A fresh idea for foot switching

yek

yek

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I'd like to pitch the following idea for foot switching. It applies to FC controllers, FM3 and FM9.

When it comes to pressing foot switches, we have the choice between:
(1) old style tapdancing, and
(2) scenes and presets.

Tapdancing (pressing individual effect buttons) is flexible. But there's the burden of having to press multiple switches for specific sounds, especially when they're not together on the same layout/page.

And while presets and scenes are convenient and avoid tapdancing, you have to program them in advance.

The new idea is:

  • Press a dedicated button to put the device (FC, FM3, FM9) into "receive" mode.
  • Press all the desired effect buttons, which at this stage aren't transmitted yet.
  • Press the dedicated button again, to make the device send the payload in one go. Or hold the button to cancel the action.

In other words: the device first "collects" the desired state changes, then sends them at the press of a button. On stage this approach lets you prepare sounds on forehand, allowing you to fire them at exactly the right moment.

This idea crosses the area between pressing individual switches and scenes/presets.
 
That's a cool idea!
In my way of playing I prefer the "scenes and presets" switch but I guess that more options lead to more creative ways of using the device
 
It's like a recorded tap-dance with playback. I get the concept although that would cross into the valley of complex thinking for me and I like to stay away from that when performing :). But that does hit on the drawback of effects mode where you can't turn multiple effects on simultaneously.
 
Yes! I was trying to do something like this a while back where I had a kind of switched "FX Loop" that i could turn on and off so that i could cue up certain effects within the loop and turn them on/off as wanted but not have them enter the chain until the "FX Loop" was turned on. It almost worked but the issue i ran in to was getting the effect trails abruptly cut off when switching off the loop. A few of us tried some different methods but it wasn't straight forward.

Original thread:

https://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/making-an-fx-loop-toggle-preset.193989/page-2
 
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This would be a great idea for jam sessions, improv music, etc when you don't know what you're going to want in advance, but do want them all to engage at once. In theory, you wouldn't have to rush to hit all the fx you want; you could take some time during the jam to select different blocks, and then engage them all when you're ready.

Perhaps this could also apply to fx that are already on but you want them to turn off? Or even both functions at the same time - off would turn on, and on would turn off.
 
I think of RUSH Limelight of a great example of why scenes work so well (and M@'s preset is excellent for that, though I tweak things a good bit). I know that, if I can through that song easily, I've got it made.
 
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