snow Leopard and I'm using the latest beta 3 software and the latest version of Factor Lib.

After I was initially NOT able to get the DSP plus EFX setting to stick at all in the system menu it is working now, not sure what was going on but it appears to have corrected itself and the setting is sticking now.

I was finally able to get patch names to display on my Time Factor pedal but I had to reinitialize the pedal back to factory presets to get this to happen which means the patches are out of order now for the way I want the pedal set up.

Even though the patch names display on the pedal after I initialize it, when I send any patch to the pedal from Factor Lib the patch name goes away and there are a bunch of random numbers as the name and they make no sense as far as I can tell. The patch seems to be the correct patch but the name is random numbers. Once I reinitialized the pedal the patch names display but the patches are out of order so I want to move them around in Factor Lib and then send them back to the pedal but when I do this the names don't transfer back over to the pedal. 

I did reinstall the new beta software again and reinitialized and reset the pedal and the same thing still occurs, when I send any patch from Factor Lib to the pedal the patch naming on the pedal gets screwed up. I'm still wondering if you HAVE to name the patches on the pedal first and then copy everything back to Factor Lib for them to stick. I'll have to try that next but if this is the way it's supposed to be it's gong to be a total pain to name all of these patches on the pedal.

I hope this makes sense as I haven't had my coffee yet this morning.

Thanks for any help!

Ed

[EdDrake]

Ok I guess the third post is a charm, I finally got everything working on my TF pedal. I had to reinstall the new beta software, reinitialize and reset the pedal again to get it back to square one then I uploaded all of the reinitialized presets fresh from the pedal back into Factor Lib. Then I moved the patches around in Factor Lib to where I wanted them to be and copied them back to the pedal and all is well now.

The only thing I can figure is I was originally working from the default TF file in Factor Lib which is messed up or I may have inadvertently corrupted it and saved it somehow. Now that I have it working I'm not going to try and figure out exactly what happened and I'm not exactly sure what the numbers were instead of the patch names.

One thing I noticed while working in Factor Lib is it's very easy to hit that save icon across the top of the window and it immediately saves which ever window is currently active so if you have several windows open in Factor Lib you better be very careful which window is active when you save. I'm going to reinstall Factor Lib to make sure I have a fresh factory TF library. One other thing I wish the windows in Factor Lib would float above the main Factor Lib window because it's really tricky when working with several windows as they are all inside the space of the main window and it's easy to run out of room and constantly have to resize.

I do think there is a bug with the Bypass Type not sticking until after you power cycle the pedal down and back up again. The very last time I installed everything and reinitialized the pedal the Bypass type would not stick until after I turned the pedal off and back on again so that definitely seems like a bug to me.

Hopefully all of this might help someone else, thanks for listening!

Kudos to Eventide!!! I'm going back to playing and tweaking right now!

Ed

[krcassid]

I have same behavior with naming on TF.  This is definitely a bummer and a bug.  Most of my presets are custom so reinitializing is not an option.  As with you, each time I save to disk and rename, I get random numbers on TF instead of names.  If you name on TF (a huge pain!) and upload and save, you're OK.  If you do it in FactorLib and download, no names.

Another issue is that, when backing up presets, bank comes out of TF with 1st 10 presets identical, labeled "Preset 1:1".  After this, 100 presets as expected.  But, even when you delete these 1st 10, the same thing happens over & over.  They always come back when loading to FactorLib from TF.  Clearly, there are still some bugs here.  The good news is that the patches are working correctly.  It is just the names that are messed up.  I am attacking MF next.

[timothyhill]

Krcassid, what operating system are you using on your computer (Mac, Windows)? EdDrake makes reference to using Snow Leopard on a Mac, but I haven't had any related problems on my Win7 PC. Just wondering if this can be traced to a difference in computer OS…

I've been able to name presets using my computer and send them to any of the Factors (I've tested this on all 4) and they all work as expected. The name appears after I switch away from that preset and back to it so that the pedal reloads the preset from its stored state. I think this is because after a preset is loaded from storage, the pedal keeps a separate copy in temporary memory and uses this until the preset is saved. This allows you to modify a preset, turn the pedal off then on again, and not lose your changes until you load another preset. This is just like a word processing computer program that saves your changes in a temporary file, thereby allowing you to recover at least some if not all of your work in the event of a power failure.

Also, it's probably a good idea to always restart the Factors after installing any update. Even though the Update Utility does this for you, it's never a bad idea to reboot before beginning any testing or work. Again, the same holds true after updating a computer (PC or Mac).

Also, I have had some difficulty getting FactorLib to comminucate with the pedal if I have MIDI CLK OUT enabled. That holds true for the Update Utility as well. If I disable MIDI CLK OUT, everything works as expected. While this is rather an inconvenience, FactorLib is still a beta version.

Please keep us posted on your results, ok? Every little bit helps…

[nickrose]

EdDrake:

I do think there is a bug with the Bypass Type not sticking until after you power cycle the pedal down and back up again. The very last time I installed everything and reinitialized the pedal the Bypass type would not stick until after I turned the pedal off and back on again so that definitely seems like a bug to me.

