Another Gapless Switching Thread... Solved! (Post #136)

Hugomack said:
I suspect someone's already said this and I overlooked it, but in a band mix, the "gaps" when you kick in the overdrive etc for your solo on a pedal board - or change channel with some real amps, isn't noticeable by the audience.
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Not true. I've been in the audience and heard the issue with a guitarists JVM before.
 
Feflicker said:
Your'e a musician. Normal people don't even know if you are playing the solo in the right key 🤷‍♂️😅
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True, no doubt. That said, the guy playing the solo knows if it sounds wrong, or if he botches a note. And there may be a few others.

Let's stipulate that some of the nuances we obsess over as musicians are overlooked and unfelt by 90% of the audience. Let's further stipulate that of the remaining 10%, many of them can only feel when something isn't quite as good as they'd have hoped, even if they can't say why.

Still, we play to bring joy and excitement and pathos to...whom? Not 90% of the audience, but, if we can, to 100% of the audience, right? And that includes even the golden-eared musicians in the crowd. And when we make those few golden-eared musicians nod their heads and say, "yeah, that's nice," we've just done something of real value. "The praise of the praiseworthy is worthy praise, indeed."

So our efforts aren't wasted if the two or three musicians in the audience who can pick up these nuances do recognize them and are happier for it.

And there's no law against us having a better time by loving the "just-rightness" of our own sound, either.
 
You know what has wrecked songs at shows for me? From The Allman's to Metallica and everything in between? A bad mix! Like when a band member steps on a pedal or channel changes and suddenly buries everyone else. That sucks.

I still remember being super pissed when Whipping Post got destroyed (saw them a lot in the 90s) by the bass player deciding to step on an octave fuzz pedal. I'd waited and waited to hear one of my top 3 favorite songs... and then he gets 2X louder and way wider in the mix... There was now no dual guitars to be heard and barely any vocals. The sound guy tried to fix it, but it was too late b/c the game of "Wait, do I need to turn up / play harder to?" had begun and the mix was trashed for the song.

You know what has never once ruined a show? A person who is ever so briefly quiet.

Which are people focused on here? :)
 
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Dr. Dipwad said:
True, no doubt. That said, the guy playing the solo knows if it sounds wrong, or if he botches a note. And there may be a few others.

Let's stipulate that some of the nuances we obsess over as musicians are overlooked and unfelt by 90% of the audience. Let's further stipulate that of the remaining 10%, many of them can only feel when something isn't quite as good as they'd have hoped, even if they can't say why.

Still, we play to bring joy and excitement and pathos to...whom? Not 90% of the audience, but, if we can, to 100% of the audience, right? And that includes even the golden-eared musicians in the crowd. And when we make those few golden-eared musicians nod their heads and say, "yeah, that's nice," we've just done something of real value. "The praise of the praiseworthy is worthy praise, indeed."

So our efforts aren't wasted if the two or three musicians in the audience who can pick up these nuances do recognize them and are happier for it.

And there's no law against us having a better time by loving the "just-rightness" of our own sound, either.
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Well said sir.
 
FPFL said:
You know what has wrecked shows for me from The Allman's to Metallica and everything in between? A bad mix! Like when a band member steps on a pedal or channel changes and suddenly buries everyone else. That sucks.

I still remember being pissed when Whipping Post got destroyed in the middle 90s by the bass player deciding to step on an octave fuzz pedal and he got 2X louder and there was suddenly no other guitar to be heard and barely any vocals.

You know what has never once ruined a show? A person who is ever so briefly quiet - but hasn't messed up their levels.

Which are people focused on here? :)
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Still cracks me up that you feel that people who own Fractals are incapable of getting their volume of their patches/channels/scenes correct. It's really quite easy to do. Once you have it correct, you click "save" and it will from that point forward be correct.
 
juliatk said:
Just a preference for gapless switching. I was referencing the Helix floor (the full powered original Helix). This one:

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/Helix--line-6-helix-guitar-multi-effects-floor-processor

I don’t have an HX, so can’t comment on that model’s capabilities for gapless switching.
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The Helix is gapless and its certainly not the same on the Fractals or at least it takes a bit more planning to get a similar result on an fm3. That's the point of why I started this thread. I note other fractal users had brought this subject up even without the Helix comparison
 
Yeah the helix is gapless but got 10x less content and the tone is not as detailed . The helix is a good product, but the axe sounds better in amp sim (I owned 2 helix floor, std and LT and got native). For the effects … that’s 50/50. In the helix the od list is great, but yeah… don’t know if we really can compare both product. Both can be used live without any problems, I’ve done it with both. But if I have to choose one, I stay with the axe.
 
juliatk said:
Then the man has a good set of ears.
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“I don’t know how other companies model their stuff, but I tend to listen more to a circuit rather than studying its theoretical background. By treating models on a theoretical basis, one tends to oversee some very important side effects that can later be heard clearly, so you end up listening to it anyway.

