Gapless switching and CPU

I just took two presets, the one from post#1 in this thread, and a random preset from Marco Fanton. I made sure the channels of multiple blocks where different across multiple scenes. I started a recording and walked through all scenes and back and forth between the presets. Presets had CPU usage of 70-75%.
Results:
  • I noticed a gap (silence, flat line wave) of 15-30ms when switching presets.
  • All scene changes where completely gapless.
To be clear, I have zero problems with this small gap, i think it is negligible.

Edit: now i went through the first ten factory presets and get gaps from 80-160ms on preset switching. See next posts.
 
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md1234 said:
I just took two presets, the one from post#1 in this thread, and a random preset from Marco Fanton. I made sure the channels of multiple blocks where different across multiple scenes. I started a recording and walked through all scenes and back and forth between the presets. Presets had CPU usage of 70-75%.
Results:
  • I noticed a gap (silence, flat line wave) of 15-30ms when switching presets.
  • All scene changes where completely gapless.
To be clear, I have zero problems with this small gap, i think it is negligible.

Edit: now i went through the first ten factory presets and get gaps from 80-160ms on preset switching.
Click to expand...
You have?

Gapless -> ON
Splilover -> ALL
All presets saved under current firmware
 
unix-guy said:
You have?

Gapless -> ON
Splilover -> ALL
Click to expand...
Gapless -> All
Spillover -> All
unix-guy said:
All presets saved under current firmware
Click to expand...
No, good point, so i did that now for those first ten factory presets, and then the gaps decreased to 15-50ms.

Again, it was/is not something i have a problem with. I was just investigating the issues mentioned in this thread, and came up with some hard numbers.
 
md1234 said:
Gapless -> All
Spillover -> All

No, good point, so i did that now for those first ten factory presets, and then the gaps decreased to 15-50ms.

Again, it was/is not something i have a problem with. I was just investigating the issues mentioned in this thread, and came up with some hard numbers.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I know...

In my experience so far, most people with "issues" aren't doing all required steps.
 
Fischer96 said:
Especially switching amp channels brings out that gap in my case
Click to expand...
Amp channels are especially difficult for the hardware because they rely on internally processing the signal many times to achieve their quality. Switch the channel to a different amp or different settings breaks that and it has to start processing with the new settings.

I'd try setting up the layout with dual amp blocks so that the target amp is bypassed but already on the next channel. The switchover should be less noticeable, but major changes in gain will still be obvious. The amps can be in series, with the Bypass Mode set to Thru, or in parallel with the Bypass Modes set to Mute. In either case, the bypassed amp will be processing signal but it won't be outputting it so when the scene change occurs the modeler only has to toggle the bypass states.
 
md1234 said:
I just took two presets, the one from post#1 in this thread, and a random preset from Marco Fanton. I made sure the channels of multiple blocks where different across multiple scenes. I started a recording and walked through all scenes and back and forth between the presets. Presets had CPU usage of 70-75%.
Results:
  • I noticed a gap (silence, flat line wave) of 15-30ms when switching presets.
  • All scene changes where completely gapless.
To be clear, I have zero problems with this small gap, i think it is negligible.

Edit: now i went through the first ten factory presets and get gaps from 80-160ms on preset switching. See next posts.
Click to expand...
I appreciate you checking out the preset I posted! I’ll have to check that out in Pro Tools with the gap time. It’s such a minute gap that I agree, it’s generally not an issue. I just feel like I remember it being more seamless a few firmwares back, but then again, it could be because of a different preset I used that only did channel changing on the drive block and not amp blocks, but can’t remember. But I feel like I’ve seen YT videos of people demonstrating the amp block changes sounding seamless when this feature was first introduced, so I’m not sure. I figured I’d post it because I thought I heard something about higher cpu being a reason for gapless not working the same, so I thought I would ask about it. Thanks again for checking it out!
 
unix-guy said:
Yeah, I know...

In my experience so far, most people with "issues" aren't doing all required steps.
Click to expand...
I don’t really use any factory presets, but the presets I use have been saved at one point or another since this feature was introduced; probably a few times as changes are made to them. That should take care of those steps, no?
 
