Short blip of noise when switching scenes

Here's the simplest form of the problem

It's beyond my ability to troubleshoot further, but maybe someone else clever will know a for sure fix. If you remove the External modified from those blocks at the start of your chain, the problem will go away. My suspicion is it has something to with the the blocks going to an engage state for the briefest tick of a clock when the scene changes, and then bypassing do to the modifier min being set to "BYPASSED" possibly. I think with the high level of the filter block and the Comp block then going into a Distortion it's just really exaggerating it, but you can hear a faint version of it if you have a Filter set to an 11 dB boost and put a modifier on in the way your'e doing to get external switches to do the Bypass/Engage on the block. Not sure what the solution is necessarily other than do bypass/engage in a different way... I don't have any experience with an FC200, to say if there's better solution to that though.
 

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Also, I may have misremembered the current state of the scene 3 as including the 4.5dB rhythm cut being disengaged to boost for the solo. I had previously done that, but have since removed it and reverted to using the guitar volume to back off for the rhythm bits, as it cleans up the amp a bit.
 
It's difficult to troubleshoot with all of the CCs attached. I can disconnect them and test preset, but those CC attachments, and your controller could be the issue?

If your intention is to abandon the "pedalboard mode" and use scenes in this preset, then you should probably remove all of those CC controls and let scenes handle all of that? That's what they are for.

When the bypass mode of an effect is attached to a controller, it overrides scene changes. So you will not be able to turn any of those effects on or off via scenes.

There are a lot of other issues with the preset... The use of scene controllers 1 and 2 to turn the Delay and Rotary blocks on and off is not needed. Scenes themselves can turn them on and off.

There are also many parallel routed effects that could easily be serial routed. Unless the routing was done for specific sonic reasons?
 
And that being said, as near term solution, I think if you remove the looper, Filter 1, Comp 1, and Drive 1 (or remove the External Pedal modifiers on the bypass knob of the 4 and instead just have them bypasses or not in your individual scene), your preset will stop clicking on scene change, at least it is for me here. Removing any sub set makes it less obvious, but I still hear a faint blip even with one. I don't get truly silent switching until I remove all four (or at least the modifiers on all 4).
 
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If your intention is to abandon the "pedalboard mode" and use scenes in this preset, then you should probably remove all of those CC controls and let scenes handle all of that? That's what they are for.

Ok. I was trying to leave some "options" in the scenes via MIDI CC bypassing of comp and drive. Since this particular song that the preset is set up for does not require comp and drive, deleting them is not an issue.

When the bypass mode of an effect is attached to a controller, it overrides scene changes. So you will not be able to turn any of those effects on or off via scenes.

There are a lot of other issues with the preset... The use of scene controllers 1 and 2 to turn the Delay and Rotary blocks on and off is not needed. Scenes themselves can turn them on and off.

Ok, so it looks like I was using the scene controllers wrong, and using them to set up the bypass/engage on stuff when I could have simply removed control of that parameter entirely and saved the on/off state per each scene.

There are also many parallel routed effects that could easily be serial routed. Unless the routing was done for specific sonic reasons?

The Chorus/Pitch/Filter is purposely routed parallel to get those effects to work out the way I wanted. The Filter drops the dry level a bit when the Chorus/Pitch combo (both set 100% wet) are engaged, to keep levels a little closer to the same, and to set the balance of dry/wet where I wanted it.

And that being said, as near term solution, I think if you remove the looper, Filter 1, Comp 1, and Drive 1 (or remove the External Pedal modifiers on the bypass knob of the 4 and instead just have them bypasses or not in your individual scene), your preset will stop clicking on scene change, at least it is for me here. Removing any sub set makes it less obvious, but I still hear a faint blip even with one. I don't get truly silent switching until I remove all four (or at least the modifiers on all 4).

Have removed the comp and drive, and left the filter, so that the preset can be used with either low-output singles or higher-output humbuckers. I get a faint click with the filter switched off when switching the scenes, so I guess the next step is to remove the switching for that and have it completely set up for one particular guitar's output level.

Is there a trick to being able to use scenes to switch multiple items but still having some CC controls for options within the scenes, or is this an either-or sort of situation (i.e., scenes or CC on/off pedaboard mode)? The Leslie speed, Flange on/off, and Chorus/Pitch on/off don't seem to cause any issues, so I suspect it has something to do with the relative gain in the switched blocks being about the same.

Thanks for helping pinpoint my errors in setup. This preset will serve as a good how-to model for subsequent ones.
 

