Wish Pointer Block

[VittorioAngelo]

Hello Folks;

This is a hair-brained idea I had the other night.

I would find useful a "Pointer Block". "Pointer" being chosen to illustrate the similarity to a C++ pointer, where what's being pointed to is a Preset and Scene within that Preset.

The frustration I have is that I've a couple of Template presets that contain variations of my "tone stack". These templates have no modulation or delay effects only Amps, eq, compressors, cabs, etc..

I use the templates all the time and add modulation/delay effects anew or from other presets. It works great, but it's a bit of a pain as AxeEdit is modal - I can only work on one preset at a time. So, if I wish to modify a preset from AxeChange or bring in a number modulation/delay blocks from another preset, I'm in for 15-30 minutes of cut n' paste and testing.

As a remedy, I thought it would be great to drop a "Pointer Block" into the grid that has a couple of parameters:

1. Preset
2. Scene

And magically, the entire Preset & Scene pointed to by the Pointer Block would be used by the current preset.

Here's a use case:

1. In Preset 001, I create 8 variations of my "tone stack". Let's make it simple for this example:
   Compressor -> Amp -> Cab
2. In Preset 002:
   Input 1 -> Pointer Block [Preset =001, Scene = 1] -> Reverb -> Output 1
3. In Preset 003:
   Input 1 -> Pointer Block [Preset =001, Scene = 2] -> Drive -> Phaser -> Chorus -> Delay -> Reverb -> Output 1

etc...

Necessarily, Preset 001 would act like a global block in that any changes to Preset 001 would be reflected by any other Preset that uses a Pointer Block pointing to Preset 001.

Thank you very much,
Vittorio

 

[sacredgeometry]

This is really not as straightforward as you are making it seem.

 

[laxu]

This sounds like you should be using the block library and global blocks features more instead.

I get the idea, but it sounds complicated for users and potentially a nightmare to manage as you'd need to load all those presets into memory to be able to point to stuff.

 

[fractalz]

Isn't that what global blocks are?

 

[Shenks]

Whilst I don't know the fractal environment, in my job role as a developer I would find this to be exceedingly complicated and subject to too many caveats. How do you deal with recursive aspects? How do you prevent circular subset references? What are the consequences for the user interface?

Maybe as @fractalz has mentioned you may need to look further into the functionality of global blocks?

 

[sacredgeometry]

Whilst I don't know the fractal environment, in my job role as a developer I would find this to be exceedingly complicated and subject to too many caveats. How do you deal with recursive aspects? How do you prevent circular subset references? What are the consequences for the user interface?

Maybe as @fractalz has mentioned you may need to look further into the functionality of global blocks?

Yep same, software engineer with almost 20 years professional experience. There are so so many complexities in this.

 

[Greg Ferguson]

And magically, the entire Preset & Scene pointed to by the Pointer Block would be used by the current preset.

[…] I would find this to be exceedingly complicated and subject to too many caveats. How do you deal with recursive aspects? How do you prevent circular subset references?

[…] There are so so many complexities in this.

But… but… it's magical!

Back to the initial statement, "it's a preset and scene […] used by the current preset." This functionality is provided by the song sections in the Set and Song List. Each section is a pointer to a preset and scene, and a song is made up of multiple sections that can be inside a single or multiple presets. From the mini-manual…

 

[Rex]

But… but… it's magical!

Back to the initial statement, "it's a preset and scene […] used by the current preset." This functionality is provided by the song sections in the Set and Song List. Each section is a pointer to a preset and scene, and a song is made up of multiple sections that can be inside a single or multiple presets. From the mini-manual…

View attachment 122430

This.

The Setlist function is really just a collection of pointers.

 

[sacredgeometry]

But… but… it's magical!

Back to the initial statement, "it's a preset and scene […] used by the current preset." This functionality is provided by the song sections in the Set and Song List. Each section is a pointer to a preset and scene, and a song is made up of multiple sections that can be inside a single or multiple presets. From the mini-manual…

View attachment 122430

Thats not how it works in practice though.

You are saying that you can create arbitrarily nested compositions. Meaning now you need to extend the graph in an additional dimension. Not only that but its contextual to use. So presets might break entirely when nested under the wrong context purely because the nodes being used have already been used in their dependents.

Its a rats nest even ignoring the UX clusterfuck.

Either way yes .. that is what scenes and presets are for.

 

[sacredgeometry]

This.

The Setlist function is really just a collection of pointers.

A set list is different from the implementation listed above and a setlist is no different to just using something to switch between scenes/ presets arbitrarily or just ordering them sequentially.

 

[Greg Ferguson]

You are saying that you can create arbitrarily nested compositions

I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying that the Song sections allow us to point to individual preset scenes, nothing more and nothing less. You get a single level.

The modeler is not a general-purpose computer running a language that allows us to create arbitrarily nested levels of indirection. Doing so would impact the consistency of its switching speed. At one moment it'd be expected to switch to a single level preset with no links, then in the next preset it'd have to pull in arbitrarily-deep levels of scenes from across how many presets? It can't do that in a consistent amount of time, which is a requirement.

 

[Rex]

A set list is different from the implementation listed above and a setlist is no different to just using something to switch between scenes/ presets arbitrarily or just ordering them sequentially.

That implementation would essentially amount to building presets on the fly, as you need them. That’s not something I’d want to wait for in the middle of a gig. Maybe some future generation of gear could have that much horsepower.