I can certainly see the benefit and think it would be great, however, I think it would be really hard to implement, because let’s say you have a reverb and phaser block chain, which gives a cool phased set signal...
Well what happens if you already have a phaser block in your patch ? Or your block chain uses channel B and you have another foot switch set up to change channels, and it changes what you don’t want as you forgot what it was assigned to etc
Or what if it needs to be a parallel effect, but you already have soemthing in that grid location so it can’t drop it in.....
As I said, good idea but simply may not be practical with the way the Axe blocks and grid have been designed to work
There would inevitably be some limitations/rules. And yes, it most likely would require a good amount of logic/coding to implement... but it's Fractal! - they never shy away from a programming challenge, if it's a useful improvement for their customers.
If there was already a Phaser 1 block, there would need to be logic to switch it to Phaser 2 (next available). If one of the blocks didn't have an available block (rare), then it would have to display some sort of error message (block limit exceeded for type Phaser, cannot insert block group)
The "hard bounding box" type of logic would be probably the easiest to implement in terms of inserting multiple blocks at once taking up multiple horizontal or vertical spaces. If the block group was saved with a (3x3) indicator, then when its imported into a preset, it would overwrite existing blocks in that bounding box area (3x3). You would know based on the (3x3) saved in the file name that the area you select will be overwritten by the new block grouping.
To me, having the ability to save personal favorites of Amp/Cab combos or other personal favorite block combos would be a time saver - but the biggest change that I foresee would be that the community could more easily share block combos to replicate old effects rack units, unique/complex effects pedals, or other special effects (like synth sounds, organs, other).
There are many classic effects sounds that require two or more blocks. Also, block groups would be great for saving "Artist Effects Chains"... many artists have a certain effects signature that could be replicated with multiple blocks. It could be a boon to the community, and we could resurrect the "Mother of All Pedal Emulations" in style
I miss that thread.