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Is there a trick to being able to use scenes to switch multiple items but still having some CC controls for options within the scenes, or is this an either-or sort of situation (i.e., scenes or CC on/off pedaboard mode)? The Leslie speed, Flange on/off, and Chorus/Pitch on/off don't seem to cause any issues, so I suspect it has something to do with the relative gain in the switched blocks being about the same.

Yes.. Don't use an external controller to control the Bypass of the block. Use a CC message to directly turn them on and off.

Go to the Midi/Remote menu, then to the Bypass tab. Set the CC #s for the blocks that you wish to control to match the CC #s of the switches on your controller. Now your controller can control them when needed, but scenes can still control them too. There may be an issue keeping the switches in sync with the effect on/off states as you switch scenes? No two-way communication.

The Fractal FC pedals handle this sooo much better. I've had the Axe-Fx III for almost a year, but I have been using the Axe-Fx II/MFC-101 while I waited for my FC-6 pedal (which I now finally have). One more gig, then I will have time to switch everything over.
 
Have removed the comp and drive, and left the filter, so that the preset can be used with either low-output singles or higher-output humbuckers. I get a faint click with the filter switched off when switching the scenes, so I guess the next step is to remove the switching for that and have it completely set up for one particular guitar's output level.
Well, in your case with the Filter here (since it's completely flat and just a boost, you could have the "min" of External 1 be 0.0 dB, and the "max" be the 11.0 dB, so when the switch is off it will have no affect. Furthermore, again, only for this block in this situation, since it seems like it's having the Value at 11.0 dB with the evaluation of the External Pedal modifier that's causing the blip, you could probably get away with having the modifier on there still, as long as you have the min/max of the level set as i mentioned above. This way, when the External Pedal 1 is "off", the level is at 0.0 db, and so when on scene change, that brief clock tick where the modifier get's evaluated and toggle the bypass state from on to off, it's still only at 0.0 dB, so you won't here the blip.
 

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Ok, stripped down to nothing that isn't being used. Much better now. I found that 5dB boost at the input block output level seems to equal 11dB boost in the null filter. Not sure about the reasons for that, but it works out to a 6dB difference, which lines up nicely with a doubling of voltage, so I am guessing the input is duplicated into both left and right and then summed when done this way, as opposed to the way the filter block was handling it.

Yes.. Don't use an external controller to control the Bypass of the block. Use a CC message to directly turn them on and off.

Go to the Midi/Remote menu, then to the Bypass tab. Set the CC #s for the blocks that you wish to control to match the CC #s of the switches on your controller. Now your controller can control them when needed, but scenes can still control them too. There may be an issue keeping the switches in sync with the effect on/off states as you switch scenes? No two-way communication.

Noted, will try that next to see if I can put back the comp and drive options. I stripped out the flange and the group of chorus/pitch/filter I had in there since they are not used on the song this testbed preset is being built for, anyway. If I can add in a few "optional" CC bits then this can work for a number of my songs that have similar sounds in use.

The Fractal FC pedals handle this sooo much better. I've had the Axe-Fx III for almost a year, but I have been using the Axe-Fx II/MFC-101 while I waited for my FC-6 pedal (which I now finally have). One more gig, then I will have time to switch everything over.

Ultimately, it looks like the FC12 and a bit of woodshedding with the "proper" way of doing this stuff will fix many issues I am having. I added my name to the list in late March or thereabouts, so soon-ish, and I will be able to return the fossil Roland FC200 back to the "old gear pile"....

Well, in your case with the Filter here (since it's completely flat and just a boost, you could have the "min" of External 1 be 0.0 dB, and the "max" be the 11.0 dB, so when the switch is off it will have no affect. Furthermore, again, only for this block in this situation, since it seems like it's having the Value at 11.0 dB with the evaluation of the External Pedal modifier that's causing the blip, you could probably get away with having the modifier on there still, as long as you have the min/max of the level set as i mentioned above. This way, when the External Pedal 1 is "off", the level is at 0.0 db, and so when on scene change, that brief clock tick where the modifier get's evaluated and toggle the bypass state from on to off, it's still only at 0.0 dB, so you won't here the blip.

Will experiment with this as a way to add back some extra "push" on a CC footswitch to add some versatility to the preset. I have (in the attached preset) removed the filter and instead set the preset up for use with my single-coil low-output guitars exclusively to see how little I actually need for this one song's preset.

Thanks again for all of your help. I understand a bit more now of what I had RTFM'ed, and have some "best practices" to start practicing.... :blush:
 

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There are differences between using CCs to directly control the bypass states of blocks, and using External controllers. Whether they are pros or cons will depend on what you need.

