Potential Issue

[lemmyd]

Hello,
I've been the happy owner of a DSI Prophet Rev2 for about two months now and have been very happy with it.
Just lately I think I've ran into an issue with it.
The issue is that every time I turn the unit on it defaults to a specific program (Harpsicord) and not the last program used before the unit was switched off.
E.G. I'll play the unit on the Harpsicord program then change it to Solana Strings, then if I turn it off and then back on instead of being on the last program used (Solana Strings) it will load Harpsicord. No matter what program i use it goes back to Harpsicord.
I have noticed that if I choose a program and press the global button then this program will become the specific program that loads up when the unit is switched on.
Could anyone tell me if this is normal and if there is any way to revert the unit into loading the last program used when it is turned on?
Thanks

[jg666]

Hello,
I've been the happy owner of a DSI Prophet Rev2 for about two months now and have been very happy with it.
Just lately I think I've ran into an issue with it.
The issue is that every time I turn the unit on it defaults to a specific program (Harpsicord) and not the last program used before the unit was switched off.
E.G. I'll play the unit on the Harpsicord program then change it to Solana Strings, then if I turn it off and then back on instead of being on the last program used (Solana Strings) it will load Harpsicord. No matter what program i use it goes back to Harpsicord.
I have noticed that if I choose a program and press the global button then this program will become the specific program that loads up when the unit is switched on.
Could anyone tell me if this is normal and if there is any way to revert the unit into loading the last program used when it is turned on?
Thanks

This is the way it works by design so what you are seeing is perfectly normal behaviour

[Razmo]

You cannot make it remember the last program... but it saves the current program location when you go out of global mode as you have noticed yourself, so it's fairly easy: press the global button twice before turning the machine off... only way... really.

[lemmyd]

Thanks for the quick reply on that guys - really appreciate it.

[AlainHubert]

Many synths from other companies will power on with the last patch that was used before shut down. But not DSI synths like the REV2 and OB6. On those you have to press Global (3 times on the OB6) for it to make the current patch the one that will load up on power on the next time the synth is used.
I guess it's consistent with the "we don't want to follow other companies" philosophy at DSI.

[jg666]

I wonder if they could introduce a global setting so people can choose which behaviour they prefer? I myself am used to it not starting up on the last patch used but I've seen quite a few people posting on here who find that behaviour baffling and strange. Having an option to do this would solve it for everyone

[johnnyaardvark]

A +1 from me for this as an option.

thanks four this post btw it's explained something I thought was a little strange.

Steve

[Razmo]

I believe that they decided on the way it works now, because if it should automatically save the last used program or parameter every time a single parameter has been changed, then it would stress the flash RAM rather much... Flash cells have a finite amount of times it can be erased and rewritten, and even if it's in the hundreds of thousands, then it would certainly reach that amount pretty fast if you think about how many times you change something... even turning a single knob gives a huge flow of changes... also, if you set a timer to write the whole program every 1 second or more for example, then the writing might interfere with timings of other things like the sequencer running, the ARP etc... writing to flash takes time too.

Therefore i do not believe you'll see this feature... pressing Global twice seem like the best solution in this case really... on older synthesizers, RAM was backed up by a battery, which meant you could constantly save changes to that RAM without any impact on timing issues or flash cell longevity... these days there are no batteries in many synths anymore... everything is stored on flash, harddrives, SSD or whatever.

[AlainHubert]

I believe that they decided on the way it works now, because if it should automatically save the last used program or parameter every time a single parameter has been changed, then it would stress the flash RAM rather much... Flash cells have a finite amount of times it can be erased and rewritten, and even if it's in the hundreds of thousands, then it would certainly reach that amount pretty fast if you think about how many times you change something... even turning a single knob gives a huge flow of changes... also, if you set a timer to write the whole program every 1 second or more for example, then the writing might interfere with timings of other things like the sequencer running, the ARP etc... writing to flash takes time too.

Therefore i do not believe you'll see this feature... pressing Global twice seem like the best solution in this case really... on older synthesizers, RAM was backed up by a battery, which meant you could constantly save changes to that RAM without any impact on timing issues or flash cell longevity... these days there are no batteries in many synths anymore... everything is stored on flash, harddrives, SSD or whatever.

All that is needed for automatically recalling the last patch used before power off are two numbers : bank and patch. On power up, simply recall and load that patch from memory into the edit buffer.
No need to perform automated continuous saves on each parameter change.
All that is needed are 2 bytes of flash ram for that: one byte for the bank, one byte for the patch number. And they can write cycle them with other ones, to reduce wear on the flash ram cells. 

[Razmo]

I believe that they decided on the way it works now, because if it should automatically save the last used program or parameter every time a single parameter has been changed, then it would stress the flash RAM rather much... Flash cells have a finite amount of times it can be erased and rewritten, and even if it's in the hundreds of thousands, then it would certainly reach that amount pretty fast if you think about how many times you change something... even turning a single knob gives a huge flow of changes... also, if you set a timer to write the whole program every 1 second or more for example, then the writing might interfere with timings of other things like the sequencer running, the ARP etc... writing to flash takes time too.

Therefore i do not believe you'll see this feature... pressing Global twice seem like the best solution in this case really... on older synthesizers, RAM was backed up by a battery, which meant you could constantly save changes to that RAM without any impact on timing issues or flash cell longevity... these days there are no batteries in many synths anymore... everything is stored on flash, harddrives, SSD or whatever.

All that is needed for automatically recalling the last patch used before power off are two numbers : bank and patch. On power up, simply recall and load that patch from memory into the edit buffer.
No need to perform automated continuous saves on each parameter change.
All that is needed are 2 bytes of flash ram for that: one byte for the bank, one byte for the patch number. And they can write cycle them with other ones, to reduce wear on the flash ram cells.

If only the last STORED program was to be remembered, yes... But is that what people want? ... If you want it to remember the current program and any changes you make to it, which is the most useful, then what I wrote would be required... If it was so easy to do, then I do not understand why DSI chose to do it the way they do...

[Robot Heart]

Saves write cycles to flash for longer life out of the component.

[jg666]

Out of all my synths, only the Sub37 starts up on the last patch used so it's not a problem for me.