first gig report with the FX8

jb70

Experienced
i did my first gig with the FX8 tonight. actually, i've done 2 jazz gigs with it already but i left it on one preset and used it in stompbox mode for both gigs. this gig was much different. it was with a 9 piece soul/funk/motown band in NYC and i used it with my redplate blackloop 1x12 combo.

first, the good stuff.....

i use about 8 different patches with this band and most of them sounded fantastic. yeah, there was the occasional level tweaking on a drive, delay and reverb patch here and there but those things can only be done on the bandstand. there's no way to replicate it in your house or apartment. the drives sounded really good and natural. i think there was a patch or two where i had to adjust the tone of a drive block to add some high end, but once i did it sounded great and blended in with the band perfectly. the wah, phaser, chorus and filter were equally as awesome!

now, the bad.....

i've said this before and now i will say it again now that i've used it on a gig where i have to use multiple presets. it is RIDICULOUS that you can't get from preset to preset in sequential order using the up/down buttons. i need to have access to both preset mode AND stompbox mode at the same time. i have a liquid foot 12+ midi controller and it's set up in a way where there are 2 up/down buttons that can quickly scroll through the presets while the other buttons turn on/off various effects. i think this is a major design flaw in the FX8 and hope something can be done about this soon.

there were also a few times during the gig where i was trying to turn on an effect and instead of turning the effect on, the X/Y feature was activated. it was annoying but it's something i think i can get used to. the other thing the drove me crazy was that i accidently activated the "scene mode" three times. i don't use scenes. i've never used them and really have no use for them and wish there was a way to permanently deactivate this mode.

overall, i'm pretty happy with the FX8. the sound of the effects is fantastic, it's just these couple of design issues that i'm hoping can be addressed in the near future
 
If you never use the Y function you can tweak up the time it takes to activate it. That should help a bit.

I'm surprised scenes aren't useful to you. With the x y state you can have four different drive effects on tap.

What are your preset like?





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If you never use the Y function you can tweak up the time it takes to activate it. That should help a bit.

I'm surprised scenes aren't useful to you. With the x y state you can have four different drive effects on tap.

What are your preset like?





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i do use the X/Y function on a couple of patches (mostly for drives). scenes aren't useful to me because i have radically different effects layouts for each of my 8 patches for this band. i don't have time to type them all out right now but scenes just aren't useful to me. it really wouldn't be that hard to have a "dual" mode where the up and down buttons could be used to scroll through the presets (just like the preset/a knob does on the faceplate) while buttons 1-8 could be used to turn on and off the individual effects
 
What if they added an option to allow the Scene selection button to access either Scene selection or Preset selection?

If you set it to Scene selection, pressing the Scene button and then one of the switches would select the scene, if you set it to Preset selection, then prescient the Scene button and then one of the switches would select the preset. It seems like that would solve the problem and would be fairly simple to implement. I could see that as being very useful as I would tend to switch presets rather than switch scenes.
 
TO USE STICKY PRESET/BANK SELECT MODE…
The FX8 returns to Stompbox Mode immediately after you select a Preset. If you want the unit to remain indefinitely stay in Preset/Bank Select Mode so you can change from Preset-to-Preset with single foot taps, just enable “STICKY PRESET/BANK SELECT MODE” in the GLOBAL menu under SETUP:
1.
Press the SETUP button.
2.
Press footswitch 1 to select the GLOBAL menu.
3.
Page to SETTINGS.
4.
Use NAV and VALUE to set STICKY PRESET BANK SELECT to “ON”.
5.
Press EXIT 2x.
Now whenever you press and hold the PRESET/BANK footswitch, the FX8 will remain in preset bank select mode until you tap that same footswitch again (you never need to press and hold to exit any mode.)
 
I think JB70's problem with Sticky Preset mode is he still needs to be able to activate and bypass individual effect blocks within the same preset.
If there was a mode that made the top row a bank of 4 presets to be scrolled via Bank up/down and the bottom row could be assigned any blocks you chose...
That might serve a lot of us well.
 
It would be cool if it could be set up like the MFC101 where buttons 5-8 were presets and you could use the Scene button like the Reveal button on MFC to then use them to turn effects on/off.

I have been using the X/Y function a lot but the Scene function sparingly.
 
TO USE STICKY PRESET/BANK SELECT MODE…
The FX8 returns to Stompbox Mode immediately after you select a Preset. If you want the unit to remain indefinitely stay in Preset/Bank Select Mode so you can change from Preset-to-Preset with single foot taps, just enable “STICKY PRESET/BANK SELECT MODE” in the GLOBAL menu under SETUP:
1.
Press the SETUP button.
2.
Press footswitch 1 to select the GLOBAL menu.
3.
Page to SETTINGS.
4.
Use NAV and VALUE to set STICKY PRESET BANK SELECT to “ON”.
5.
Press EXIT 2x.
Now whenever you press and hold the PRESET/BANK footswitch, the FX8 will remain in preset bank select mode until you tap that same footswitch again (you never need to press and hold to exit any mode.)

this is not what i'm talking about
 
I think JB70's problem with Sticky Preset mode is he still needs to be able to activate and bypass individual effect blocks within the same preset.
If there was a mode that made the top row a bank of 4 presets to be scrolled via Bank up/down and the bottom row could be assigned any blocks you chose...
That might serve a lot of us well.

yep, correct although for my purposes i need access to all 8 effect blocks. it would make the most sense to allow users to program the 3 buttons on the right (scene, looper, tempo) as they would like. i never use the looper or scene functions and i barely use the tap tempo. why not allow us to use the up/down buttons to scroll up/down through the presets and the "scene" button on top could be changed to a tap tempo feature or another useful feature of our choosing?
 
it is RIDICULOUS that you can't get from preset to preset in sequential order using the up/down buttons. i need to have access to both preset mode AND stompbox mode at the same time.

Good suggestion. This function would make the FX8 more "functional." Perhaps someone with more technical know-how can explain if this is can be fixed...or not.
 
I have seen several people here having trouble with the "release" of the button causing the preset or effect being engaged, instead of changing when it is first pressed. I know this enables the x/y. Can we have a mode to disable x/y and have it change effects as soon as the switch is pushed? 8 presets is enough for me (no need for x/y) and would prefer it to change immediately upon contact. thanks!
 
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