SD card disk image with patch storage

We just put up an SD card disk image that is formatted with an extra partition for storing patches. Previously those wishing to store patches on the SD card had to manually create this partition, but now you can just download and burn this disk image!

The disk image is for an 8GB SD card, which means there are about 4GB for patch storage.

You can grab the disk image here:

http://thepeacetreaty.org/organelle/diskimages/

and download the file:

20180529-v3.1.img.zip

Flash the image to an SD card using Etcher:

  • Download Etcher and install it.
  • Connect an SD card reader with the SD card inside.
  • Open Etcher and select from your hard drive the .zip file you wish to write to the SD card.
  • Select the SD card you wish to write your image to.
  • Review your selections and click ‘Flash!’ to begin writing data to the SD card.

The above instructions were copied from the Raspberry Pi site. The Organelle is not Raspberry Pi, but the process of burning SD card disk images is the same, so you can read more about the process there if interested.

With the power off, carefully insert the SD card into the Organelle (watch that it doesn’t fall inside), then power up. The image is loaded with the current set of Critter & Guitari Organelle Patches and @thetechnobear’s Orac patch.

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Great!! and thanks!! (hop to make a clean/spare SD card :wink:

So, I had an 8Gb SD card and tried, with NO luck…
Formatted with Terminal, also tried with disk utility…
40

Image file is too big?? for an actual 8Gb card?

52

What kind of SD card do you have? hmm, manufacturers may take some liberties with what they call 8GB. This image was created on a SanDisk micro SD (and still it is not a full 8GB).

Do you have any other card to try? Also, a larger card (e.g. 16GB) will always work. But let me know if no luck, perhaps we can truncate the image a little so it works on more cards…

Yeah, sorry should have mention that, its a Toshiba HC 4 (a bit old by now?)
I’m really just going for a spare-ready-to-go card…

Yes I did try with a 16Gb Sandisk and all good!

ummm let’s wait and see, the way the image is now is kind of perfect (all is there :wink:
Maybe its just this card.
Thanks @oweno

Based on your photos, your card is 7.74GB. The disk image is 7.95GB…

This is great, thanks C&G! Will switch to SD over wknd :slight_smile:

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+1 from me, did it last night without hiccup.

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Used a 16GB card here but don’t have as much spare capacity as I was thought I would. Am I right in thinking that even using a larger card I’ll still have the same amount of storage available? (i.e. something like 3.6GB over and above the C&G stock patches and orac).

the image will be configured for 8 gb , so 4+4.
however, you should be able to use fdisk to extend the partition, to use the rest of the card.

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Cool, thanks.

Btw: I’ve not checked but it might be you need to destroy the partition to recreate it, so do it before you start putting loads of things on it.
(I need to download the image to put it on an oraganelle to see what’s what :slight_smile: )

A cautionary tale here. It’ve been fussing around trying to set up an 8GB SD card with a full patch library in the 4GB storage partition. In the end, after lots of seemingly weird behaviour, I have come to the conclusion that I was trying to pack too much into the 4GB partition. I fear I was trying to fill it past capacity!

I think I will keep the SD portion for Orac as it grows, the full C&G factory set (because that seems neat, somehow) and a few favourite 3rd party patches

Ok so I got around to downloading and installing the new 3.1 image - all worked fine here :slight_smile:

really, I would check, look at size of files before you transferred - 4gb is a lot for the Organelle, your only likely to come anywhere close to this if you install lots of samples. (even with all C&G patches and orac, Ive still 3.6 GB free in the sdpatch patches partition) … so 400mb for lots of patches, which also have quite a few samples.

anyway, I also did a test with the new image…
I setup wifi, created a new folder (sdcard/Patches/test) , and uploaded orac.zop to the new folder, and then was able to install orac with no issue… Patch Manager uploaded fine, and install worked, and then orac worked fine.

now one thing to be aware of the Organelle patch display will not update if you add files, it only updates when you.

  • use storage → reload (this is what most people should do)
  • change folders on organelle (I put all my patches in subfolders, and moved all the C&G ones into a subfolder ;))
  • restart organelle

its a strategy… especially if your finding wifi is not working for you… though personally id fix that.
I certainly don’t think its likely many are going to use 4GB that quickly.

when I get time (which could be a while) , I’ll look to create some instructions on how to extend the sdcard patch partition.

Note: just as with the USB stick, Id strongly recommend people use a high quality SD Card, one that is branded like a San Disk - seriously they are not that expensive, and having issues due to dodgy usb sticks/sd cards is really frustrating - a complete fun killing experience.

also remember ALL removable media, including usbsticks / sdcards have a limited life
… this limit is based on the number of ‘write cycles’, that number is very large, so not something to worry about BUT if you’ve had it for a long time, and been copying/deleting things a lot over that time - if you have issues, its a very real possibility its failing - so just try a new card/stick as an early test. this is must easier than troubleshooting, and having a spare card/stick is never a bad idea, as you never know when you will need it!

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Thanks for all that information.

I realise that have without much thought downloaded most of the PatchStorage files into one folder and most of ShreeShifty’s vast output into another. The PatchStorage folder is 0.5 MB in size, ShreeShifty’s is 3.5 MB. Plus several patches need externals on the partition to run. So I can see that my dumping all that on a 4GB partition was going to gum things up. Needs a bit of curation. There are certainly things in there I won’t ever ever need!

If anyone ever makes a 16 or 32GB SD image, I would be interested.

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MB , or GB?

if GB, then that must contain a lot of samples, the code/externals for patches are usually a few MB at most, but samples can be very large.

Ooops. That should read GB. And yes there are several patches in there that I believe use sound fonts as their basis.

As I said, some curation needed, or the wherewithal to flash a 32 or 16GB card.

If I wanted to re-flash the factory 4/4GB image to a bigger card and extend the partition, I’d need to run the Organelle as a computer - correct, or would there be a way to do that from my Mac? (I assume not)

I have a bunch of duplicate samples on my USB drive because I like to use them different ways in various patches. Takes up so much space. I’m guessing I should probably just rewrite the path that the patches themselves look for the samples in rather than doing this though. I like the samplenest idea of having one location for all samples in the ‘media’ folder, but then a lot of the C&G patches load samples based on location AND filename e.g. 1.wav, 2.wav etc which would be laborious to change in each of the patches for every sample/voice.
When using SD card - can you connect the organelle to a PC via USB to transfer or no?
My usb stick is at like 3.8GB at the moment. Going to give this SD card image a go and clean up shop a bit.

I doubt you can connect to PC USB that would be host to host