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Projects and storage

A project is one song: the four tracks' engines and sounds, every pattern, the arrangement, the mix, track and master effects, BPM and swing, the keyboard and every track's chord and arpeggiator. Projects live on the SD card; they are saved, loaded and created on the PROJECT and FILES pages of 0 SETUP. Your current work is also kept by itself inside the device (see Your work is kept).

Kept in the projectNot in the project
Engines, sounds, samples (by file name), patterns, song, mix (levels, mute, solo, SEQ), track and master effects, BPM, swing, keyboard (KEYS), chords and arpeggiatorsSELECT (an app preference), device settings (volume, key lights, screen), LOOP / SONG, REC

Save, save as, new, open​

01FN+S

FN+S on any screen (or SAVE in the FN menu): saved at once, SAVED and the name show at the bottom. A project without a name gets the first free one: SONG 01, SONG 02…

02HOLDESC+9G1

0 SETUP PROJECT: SAVE, LOAD, NEW; SAVE AS (type your own name) is in the FN menu of this page.

03CTRL

FILES: the projects on the card; ↑← / ↓SUB choose, ↵OK loads.

The screen and the key lights at that moment
1234
  1. 1SAVE: save now
  2. 2LOAD: open the FILES list
  3. 3NEW: start a new project
  4. 4Name · UNSAVED: changes not saved yet
The PROJECT page of SETUP.
  • With unsaved changes the PROJECT page says UNSAVED next to the name, and SAVE in the FN menu reads UNSAVED; creating or opening another project asks first (↵OK = yes, ESC = no).
  • The FN menu on PROJECT and FILES has NEW, LOAD and SAVE AS. More in PROJECT and FILES.
  • A NEW project has the default four tracks T1 DRUMS T2 JUNO T3 DX7 T4 SAMPLER and the default play settings (C major, no chords, arpeggiators off).
  • Saving can fail with a message at the bottom: SD CARD ERROR (no card or it cannot be written), SAVE SAMPLE FIRST (a sample recording is not saved yet), NO MEMORY. Loading: INVALID PROJECT, SAMPLE MISSING (a sample the project names is not in Shared/Samples).
  • Projects are plain text files, format 7 (.ccproj); formats 1–6 also load (before 6 they carry no keyboard, chords or arpeggiators, so the current ones stay). Samples are named by file name, so renaming or deleting a sample on the card affects every project that uses it.
  • Writing is atomic: a temporary file is written first and then replaces the old one, so a power cut while saving never leaves a broken project.

Your work is kept​

You can switch the Cardenza off or pull the power at any moment: the working state is saved by itself in the device's internal memory, card or no card, and comes back as it was at the next start.

  • It holds everything a project holds, plus the project's name and whether it was UNSAVED (loading another project still asks first). It opens on T1.
  • It is written when you pause: 1.5 s after the last key, with no key held, the transport stopped and nothing recording; while something keeps playing, after 60 s at the latest. Switching to another app writes it at once.
  • It is not a project: only SAVE writes a named project to the card. Save what you want to keep, and before you load or create another project.
  • If it cannot be written, the screen says AUTOSAVE FAILED: FN+S TO CARD. A very long piece (over about 12 KB) is kept without the patterns that are not playing, and the screen says TOO LONG TO AUTOSAVE: FN+S TO CARD. In both cases save to the card with FN+S.
  • A sample recording you have not saved yet waits on the card (Session/take-<track>.wav); after a restart it comes back with UNSAVED TAKE IS BACK. A sample the work uses that is on a card not inserted is loaded as soon as the card is back.
  • If the device fails to start three times in a row, the next start skips the working state once.
tip

Settings (SELECT, volume, key lights, screen) reach the SD card about a second after you change them; there is nothing to save by hand.

Folders on the SD card​

<SD card>/Cardenza/
  System/settings.cfg        device settings (volume, lights, screen)
  Shared/Samples/            samples shared by every app
  Apps/Cardenza/Synth/
    settings.cfg             this app's preferences (SELECT)
    Projects/                projects (.ccproj)
    Presets/<engine>/        sounds you saved
    Session/                 a sample recording not saved yet

Every app follows the same storage protocol: each app writes only its own folder and the shared sample folder. The folders of older firmware (CardenzaSynth/Project, Preset, Sample) are moved to the new place automatically at start. The projects and samples of release 0.1.0 (CardenzaSynth/Projects, CardenzaSynth/Samples) stay where they are and show up in FILES and the sample list; saving such a project writes a copy to Projects/.

Settings files​

settings.cfg is plain text, one key=value per line, readable and editable on a computer:

# Cardenza settings: Cardenza/Synth (storage protocol 1)
keys.select=1

Reading is forgiving: broken lines are skipped and unknown keys are kept as they are (newer and older firmware can share a card). The keyboard values older firmware kept here are read once at start and are no longer written: the keyboard belongs to the project now.

No card, or a bad card​

The screen and the key lights at that moment
12
  1. 1SD card: READY / NOT FOUND
  2. 2VOLUME · KEY LED · SCREEN
SETUP SYSTEM: the SD card state.
  • Without an SD card, device and app settings are kept inside the device for now and written to the card automatically once it is in (retried every 10 seconds). Your working state is in internal memory anyway (see Your work is kept).
  • Projects, sounds and samples need the SD card; saving without one reports SD CARD ERROR.