Manual

Chapter 01

Getting Started

What you need

• A Clavia Nord Modular G1 (keyboard or rack) or Micro Modular.
• A MIDI interface connected to the synth's MIDI IN and MIDI OUT. The editor talks SysEx in both directions, so a one-way connection is not enough.
• The Animatek NME binaries for your platform, distributed through Patreon.

Installing

Linux. Two options:

• AppImage: make it executable and run it with chmod +x AnimatekNME-x.y.z-x86_64.AppImage && ./AnimatekNME-x.y.z-x86_64.AppImage. The AppImage bundles everything, including the patched MIDI backend (see Troubleshooting if your distro's stock builds show no MIDI devices).
• Plain binary: unzip and run AnimatekNME. No installation required; settings are stored in your user profile.

Windows. Unzip and run AnimatekNME.exe. No installer is required.

macOS. Unzip, move AnimatekNME.app to Applications and run it. The build is universal (Apple Silicon + Intel). On first launch you may need to allow the app in System Settings → Privacy & Security.

Connecting the synth

1. Connect the synth's MIDI IN/OUT to your interface and power it on.
2. Launch Animatek NME. The editor scans MIDI ports and performs the Nord Modular handshake automatically; when it finds the synth, the status bar shows the connection and the editor fetches the active slot's patch.
3. If you have several MIDI interfaces, pick the right ports in the editor's options.

Once connected, everything is live: turning a knob in the editor changes the sound immediately, and turning a knob on the synth's front panel updates the editor.

Your first patch

• Press Ctrl+1–Ctrl+4 to pick a slot (A–D).
• Press Enter or double-click the canvas to open Quick Add and type a module name. Try keyboard, then oscA, then 2 outputs.
• Drag cables between the colored connectors: Keyboard Note → OscA Pitch, OscA Out → 2 Outputs L.
• Play a note (your MIDI keyboard, or the virtual keyboard on Ctrl+6).
• Save with Ctrl+S. Patches are standard .pch files, compatible with the original editors.

Where things live on disk

The editor keeps a preset library folder (configurable in the preset browser) with Patches/, Snippets/, Presets/ and Banks/ subfolders. Bank backups, snippets, module presets and your saved patches all land there, and the patches show up in the built-in browser (Ctrl+B).

Chapter 02

The Interface

The main window

From top to bottom:

• Menu bar: File, Edit, View, Device and Help menus. Device holds the synth-facing tools (bank transfers, controller snapshot); View holds the floating windows.
• Header bar: the current patch name (click to rename), the Voices counter with up/down arrows, the Load meters, the four morph group knobs, and the snapshot/variation buttons (8 per slot).
• Inspector (left column): everything about the selected module that isn't on its face: its name (editable, and undoable), its section, its assignments (morph groups, hardware knobs and MIDI CCs), its DSP cost, and its presets. Beside the Assignments heading sits a hardware knob map: a four-panel, 18-LED diagram mirroring the physical knob layout, with assigned knobs lit bright green and free knobs in the hardware's dark unlit-lens colour. With nothing selected it lists the assignments of the whole patch. Ctrl+I folds the whole column away.
• Slot bar (below the Inspector): the four hardware slots A–D with hardware-style LEDs: a blinking LED is the selected slot, steady LEDs are enabled slots. Plain click selects a slot; Ctrl+click enables/disables a slot without selecting it, exactly like Shift+slot button on the front panel; right-click shows or hides that slot's sub-window (see Working with the Synth). A slot showing a LOCAL badge holds a patch the synth doesn't have.
• Work area: the four slots live here as sub-windows, tiled inside the main window. Each holds a patch canvas, split into the Poly area (one instance per voice) and the Common area (one instance per patch, e.g. keyboard, sequencers, effects, outputs). A draggable divider separates them. Middle-drag pans, Ctrl++/Ctrl+- zooms, Z zooms to selection.
• Preset browser (right side, Ctrl+B) holds two worlds in one panel: the synth's internal memory (9 banks) and your disk preset library, with search and patch/snippet/bank filters. Ctrl+Shift+I folds it away.
• Status bar: connection state, synth information and activity.

The Inspector, header bar, browsers and status bar are shared: they follow whichever sub-window has focus, and the focused one is edged in the theme's text colour so you can always see which slot you are editing.