I did our models of the distortion pedals just by listening to them, and matching my model to perfection just by ear.”

The interview is pretty old finally , but I read it this week
 
My name is mud said:
“I don’t know how other companies model their stuff, but I tend to listen more to a circuit rather than studying its theoretical background. By treating models on a theoretical basis, one tends to oversee some very important side effects that can later be heard clearly, so you end up listening to it anyway.

I did our models of the distortion pedals just by listening to them, and matching my model to perfection just by ear.”

The interview is pretty old finally , but I read it this week
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My long term complaint with Line 6 was that they have had good programmers, but they needed better audio engineers. For instance, did the amp they started modeling actually sound good to begin with? I sometimes suspected some source models did not. Did the person who mic'd it up know how to get a great sound out of it for that specific model before they started analyzing/modeling anything?

I do believe this is one of the key differentiators for Fractal. They have people who know when the source amp and cab sounds good and when it does not and they know how to properly mic up an amp/cabinet for it to sound as good as possible.

Line 6 has slowly been getting better at this over the last 7 years. Their stock presets were seldom as great as I would've liked them to be, but with the latest release 3.5x, they've started addressing that too. They have a guy who knows how to make better sounding stock presets now. They still don't sound as good as Fractal's stock presets, but they've definitely made some progress.
 
Im finding this debate / question very interesting, while there are a couple of dismissive posts on this thread, the original question of "Can you have 8 gapless and cab combos in one preset"? seems to be "No".. There are not enough scene controllers to change Amp parameters for the same Amp type and not enough Amp Blocks to be able to pick Amps with a Mixer or M-plex.

For my typical worst case it seems to be about three different Amp types, A clean, a crunch and a Lead. in addition to this maybe two Rythm or lead Amp settings of one Amp type. If i can get some gapless configuration going for this set up I am a happy chappy.
@Cooper Carter Petrucci 2023 Preset is pretty much the most I would ever do, but its not gapless. So I have done a Gapless Preset using the Petrucci 2023 as an example attached here. Appreciate any comments or suggestions
its different to @GlennO 3 Amps in that i have used a M-Plex not a Mixer with Scene controllers, I guess it depends what you are trying to achieve

The clean Scene will never translate if you switch to a Heavy sound IMO, but if you need to do that I would use a pedal to blend one into the other, much like ZenRigs would do. The only scene that is not gapless seems to be the Untethered Crunch which uses a pitch block to drop 4 semi tones. Maybe just toggle the Pitch Block Direct to get round this one.
EDIT - Hope im allowed to use this existing preset and Butcher it - its only for example
 

Attachments

  • Petrucci - Mind The Gap.syx
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AngusV said:
Im finding this debate / question very interesting, while there are a couple of dismissive posts on this thread, the original question of "Can you have 8 gapless and cab combos in one preset"? seems to be "No".. There are not enough scene controllers to change Amp parameters for the same Amp type and not enough Amp Blocks to be able to pick Amps with a Mixer or M-plex.
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My example was intended to show the answer is "yes"...if you're ok with the sequencing constraint. You only need two scene controllers. Here's a clip switching through 8 amp types (Plexi, Bludojai Clean, JM45, Wrecker Express, Bogfish Brown, SLO100 Clean, Energyball, ODS100 Clean). No gaps.




Edit: Corrected the preset attached to this post.
 

Attachments

  • Gapless.syx
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juliatk said:
Still cracks me up that you feel that people who own Fractals are incapable of getting their volume of their patches/channels/scenes correct. It's really quite easy to do. Once you have it correct, you click "save" and it will from that point forward be correct.
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You think of volume as something fixed and stored? And you think audibilty is not dependend on gain and eq? And you think that the volume and the sound of the rest of a band is something fixed and repeatable?
 
666was999 said:
You think of volume as something fixed and stored? And you think audibilty is not dependend on gain and eq? And you think that the volume and the sound of the rest of a band is something fixed and repeatable?
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I didn't read the post that way... I think what was being referred to was preset and scene leveling.

Gain and EQ will affect perceived volume, but leveling in advance can really help with that.
 
666was999 said:
You think of volume as something fixed and stored? And you think audibilty is not dependend on gain and eq? And you think that the volume and the sound of the rest of a band is something fixed and repeatable?
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Simply put, “yes”. I’ve been doing it successfully for about 20 years now. I’m happy to share how and I already have earlier in this thread post #6 at a very high level. Let me know if you want more detail. Thanks.
 
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GlennO said:
My example was intended to show the answer is "yes"...if you're ok with the sequencing constraint. You only need two scene controllers. Here's a clip switching through 8 amp types (Plexi, Bludojai Clean, JM45, Wrecker Express, Bogfish Brown, SLO100 Clean, Energyball, ODS100 Clean). No gaps.


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Very Cool, so as long as the Song you are in can be gotten through with 8 consecutive Amp changes this will work just fine. thanks for sharing the preset, I hadnt seen this.
 
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