Thenewexhibit said:
I don’t really use any factory presets, but the presets I use have been saved at one point or another since this feature was introduced; probably a few times as changes are made to them. That should take care of those steps, no?
Click to expand...
Based on what i've seen now, i'd say that you must save all presets for the current version. The factory presets i have on the unit where loaded and saved on the unit 2-3 months ago. Also, @unix-guy states explicitly:
unix-guy said:
All presets saved under current firmware
Click to expand...
I guess presets that are stored with an older version might get some kind of conversion everytime they are loaded in a newer firmware version, which can cost extra time (hence the bigger gap). @Greg Ferguson or @unix-guy?
 
md1234 said:
Based on what i've seen now, i'd say that you must save all presets for the current version. The factory presets i have on the unit where loaded and saved on the unit 2-3 months ago. Also, @unix-guy states explicitly:

I guess presets that are stored with an older version might get some kind of conversion everytime they are loaded in a newer firmware version, which can cost extra time (hence the bigger gap). @Greg Ferguson or @unix-guy?
Click to expand...
Got ya! That’s where I’m a bit confused; I’ve saved the only presets I use multiple times since this was introduced just by way of making changes. Perhaps I misread the release notes when it says to save “All” presets and assumed only the ones I use. Does this mean that all presets need to be resaved regardless of if you use them because the presets you don’t use can affect the presets you Do use? Am I understanding that correctly?
 
md1234 said:
Based on what i've seen now, i'd say that you must save all presets for the current version. The factory presets i have on the unit where loaded and saved on the unit 2-3 months ago. Also, @unix-guy states explicitly:

I guess presets that are stored with an older version might get some kind of conversion everytime they are loaded in a newer firmware version, which can cost extra time (hence the bigger gap). @Greg Ferguson or @unix-guy?
Click to expand...
Yes.

IIRC, presets have a firmware version signature, and subsequent activations of the preset cause the firmware to do some fixups to catch the preset up to date with the loaded firmware, but it doesn't write it back to FLASH because that'd be heavy-handed.

@Admin M@ recommended backing up the presets using Fractal-Bot, then reimporting them using the Preset Manager and saving them. See the link for his video of the process.

The FM3 actually has a built-in utility function in SETUP > Utilities > Upgrade All Presets to allow the user to tell the modeler to walk through the presets and update them then save them back to FLASH. Because it doesn't have the horsepower of the bigger siblings it's more affected by that update-the-preset-as-its-activated process. Periodically running Upgrade All Presets should be a regular part of our maintenance procedure. :)
 
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Greg Ferguson said:
Yes.

IIRC, presets have a firmware version signature, and subsequent activations of the preset cause the firmware to do some fixups to catch the preset up to date with the loaded firmware, but it doesn't write it back to FLASH because that'd be heavy-handed.

@Admin M@ recommended backing up the presets using Fractal-Bot, then reimporting them using the Preset Manager and saving them. See the link for his video of the process.

The FM3 actually has a built-in utility function in SETUP > Utilities > Upgrade All Presets to allow the user to tell the modeler to walk through the presets and update them then save them back to FLASH.
Click to expand...
This is something I never did to all presets because I don’t use any of the factory presets. I must have misunderstood the instructions. This being said, does this have any bearing on the presets I do use that have been saved since then just from edits to them? Would there be an issue on the presets I do use that have been saved because the majority of other presets I do not use have not been resaved?
 
Thenewexhibit said:
Got ya! That’s where I’m a bit confused; I’ve saved the only presets I use multiple times since this was introduced just by way of making changes. Perhaps I misread the release notes when it says to save “All” presets and assumed only the ones I use. Does this mean that all presets need to be resaved regardless of if you use them because the presets you don’t use can affect the presets you Do use? Am I understanding that correctly?
Click to expand...
It doesn't hurt to do it periodically.

I don't know whether intermediate saves layer additional updates that the firmware has to process, or whether they'll be flushed and it'll only show that loaded version of the firmware. @Admin M@ can clarify.

Even the Factory Presets, because they were saved under an older firmware, can be in the same situation, but after that one pass they won't need it again because, assumedly, there's no user editing occurring to them.
 
When changes are made to the firmware, the unit will update any preset saved under a previous FW version with any new relevant defaults that have been changed whenever that preset is loaded. The Edited LED on the front panel will light up on preset load to reflect those automatic changes. Those changes are not saved automatically. You have to do that manually after auditioning the preset under the new firmware. Those automatic changes add to the number of actions performed on preset load, likely increasing the total load time for that preset.

If the Edited LED does not light up when you load a given preset, that preset does not need to be resaved under the current firmware. If that Edited LED does light up on preset load, it does need to be saved to minimize the total load time.
 
Thenewexhibit said:
I don’t really use any factory presets, but the presets I use have been saved at one point or another since this feature was introduced; probably a few times as changes are made to them. That should take care of those steps, no?
Click to expand...
I really meant the presets you're using... Not really all presets, but all you would expect Gapless behavior when switching between.
 
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