Voices and DSP load

The header's Voices field sets the patch's polyphony; the up/down arrows change it and the patch is re-uploaded so the synth follows (the G1 stores the voice count inside the patch header, so that re-upload is the change). Holding the arrows down is safe; rapid presses are coalesced into a single upload for the final value. The same setting also lives in Patch Settings (Ctrl+P).

Next to it, two Load bars show the DSP cost of the patch to one decimal place, as the original editor did: PVA: for the poly/voice area and E: for the common (effects) area. The figure is the editor's own estimate from each module's cycle cost; the synth does not report its load.

Each module's individual share is on screen wherever you pick or inspect a module: in the right-click Add Module menu ("Audio In (2.2%)"), in the module browser, on every Quick Add row, and in the Inspector. Double-click a module for its own cost, as the original editor does, or press F10 to label every module at once, which is the view you want when a patch is over budget and you are looking for what to cut. The figures are rounded to the two significant figures the original Clavia editor prints, so a patch optimised against the hardware editor reads the same numbers here.

Modules on the canvas

Each module is drawn pixel-faithful to the original editor: knobs, buttons, selectors, displays, connectors and lights. Live data from the synth animates the VU meters and LEDs in real time while connected.

• Click and drag a knob to change it (the synth follows instantly).
• Right-click a knob for parameter options (morph assignment, MIDI CC, hardware knob, locks).
• Drag a module by its title/body to move it on the grid; multi-select with a rubber band or Shift-click.
• Rest the cursor on any control to read its value in the parameter's own units, so a cutoff reads "440 Hz" rather than "64". Drag it and the value follows live.
• F1 shows help for the hovered module, straight from the original Nord Modular documentation.

Cable colors

Cables take the color of the signal they carry:

The View menu and header tools let you hide cable colors selectively, change cable style (curved/straight, thick/thin) and opacity, and S "shakes" the cables so overlapping runs redistribute visually.

Themes

Ctrl+T cycles the 13 color themes, or pick one from View → Theme (the checkmark always follows the theme actually in use). Nord is the default; Nord Classic is a light, warm-grey theme that echoes the original Clavia Nord Modular editor: flat grey module bodies, black labels, indigo LCD-style value readouts and the classic cable colours, all sampled from the original. The theme that used Nomad's own colours is called Nomad.

Themes apply to the whole application, not just the canvas: menu bar, header, status bar, slot list, Inspector and all dialogs follow the palette, so text stays legible on light and dark themes alike. A very light procedural grain over the canvas gives it a paper feel instead of a flat fill, most visible on Nord Classic.

Ctrl+W toggles a wireframe module style that works with every theme. Both settings persist across sessions, as do the window size/position and floater layouts.

Chapter 03

Editing Patches

Adding modules

• Quick Add: press Enter or double-click empty canvas, type a few letters and pick from ranked results. It searches names, categories and a hand-written tag table (try reverb, random, snare…).
• Module browser: browse the full palette by category and drag modules onto the canvas, into whichever sub-window you drop them on.
• Add Module: right-click empty canvas for the full menu by category.

The Poly and Common areas accept different module sets, matching the hardware. Modules use DSP resources on the synth, and every one of these three routes prints the module's cost next to its name ("Audio In (2.2%)") so you can choose with the budget in view. The header's Load meters track the patch total; see Voices and DSP load.

Selection and arrangement

• Click selects; Shift-click and rubber-band extend the selection; Ctrl+A selects the whole section; Escape clears.
• Drag to move (the grid keeps everything tidy); arrow keys nudge one cell.
• Ctrl+X/C/V cut/copy/paste, Ctrl+D duplicates with cables.
• Delete removes the selection, cables included. Everything is undoable; each slot has its own undo history (Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Shift+Z).

Renaming modules

Give a module your own name from its right-click menu, or from the Name field at the top of the Inspector. Renaming is a normal, undoable edit (Ctrl+Z takes it back). The name lives in the patch and reaches the synth with the next full upload.

Cables

• Create: drag from any connector to a compatible one. Valid targets light up while you drag; outputs connect to inputs.
• Chained cables: you can also drag from one input to another input, daisy-chaining a net exactly like the original editor, e.g. Keyboard Note → OscA1 Pitch, then OscA1 Pitch → OscA2 Pitch. The hardware rule is enforced: a net can only be driven by one output, and illegal targets won't light up.
• Delete: right-click a connector to remove its cables.
• Cable visibility filters, styles and the S shake help untangle big patches.

