Wish Scene controllers for Cab block Mute buttons

There IS a bit of a workaround, by panning the amp block output hard left or right. But it has some unexpected behaviors that make it a lot harder to use it, as outlined in this other wish:

"I'm actually not sure whether this is a bug or a wish. Or both.

In the amp block, you can set it up so that on any given channel, slots 1 and 3 are the "left" cabinets, and 2 and 4 are the "right" cabinets. This allows for some interesting possibilities. For example, you can pan the output of the amp all the way to the left and only have cab slots 1 and 3 working. It effectively doubles the available cab options using the same cab block.

But...there are some quirks associated with this. I'll use the scenario outlined above to describe, where Amp is panned full Left (-100), and is being processed only by cab slots 1 and 3:
  • Muting slots 2 or 4 causes a large increase in volume out for the block as a whole. That means any time you go from two cabs to one or vice versa, it affects the amp that isn't even using those cab slots. It also makes visual alignment of the slots more difficult, because to get only those two lines showing on the visual, you have to mute the others. Then you can see the alignment, but you're listening at twice the volume as before.
  • Reducing the level on slot #2 also affects the output level on the 1 and 3 slots.
  • Soloing either the 1 or 3 slot has a similar effect: the output volume jumps by 6dB or so.
  • Changing the levels of slot 1 or 3 to -40 or thereabouts results in a change in volume and tone that is not the same as what you would get if slots 2 and 4 were muted. Overall volume is reduced.
  • Centering the output pan on the amp block also roughly doubles the output at the cab block.
So...I guess I wish these didn't happen this way, but there may be a logical reason they have to."

Someone else on that thread had posted that they thought all the blocks already were normalized, but I don't see how that explains these behaviors. Or maybe I'm just using the term "normalize" wrong.
 
@greiswig THANK YOU for posting that list of cab block anomalies! I spent a while yesterday working on a dual cab setup, and couldn't get my head around what was happening when I muted one cab, to listen to the other one alone. I wasn't trying to do anything fancy, just wanted two amps feeding two cabs.

I'd listen to one cab and it was super quiet, like you'd think you wouldn't even hear it when both were on. But if I turned it up, both together got way way way too loud. So I'd turn the other one down, round in circles, chasing my tail. Ended up settling for something, and feeling like this was way harder than it should have been, and/or I had no idea how this block actually worked.

Here's a vote for straightening this out! I'm not smart enough to use it in its current state :)
 
Dave Merrill said:
Here's a vote for straightening this out! I'm not smart enough to use it in its current state :)
Click to expand...

It's deceptively hard to make some things just work intuitively for users, and we start to take it for granted. The tribe at Fractal has done a great job for the most part. Hopefully they'll implement this to open up some flexibility for us.
 
greiswig said:
It's deceptively hard to make some things just work intuitively for users, and we start to take it for granted. The tribe at Fractal has done a great job for the most part. Hopefully they'll implement this to open up some flexibility for us.
Click to expand...
Absolutely, understood! HUGE respect to Fractal, on a million levels!

I just wish this particular feature could be easier to use. If the problem is the way I'm thinking about it, please enlighten me.

I thought cab levels would control the volume of the corresponding cab pretty directly, but either it's not working right, or the design isn't that simple.
 
@Dave Merrill Here is how I think of it:

The Cab Block has four channels. 1 & 3 are Left channels. When the amp block is set to centered output, and the Cab block channels are also all panned to the center, things in the cab block act very simply.
  • Both the L and R channels see the same signal.
  • When you mute, solo, or change the level of one of the channels, the block adjusts the overall level accordingly. So although there might be a perceived change in loudness (e.g. when you mute a particularly strident channel), the overall volume is actually working hard to stay the same. If it didn't, every time you muted a channel, your volume would drop by about half. And every time you unmuted a channel, the volume would about double. Not very helpful.
Re-reading your post #7 above, I'm not sure but what you're actually talking about a different issue. Are you using two cab blocks? Because I'm just talking about using 1 block, but trying to access the channels of that one block differently from how you can currently.
 
I was just going to post this as a wish, I see it’s been previously requested. Any update?
 
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