CCs will only control one block. Unless you set the CC# of multiple blocks to the same value... I wouldn't recommend that. Or your controller can send multiple CCs from a single switch.
CC assignments are global.

External controllers can control multiple blocks and the same time.
External controllers can control different blocks on a per-preset basis.
External controllers are unaffected by scene changes.
 
There are differences between using CCs to directly control the bypass states of blocks, and using External controllers. Whether they are pros or cons will depend on what you need.

CCs will only control one block. Unless you set the CC# of multiple blocks to the same value... I wouldn't recommend that. Or your controller can send multiple CCs from a single switch.
CC assignments are global.

External controllers can control multiple blocks and the same time.
External controllers can control different blocks on a per-preset basis.
External controllers are unaffected by scene changes.

I am putting a few options back in per the filter bypass alternative method suggested by @h.c.e. above.

I added back the filter per his suggested method. Also added the comp, with the comp bypass mode defaulting to 0.0:1 compression and 0db level, switching via external controller 2 to do 2.28:1 and 7.5dB boost to have a couple options for kicking the amp model in the nose with varying levels of ferocity. Theoretically I could restore the flange and my chorus/pitch/filter combo with no issues, as bypassing those more-or-less unity gain items did not seem to generate a noise issue.

Can't wait for the FC12. :cool:
 
Added the null-filter boost and comp back, and slightly tweaked the chorus/pitch/filter to be chorus/pitch/flange with an added mixer afterwards.
Also restored the cab I was using, so if you want that cab, it's available through RedWire's "Speakerbox" set. Weber's "Blue Dog" 12" AlNiCo. A great speaker, that, IMHO.

Totally seamless scene changes. Scene 2 works well for "Short and Sweet" by Dave Gilmour, and Scene 3 works for most of The Wall's chorus/delay stuff. I now need to learn to play "Run Like Hell", I guess.

Hopefully this journey from "pedalboard mode" thought to "scenes" thought will help others making the same transition when their FC controllers arrive....
 

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Sample audio post-fix

Snippet of "It Don't Come Easy" contains a scene change from 1 --> 2, Leslie on --> off

Snippet of "Short and Sweet" contains CC switching of chorus/flange within scene 2.

Just before the ending improv bit, switched to scene 3 with no audible artifacts or blips.

Thanks again, for the assistance in getting my thought processes aligned with the way the box works.... :)
 
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Here's the simplest form of the problem

My suspicion is it has something to with the the blocks going to an engage state for the briefest tick of a clock when the scene changes, and then bypassing do to the modifier min being set to "BYPASSED" possibly.

I suspect that this was the crux of the biscuit. Perhaps the bypass state and controller interact in a strange way. Will investigate....
 
Building on the success of the previous work above, I have added a second amp (Solo 99, dirty channel), and set up the mixer block as a "head switcher" on external controller 3 (previously used to bypass/engage a drive pedal).

In one fell swoop, I have duplicated everything that my old '90s rack rig* at its zenith could do, and more--but better and easier to control, due to scenes being able to switch on/off multiple things at a time silently and instantly, which my old rack could not do very well without a preset change and the resulting audio hiccup while it rearranged its brains. I was big into CCs then (and now) due to them being the only way at the time to avoid a preset change and get quick, mostly glitch free (excepting the very rare "zippering" noise while running up/down a CC pedal) transformation of my sound.

Bravo to FAS for building a superb piece of kit!
In 15 minutes of poking things around, I have bettered what took me years to assemble, tweak, and pack into a 6-space SKB rack.

Thanks yet again to the kind folks who helped me figure out what I was doing wrong. Preset is attached for anyone who wants to play with it. :)





* Eventually, after a lot of different gear juggling (including a Fisher X100C integrated with the preamp rewired similar to a HIWATT at one point and a Peavey TubeFEX rack pre/fx at a later point) of which a fair amount I built custom, I ended up with a Hafler Hellrazor pre, a slaved tube amp (specifically, a '60s Knight KM15 monoblock hi-fi converted for guitar, with 12AX7s & El84s running on a custom-built reactive dummy load), and the Alesis Quadraverb2, all stuffed into a 6-space SKB rack along with a stereo SS power amp. For a while, I was running DRY + STEREO FX into 3 cabs, the DRY cab being a tube amp combo I built from scratch, but eventually I switched to running just the STEREO setup due to size/space/weight restrictions on small stages....
 

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