Parameters

• Knobs, sliders, buttons and selectors edit live and sync to the synth.
• Hover any control to read its value in the parameter's own units; drag it and the readout follows live.
• Right-click a parameter to assign it to a morph group, a hardware knob, or a MIDI controller, and to lock it against randomization.

Reading a patch: the overlay keys

Five function keys label the whole patch at once. They toggle, so you can leave a readout open while you work rather than holding a key down.

Module presets

Select any module and the Inspector grows a Presets section under its assignments: click a name to recall it, the x to delete it, right-click to rename, and + Save current settings to capture the module as it stands. The section folds away from the chevron in its title, and the same list is on the module's own right-click menu.

Recalling a preset is a single undo step, not one per parameter. A preset is simply a named parameter snapshot of a module type, so any module can have them: sequencers, filters, the DrumSynth, anything. They live in a Presets folder in your patch library as one .pchp pack per module type; see Files & Formats.

Morphs

The four morph groups from the header bar work like the hardware's: assign parameters to a group (right-click → morph), set each parameter's morph range, and sweep the group knob to move them all. Assigned controls of every kind (knobs, 4-1 selectors, toggles, increment buttons and sliders) show their group colour on the canvas, and the Inspector lists all of a module's assignments. F7 labels group membership across the patch and F5 shows each morphed parameter's swept range.

Randomize, initialize, locks

• Ctrl+R randomizes parameters (uniform); Ctrl+Shift+R uses a gaussian spread around current values.
• Locked parameters and excluded modules are never touched.
• Initialize resets a patch to a clean state.

For evolutionary sound design with breeding and interpolation, see the Patch Mutator.

Snapshots and variations

The 8 buttons in the header bar hold patch variations: full parameter snapshots you can audition and switch between. They persist in a .var sidecar file next to the patch (the .pch itself stays 100% standard). Live edits write through to the active variation.

Chapter 04

Working with the Synth

Slots

The G1 runs up to four patches at once in slots A–D. The editor models the hardware's two-level slot system faithfully:

• Selected slot (blinking LED): the one you're editing and playing from the keyboard. Plain-click a slot in the slot bar to select it; the editor loads that slot's patch. Ctrl+1–Ctrl+4 switch from the keyboard.
• Enabled slots (steady LED): slots that sound. Several can be enabled at once. Ctrl+click a slot to enable/disable it without selecting, the same gesture as Shift+slot button on the front panel.

Each slot keeps its own patch, undo history and sync state; background slots never contaminate the one you're working in. A transfer in one slot no longer blocks the others: you can keep editing slot A while slot B is uploading or downloading.

As soon as the editor learns which slots are populated, it downloads their patches in the background, one at a time, so switching to a slot for the first time is instant instead of triggering a full fetch. Switching back to a slot the editor already holds an up-to-date copy of doesn't re-download it either; a genuine change on the synth (program change, bank load, reconnect) always does.

The four slots on screen

The slots are sub-windows inside the main window, tiled the way the original Clavia editor and Nomad arranged patches. This is how you work on two or more patches side by side, and nothing ever gets lost behind another application.

Open slots tile themselves: one fills the work area, two split it down the middle, three go in thirds, four go 2x2, and the layout re-flows as you open and close them. Nothing to arrange unless you want to: drag or resize a sub-window and the windows stay where you put them from then on, with View > Slots > Tile Slots to re-flow.

• Ctrl+Shift+1–Ctrl+Shift+4 shows or hides a slot's sub-window, and so does right-clicking its row in the slot bar.
• Ctrl+1–Ctrl+4 switches to a slot, opening it if it was closed.
• F11, or a sub-window's maximise button, blows the focused slot up to the whole work area and back again for a closer look.
• Ctrl+Shift+ an arrow moves the focused slot to the neighbouring tile, so the patch you are working on goes where you want it. View > Slots > Rotate Slots shifts them all round at once.

The sub-windows slide to their new places rather than jumping. Turn that off with Animate Slot Tiling in Editor Options (Ctrl+,) if you prefer it instant.

Each slot keeps its own canvas, selection and undo history, and edits land on the right slot even when it doesn't have hardware focus. Every sub-window follows the synth live: turning a physical knob on the front panel, or a light or meter moving, animates the right slot. Ctrl+R / Ctrl+Shift+R randomize (uniform / gaussian) and Ctrl+S / Ctrl+Shift+S save / save-as act on the focused slot and honour its own module selection.

