Does anyone still use hardware reverbs? How do you save and recall their settings?

[Dave Merrill]

I still have a Lexicon PCM 91, a TC M3000, and some other ancient but still pretty viable digital effects boxes, plus a Yamaha SY99 synth.
One big advantage of software over those has always been that their settings get saved and recalled as part of your DAW session, without you doing much of anything.

Back in the day, there were "universal librarians", software that tried to save and recall the settings of a wide variety of hardware devices.
MidiQuest I think was one of the big ones, still alive apparently, and I think it supports the PCM91, but not the M3000.
IME, they were expensive, convoluted, buggy, and never supported all the devices you'd wish.

Does anybody still use hardware devices like these?
How do you save an recall their settings in your DAW-centric world?

 

[KFF]

I used to send MIDI program change messages at the start of each song/track for all my digital effects and synths. Everything would recall with each project.

 

[Dave Merrill]

I used to send MIDI program change messages at the start of each song/track for all my digital effects and synths. Everything would recall with each project.

Yeah, possible, but I'm talking about the actual content of those programs, not just which ones are active.
You can manually record a sysex dump for each of them, and glom that onto the start of your song, but what a pain.

 

[KFF]

Sorry... sysex IS what I used to use. Was a bit of a pain, but I gut used to it pretty quickly. It was 1999 when I started it. Had just ditched tape and moved to a Pro Tools Mix Plus system. Compared to winding and maintaining tape (machines), all that recall and random access was an unfathomable world of convenience to me. Shooting sysex for accurate recall (to this day) didn't phase me at all.

 

[KFF]

And ironically, working with those types of devices, and in that manner, is probably why Fractal's UI never phased me.

 

[Greg Ferguson]

You can manually record a sysex dump for each of them, and glom that onto the start of your song, but what a pain.

Years ago, when big synthesizer rigs in bands were the thing and MIDI was the big thang, a friend’s band had several banks that would have to get their sysex downloads between songs so there was a minute or two of downtime waiting for the process to finish. I remember him complaining about that but he loved the sound so they did it anyway.

They also were constantly fighting with dying MIDI cables, so their shows were somewhat haphazard.

 

[lqdsnddist]

My midiverb 2 is preset only so makes that easy

 

[marsonic]

One option: https://non-lethal-applications.com/products/snapshot

(this assumes that all the options are actually visible on the devices - I'm not particularly familiar with the ones you mentioned)

 

[Dave Merrill]

One option: https://non-lethal-applications.com/products/snapshot

(this assumes that all the options are actually visible on the devices - I'm not particularly familiar with the ones you mentioned)

Hah! Not even close!
Each of those units has a deep and wide matrix of parameters, with a relatively small display, porthole city.
Nice idea for stuff like the 500 series stuff on the video home screen, totally useless for digital stuff with much depth to its settings.

 

[marsonic]

Hah! Not even close!
Each of those units has a deep and wide matrix of parameters, with a relatively small display, porthole city.
Nice idea for stuff like the 500 series stuff on the video home screen, totally useless for digital stuff with much depth to its settings.

Gotcha.

I know the TC things had an external controller with a screen and some faders, but I haven't used them and had no idea how much you can/can't see at once.

 

[Dave Merrill]

Gotcha.

I know the TC things had an external controller with a screen and some faders, but I haven't used them and had no idea how much you can/can't see at once.

Don't think there is a controller for the M3000.
Manual talks about using a Peavey PC 1600 generic midi controller with it.
I actually have one of those too, don't have a setup for it for the TC though, might try to track one down.

But secretly I've been thinking about building a setup for the Axe III, maybe more than one, to cover more parameters.
I'd love to have 16 or more faders for the Axe.
Too many ideas to explore...

 

[marsonic]

Don't think there is a controller for the M3000.

You're right. I was thinking of the one that integrated with the System 6000.

 

[NY Guitarist]

Back in the day, there were "universal librarians", software that tried to save and recall the settings of a wide variety of hardware devices.

Obviously modern software based synths and FX have made control of parameters very easy. Waaay back in the day I used Opcode's Galaxy (btw, fk Gibson) and MOTU's Unisyn to control various synths and FX units. (I'm sure I still have the disks... somewhere)

I had just posted about being able to control the Axe from within a DAW, and I'm hoping to find a way.