Can you explain more clearly what you mean (what you do, what you see, etc). Seems fine to me, so you are probably approaching it differently.

[krcassid]

Hi Tim:  I'm on Win 7 64.  I took all the precautions you list above and still cannot get names to save correctly from PC to TF.  I just ended up writing them 1 x 1 on TF.  I'm working on MF now. 

[timothyhill]

Ah… I was using 32-bit Win7. I have a 64-bit Win7 box, though, so I'll try and see what results I get there, as time tonight allows.

If you can, you might try using a different computer (with a different OS). That way, we may be able to narrow the possible causes down. It could be a problem with the 64-bit drivers or with the USB chipset. If you can provide any additional details of your computer (make, model, service pack, chipset, etc.), that may help, too.

[EdDrake]

nickrose:

Can you explain more clearly what you mean (what you do, what you see, etc). Seems fine to me, so you are probably approaching it differently.

When I reinstalled the new beta, reinitialized and reset the pedal and then went to set up my system parameters I was able to change them all to my settings except when I changed the bypass type to DSP plus EFX and then left it to set up other parameters when I went back and looked it was on DSP again so then I tried numerous times to change it and it wouldn't stay at DSP plus EFX it would always revert back to DSP. After restarting the TimeFactor one more time the DSP plus EFX setting would stay in place after I changed it.

Does that make sense? I guess the moral of the story is if your system settings aren't staying in place after you have reinitialized or reset your factor pedal then restart it one more time and chances are the settings will stick after that.

Like I said It is working now so I'm not going to try and duplicate the issue by going all the way back to square one I was just relaying my experience in case someone else ran into the same thing.

Ed

Thanks!

[nickrose]

timothyhill:

Also, I have had some difficulty getting FactorLib to comminucate with the pedal if I have MIDI CLK OUT enabled. That holds true for the Update Utility as well. If I disable MIDI CLK OUT, everything works as expected. While this is rather an inconvenience, FactorLib is still a beta version.

This probably only applies to Windows. We believe it to be a fault in the Microsoft MIDI driver or the Windows MIDI subsystem (meaning, most likely beyond our control).

[timothyhill]

Thanks, Nick! I guessed as much and am not at all surprised.

[Billy Foppiano]

Yup. I am working with all the new stuff, Mac 10.6.4, starting with the TF, and THEN I'll move to the MF.

Thankfully, in the transaltion to the new software, my VERY custom DDL settings didn't get unstable…Last time, I had to revert back to Sys 2.5 because settings would oscillate out to space—-NOT in a good way.

I never named em, but some names come across (Bridge of Sighs), but IF I try and mname something in the Editor (Factor LIB 1.8), I get a pile of confusing numbers. Midi Clk is off.

It'd be nice to name em in the Editor. I'm eternally hopeful…..

I have 20 customs patches, so I won't be initialising to Factory Pres. Any ideas, in the Mac world????

[EdDrake]

Billy Foppiano:

I have 20 customs patches, so I won't be initialising to Factory Pres. Any ideas, in the Mac world????

Billy,

If you only have 20 custom patches you might just want to bite the bullet and write down the settings for those patches then reinitialize the pedal and go from there. Once you get everything reset the Factor Lib seems to work just fine with naming, etc. I think the issue is trying to use saved patches from older software versions, this seems to mess up the patch naming and you get the weird numbers. I only had a few custom patches and they were all just slightly tweaked versions of some of the presets anyway so that's why I went ahead and reset the pedal.

I think some parameters  were slightly changed in the newest betas which would likely require you to tweak them to get them to sound the same as they did before.

Just a suggestion, hope it helps.

Ed

[Billy Foppiano]

Thanks for the idea….So when I backed up my settings in Factor, I got 10 banks of Bogus Patch settings, which would NOT load ( Bad Load came back fro the TF…) Somebody mentioned this, and I remembered it, so I deleted them.

Since I had a confusing bunch of numbers, if I backed up my patches from Factor patch by patch, the irritating numbers left.

I will try what you said, and since you can exchange patches from documents, I 'll see if this woks….If not , I'll load my 20 from the saved thang. Letcha know if it works…

[Billy Foppiano]

Disaster, and wasted time.

I backed up my System settings in a Sysex utility, I didn't want to have to go back and re-set my Digi 3 botton pedal (it increments bank, decrements, and tap-tempo)

I reinitialised the pedal. The TF would'nt read the Sysex dump, so I sent an old one from System 2,5, and it bought it.

Had the Initial banks, reloaded mine….and disaster….My patches with the funky numbers..

SO I reloaded each individual patch from Factor, and it lost the confusing numbers

I have a gig tonite, so I'm NOT gonna fudge with it. Later.But naming is overrated-first thing I wanta see is what kinda DDL, so I'mnot gonna gripe.

[Billy Foppiano]

One more thing….

Shuttlin groups does't work…I have to load patches individually from each location, or I end up with random alphabet soup.

Off to the gig……..

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