The Inspector, header bar, browsers and status bar are shared and follow whichever sub-window has focus, and a background canvas keeps its selection, so the Inspector picks up where that slot left off instead of going blank. The focused sub-window is edged in the theme's text colour.

Which slots you had open, which one had focus and how they were arranged all come back when you reopen the editor. Connecting to the Nord then lines the work area up with the slots the synth actually has enabled, once; after that the windows are yours alone, and pressing slot buttons on the front panel moves focus without ever closing one.

Editor ↔ synth sync

While connected, every edit (parameters, cables, modules, morphs, knob and CC assignments, patch name) is streamed to the synth as you make it, and changes made on the synth's front panel come back to the editor. There is no "send" button to remember.

Selecting a slot fetches its patch from the synth.

Opening a patch: choosing where it goes

Opening a .pch (File → Open, or either preset browser) asks where to put it. The chooser lists slots A–D with the patch currently in each, defaults to the active slot, and adds a Local option:

• Pick A–D and the patch loads into that slot and uploads to the synth, replacing what was there.
• Pick Local and the patch loads into the editor only; nothing is sent to the synth. Use it to look through patches without disturbing what the rack is playing.

A slot whose editor patch is not known to match the synth (loaded Local, or loaded/built while disconnected) carries a LOCAL badge in the slot bar. The badge clears as soon as that patch is uploaded to, or fetched from, the synth.

The synth patch browser

The right-side browser (Ctrl+B) lists the synth's 9 internal banks. You can:

• search and hide empty positions,
• load a patch into a slot: double-click puts it in the slot you are on, and right-click offers Load to Slot A..D so that with several sub-windows open you can pull a patch into a particular one without leaving the slot you are working in,
• store the current patch to a bank position,
• copy, move and delete patches inside synth memory.

Legacy Nord Modular 2.10 files are tagged PCH2 in the disk browser and load transparently.

Bank transfers (Device menu)

• Save Bank to Disk: dump a whole synth bank to a folder; position metadata is preserved in the NN - Name.pch filenames.
• Send Bank to Synth: upload a folder of patches into a bank, with an overwrite warning; a failed transfer stops cleanly.
• Backup All Banks to Library: mirror all 9 banks into your preset library's Banks/Bank1–Bank9 folders in one action.

All transfers show progress and can be cancelled.

Controller snapshot (Device menu)

Send Controller Snapshot asks the synth to emit the current values of the patch's MIDI CC assignments as CC messages from its MIDI OUT, the same function as the front panel's CTRL SNAP SHOT, handy for priming a sequencer recording. It does not change any synth state.

Send speed

Editor Options (Ctrl+,) includes a send speed setting that throttles bulk parameter streams (Mutator, Randomize) so large patches don't overrun the synth. Normal knob edits are always sent immediately.

Chapter 05

Tools & Floaters

Five floating windows live in the View menu (or Ctrl+5–Ctrl+9), plus two extras at the end of this chapter. They are normal windows: move them to a second display, resize the resizable ones, and the editor remembers where they were.

Knob Floater (Ctrl+5)

An interactive overview of the 18 hardware knobs plus pedal, switch and aftertouch. Each knob shows its assignment LED and the module/parameter it controls; the knobs are fully interactive (edit + sync + undo, morphs included). Right-click a knob to reassign it to a free slot.

Keyboard Floater (Ctrl+6)

A virtual keyboard with octave navigation for playing the synth without a MIDI keyboard. Two performance modes:

• DRONE: latches notes until released.
• REPEAT: pulses the held note (Rate 100–500 ms, Gate 20–400 ms).

Notes are sent through the editor protocol, so they work over the same USB/DIN connection as everything else.

Patch Notes (Ctrl+7)

A resizable monospaced notepad bound to the active slot's patch. Notes are stored in the .pch file's [Notes] section (a Nomad/nmedit extension that original Clavia editors simply ignore). There are no sidecar files.

Patch Mutator (Ctrl+8)

A G2-style interactive sound breeder. A Mother and Father sound flank a row of Children; from there you can:

• Mutate: gaussian variation around a sound (oscillator pitches snap to musical intervals),
• Randomize: fresh random settings,
• Interpolate: blend Mother and Father,
• Cross: genetic crossover (sequential or independent modes).

