Wish Managing Channels Improvement : Channel Info

jordikt

Experienced
EDITED:
The implement of this wish seems difficult to implement due excessive data storage in FM3/AXE unit.
I found another way to give text description to channels using tags, using less memory.
Find it here:

https://forum.fractalaudio.com/thre...n-for-all-channels-with-small-storage.171439/

It's always difficult for me to remember what is the configuration of every channel of every block. The more complex is the preset, more difficult to remember it.

I think that a very good improvement is to give to every channel of every block a text field for writting information.

I have designed some screenshots to tell the idea.

I will use a Reverb Block as example for the explanation. This Reverb Block has the following channel structure:
Ch. A = soft reverb
Ch. B = more reverb than Ch. A
Ch. C = half reverb than Ch. B
Ch. D = reverb bypassed, no reverb

Let's go. When we select the reverb block, there is a new tab called "Info" in the central area, and one new field called "Channel Info" at the left area, below the Block Library field. It would look like this:

Block Info Page.png
The new tab Info would have 2 fields:
Channel Info: Short sentence
Channel Info Details, available for a long text information.

The short sentence of the Channel Info field will be used for:

1) It is shown inside the new Channel Info field of the left area. In this example, if the reverb is in the channel A, this field will show "Soft Reverb". If we are in channel B, as the previous image, the field will show "More reverb than Ch. A".

This is useful because you always know with a fast eye view what channel you are editing. It doesn't matter if you are in the Basic tab or the Advanced tab, you always know where you are.

2) It is shown as a tooltip when mouse is over the letter of one channel in the left area. For example, channel A is active, and mouse over the letter B shows "More reverb than Ch.A". Something like this:

Mouse Text.png
3) It is shown as a tooltip when mouse is over the letter of the channel selected on the scene manager window. For example, the next image shows the Channel Info when mouse is over the channel B of scene 4:

Scene Manager Mouse Text.png
4) In the previous situation, if we click in the B channel, it appears the drop-down menu for selecting channel A, B, C, or D, and every channel is showing the channel info. The menu would look like the following image. I think this could be very very helpful to select easily the channels in every scene for every block without any confussion. At least for me.

Scene Manager DropdownMenu.png
 
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This has been wished before in various flavors going back to Axe Fx II...
I was searching for previous posts with terms like memo, info, notes, etc.
I didn't find anything, so I supposed that nobody had asked for this feature.
Hope it can be implemented asap.
 
hmm i don't know how that would work. Edit gets the block data from the Axe directly, so if this note text was stored with the block, it'd have to be stored on the Axe itself i think. that'd be a ton of potential memory for notes of x length.

if it was stored as a reference to "block position 24" and you move the block, it wouldn't match anymore.

maybe there's some way to do it, but if after this long of it being wished for, it may not be possible.
 
hmm i don't know how that would work. Edit gets the block data from the Axe directly, so if this note text was stored with the block, it'd have to be stored on the Axe itself i think. that'd be a ton of potential memory for notes of x length.

if it was stored as a reference to "block position 24" and you move the block, it wouldn't match anymore.

maybe there's some way to do it, but if after this long of it being wished for, it may not be possible.
Good reflection!

I think the short text should be saved in the AXE/FM3 unit, and the long text in the computer.

Let's consider a preset with 20 blocks (a complex preset):
20 blocks x 4 channels = 80 channels -> 80 channels x 1 short note per channel = 80 short text notes per preset
If every short text note is restricted to 10 characters, we would have a maximum of 800 characters per preset
800 characters per preset x 512 presets = a maximum of 409.600 characters to save in the "hard drive" of the AXE/FM3UNIT
Google says 1 megabyte = 1.048.576 characters. Then 409.600 characters = 0,4 megabytes

I don't know if 0,4 MB is too much or not for the hard drive of the AXE/FM3.

The long text note could be saved by AXE/FM3EDIT in a plist on the computer, something like <presetName="APOLOGETIC DST", block=Reverb1, channel=channelB, shortText="More Reverb than Ch.A", longText="bla bla bla">

AXE/FM3EDIT reads the plist and if presetName="APOLOGETIC DST" & block=Reverb1 & channel=channelB & shortText="More Reverb than Ch.A" then AXE/FM3EDIT shows the longText "bla bla bla" in the screen.

If long text note is referenced like this, no problem if the reverb block is deleted or moved around the grid, or even the preset is moved to another number. But if the name of the preset is changed in the unit, then the editor will not read it.

Anyway, the long text is not the key point for me. So no problem if it's not possible to implement.

The short text for identify channels is the most important.

- - -

The preset banks A+B+C+D have a size of 12,8 MB in my computer (3,2MB per bank).

Maybe it could be interesting to have a global preference to choose how to use the hard drive of the AXE/FM3 unit, something like:

- Enable Preset Bank D or Enable the special properties for banks A,B, and C

That would mean to disable the 127 presets of bank D, but have the ability to write notes for all the presets of banks A, B and C (and other functions that could be interesting and are not applied for memory reasons)

I am using the banks A, B, and 12 presets of C, so I would choose to have "only" 381 presets with the ability to write notes on the channels of that 381 presets.
 
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This becomes a problem when one uses multiple computers to interface with their unit(s).
Yes, that's a problem. I think long text is not convenient.
1 million thanks for the searching link!! I have been reading all them.
I searched "notes", "info", "memo" inside the forum of FM3 wishes, that was a mistake. I should search in all forums.
I will do it better next time... :)
 
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