Back up sessions

This page copies the sessions stored on an FM-1 running Norilsk — each with its sixteen snapshots, its latched notes and its loops — to a file on this computer, and puts them back from that file. Use it before you install another firmware (another firmware may erase them): when you come back to Norilsk, restore the file here. It works in a desktop Chrome, Edge or Opera, over USB MIDI, and needs Norilsk build 24 or later on the FM-1. Nothing is uploaded anywhere: the file stays on this computer.

Not connected

Connect the FM-1 with a USB data cable, switch it on, then find it.

Restore

Open a backup file, then write it to the FM-1. Every session in the file replaces the one in the same slot on the FM-1. The other sessions on the FM-1 are kept.

Notes

  • Close any other program using MIDI (a DAW, M-VAVE's app), and allow MIDI access when the browser asks: the sessions travel as MIDI system-exclusive messages.
  • Only an FM-1 whose USB name is FM-1 Norilsk is asked. Tonitor and Bigorna answer the same protocol, but their sessions are not Norilsk's, and Norilsk's are never written to them.
  • Each session is copied whole and checked before it is written: one that does not arrive intact is refused, and the session already in that slot is kept. Norilsk writes only to blank flash or to its own retired sessions, never over another firmware's data.
  • The FM-1 keeps playing while this page works; writing to its flash silences the audio for a moment each time. While a restore runs, saving or loading a session on the FM-1 shows BUSY: leave it alone until it is done.
  • The session playing on the FM-1 is not changed by a restore: load it again (SHIFT + SAVE, then SAVE) to hear what was restored. Save it first if it has changes you want to keep.

The page (js/backup.js) and the part of the firmware that answers it (firmware/src/backup.c) are GPL-3.0, on GitHub. They follow Tonitor's backup page. From a terminal: tools/fm1_sessions.py save N and restore FILE.