Click a sound to audition it on the synth. Locked parameters, excluded modules (right-click a module → exclude from mutation) and Output modules are never touched. A temporary storage row keeps favorites, and the variations row links to the 8 per-slot variations. Keyboard control is fast; see the shortcuts.

SysEx Monitor (Ctrl+9)

A live TX/RX hex log of all MIDI traffic between editor and synth, the tool to grab when something doesn't sync and you want to see why (or to attach to a bug report). Zero overhead when closed; works in release builds without a console.

Slot sub-windows

Not a floater, but the other way to get more than one thing on screen: the four slots are tiled sub-windows inside the main window, each with its own canvas, selection and undo history. Ctrl+Shift+1–Ctrl+Shift+4 shows and hides them. See Working with the Synth.

The MCP bridge

An optional, off-by-default local channel that lets an AI assistant edit the patch through the editor's own undo system. See The MCP Bridge.

Chapter 06

Files & Formats

.pch patch files

Patches are standard Nord Modular 3.0 text format .pch files, compatible with the original Clavia editor and Nomad/nmedit. Anything you save in Animatek NME loads in the originals and vice versa.

• Legacy 2.10 patches (the older [Module N] format) load transparently, including daisy-chained cables and correct 1/2 output routing. They are tagged PCH2 in the preset browser, and the browser's PCH2 filter toggle hides them when you only want current patches. Saving rewrites them in 3.0 format.
• Patch notes are stored in a [Notes] section, a Nomad/nmedit extension that original editors ignore harmlessly.

Opening a patch asks which slot it should go to, or whether to load it Local (editor only, nothing sent to the synth). See Working with the Synth.

.var variations sidecar

The 8 per-slot patch variations (and per-module mutation exclusions) live in a .var file next to the patch: MyPatch.pch + MyPatch.var. This keeps the .pch byte-standard. Keep the two files together when moving or backing up patches: without its sidecar a patch loads fine but loses its variations.

.pchp module presets

A module preset is a named parameter snapshot of one module type, recalled from the Presets section of the Inspector or the module's right-click menu (see Editing Patches).

Presets are stored as one .pchp pack per module type in the library's Presets/ folder. The format is plain text and meant to be edited by hand, since transcribing the original editor's own presets is done by hand. Values are keyed by parameter name rather than by position, so a preset that names two parameters sets those two and leaves the rest of the module alone. Presets saved by versions before 0.12 are migrated automatically on first run.

Snippets

A snippet is a reusable group of modules with their cables and parameter values, saved from a selection and imported by drag & drop. Snippets are plain .pch files stored in the library's Snippets/ folder, so they work in any editor and you can share them like patches. Modules that can't be duplicated (singletons like Keyboard) are filtered automatically on export.

The preset library

The disk browser scans a configurable preset library folder recursively:

<library root>/
  Patches/    your saved patches (any folder structure you like)
  Snippets/   exported snippets
  Presets/    one .pchp pack of module presets per module type
  Banks/      Bank1 … Bank9 mirror folders from "Backup All Banks"

Search covers filenames; filters narrow to patches, snippets or bank backups. Bank backups load like any other patch.

Bank folders

Save Bank to Disk writes patches as NN - Name.pch; the NN prefix records the bank position, and Send Bank to Synth uses it to restore patches to their exact slots.

Chapter 07

Keyboard Shortcuts

Also available in-app: Help → Keyboard Shortcuts... (Keep this file in sync with showKeyboardShortcutsDialog() in source/MainComponent.cpp.)

On macOS, Ctrl is Cmd.

File

Edit

Canvas

Slots

Open slots tile themselves, the way a tiling window manager does: one fills the work area, two split it down the middle, three go in thirds, four go 2x2. The layout re-flows whenever you open or close one. Dragging or resizing a sub-window leaves the windows where you put them from then on; View > Slots > Tile Slots puts them back.

Floaters

Sub-window (the one with focus)

All of these act on that window's own slot and selection.

Patch Mutator (window focused)

Chapter 08

Troubleshooting

The editor doesn't find the synth

• Check that both MIDI directions are cabled: synth OUT → interface IN and interface OUT → synth IN. The handshake needs a reply.
• Make sure no other application (a DAW, the original editor) is holding the MIDI ports.
• Verify the port selection in the editor's options if you have several interfaces.
• The Nord Modular protocol has a 3-second reply timeout; if the connection drops mid-session, the status bar will show it and the editor keeps retrying the handshake.

Linux: no MIDI devices listed

Modern Linux kernels expose MIDI through the new UMP layer, which stock JUCE builds handle incorrectly (no devices found, or UMP packets sent to legacy interfaces). Animatek NME ships with a patched MIDI backend that handles both; use the official AppImage or binaries. If you build from source, the required JUCE patches are in the bundled JUCE/ submodule (see the README's Linux MIDI Note).

A patch loads with missing modules or wrong cables

Make sure you're on the current version; 0.8.x fixed several patch-decoding bugs (legacy 2.10 cables, chained cables fetched from the synth, custom module data arriving out of order). If a specific file still misbehaves, open a GitHub issue and attach the .pch.

A slot shows a LOCAL badge

That slot's patch exists only in the editor; it was opened with the Local option, or loaded/built while disconnected, so the synth doesn't have it. Upload it (open it into slot A–D, or store it to a bank) and the badge clears.

My AI assistant can't reach the editor

The MCP bridge is off by default. Enable it in Editor Options (Ctrl+,) → MCP Bridge and check the status line says it is listening; the editor must be running for the tools to work. See The MCP Bridge.

Stuck notes

If notes hang (usually from external MIDI going directly to the synth), use the synth's front-panel panic. The editor's virtual keyboard always pairs note-offs with its note-ons.

My variations disappeared

Variations live in the .var sidecar next to the .pch. If you moved or renamed the patch file, move/rename its .var along with it.

Watching what actually happens

Open the SysEx Monitor (Ctrl+9) to see the raw MIDI conversation. When reporting a bug, a monitor capture plus the patch file makes it fixable fast.

Reporting bugs

The app is beta software. Bugs, with reproduction steps and files, go to: https://github.com/animatek/Animatek-NME/issues

Chapter 09

The MCP Bridge (AI assistants)

Animatek NME can expose a small local control channel that lets an MCP client (Claude Code, Claude Desktop, OpenCode and others) work the patch as if it were you at the canvas: adding and moving modules, connecting and cutting cables, setting parameters, mutating a patch, opening patches from your library, saving them, and storing them to a synth bank.

Everything goes through the editor's normal undo system, so an assistant's edits appear on the canvas immediately, upload to the synth if one is connected, and are reviewable and undoable exactly like your own (Ctrl+Z).

It is off by default

No port is opened unless you ask for it. Turn it on in Editor Options (Ctrl+,) → MCP Bridge. The panel shows:

• the enable toggle,
• whether the bridge is listening (green) or failed (amber),
• the exact stdio command to register with your client, with a Copy button.

The bridge listens on 127.0.0.1 only, never on the network, and is off the wire entirely when the toggle is off. It can also be compiled out completely with -DNME_MCP_BRIDGE=OFF. It is standalone-app only: it is deliberately not built into the plugin, where several instances would fight over the port.

Setting up a client

The editor itself listens on the local socket (127.0.0.1:51027 by default). The MCP server your client talks to is mcp-bridge/server.py, shipped with the source repository:

cd mcp-bridge
python3 -m venv .venv
.venv/bin/pip install -e .

Then register it. For Claude Code:

claude mcp add animatek-nme -- /path/to/mcp-bridge/.venv/bin/python /path/to/mcp-bridge/server.py

If the editor can find mcp-bridge/ near its own executable it fills that exact command into the Editor Options panel for you; otherwise use the paths of your own copy. Animatek NME must be running with the bridge enabled; the tools return a clear error if it isn't.

What an assistant can do

Most tools take a slot (0–3 = A–D, default: the active tab) and a section (0 = common, 1 = poly). Grid coordinates are in module-column units, not pixels, and add_module can place modules for you.

Full parameter reference: mcp-bridge/README.md in the repository.

Practical notes

• Watch it work. The canvas updates live, so you can see what the assistant is building. If you don't like a step, Ctrl+Z.
• describe_module_type first. Connector names on the G1 are terse and not guessable; an assistant that cables without looking them up will fail.
• Prefer mutate_patch to a burst of set_parameter calls: it is one undo step and respects locks, excluded modules and Output modules.
• store_to_bank needs a connected synth with its patch list loaded; it uploads first and writes to the bank only once the upload is acknowledged.