scene switching with time based effect produces pops, zippering, reverb tails.

Dutch

Dutch

Fractal Fanatic
When switching scenes with different delay and reverb settings the FM3 often produces quite loud sounds in the middle of performance. Zippering, pops, ghost reverb tails and such.

Being in the worship community I often use different settings in parts of songs. For example ambient intro's that need to get thinner further on in the songs.

Any way to prevent that? Mute settings?
Don't remember the AX8 doing that.
 
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I'm not sure of anyway around this, but curious to see if there are any suggestions. I've definitely experienced what you are describing and have made a point to not change channels on delay or reverb between scenes I intend to jump between in a given song.
 
I've also experienced this and it'd be awesome if anyone could shed some light on why it occurs. It doesn't seem to be a glitch in the FM3 as it's always seemingly been a result of my own programming, but it'd be great to understand more about why it happens and how to avoid it.
 
I watched a YouTube video (I guess it was on Leon Todd channel) about delays in the Axe-FX III that explains a little bit about delay and reverb spillover (trails)... In the video, the guy says that for the spillover to work correctly, there are 2 factors:

1 - The position of the block must be the same in the grid (this applies to preset changes)
2 - The type of Delay/Reverb must be the same, or as similar as possible, because if you change types, glitches may occur in the trails. IIRC, he says something about the algorithm changing when you change the type of Delay/Reverb within the scene and this brings these glitches to the spillover...

To avoid this behavior on Axe-FX III, he recommends using different blocks when these different types of Delay/Reverb are needed, as this unit can run up to 4 delay blocks and 2 reverb blocks within the same preset... But for our FM3s, we can only apply this tip for the Delay, as it can run 2 Delay blocks. I'll try to find the link for the video to post here!
 
It wasn't on Leon Todd's channel... It was on Mathew Dale's:

But I also seen someone else talk in depth about this, I can't remember who...
 
Dutch said:
When switching scenes with different delay and reverb settings the FM3 often produces quite loud sounds in the middle of performance. Zippering, pops, ghost reverb tails and such.

Being in the worship community I often use different settings in parts of songs. For example ambient intro's that need to get thinner further on in the songs.

Any way to prevent that? Mute settings?
Don't remember the AX8 doing that.
Click to expand...

Not really possible on the FM3 as when changing scenes within a block to another type of the same effect you are simply loading a new set of parameters which are updated in real time, you are hearing the artifacts of those changes. If you want to take the approach you currently are you'll either need to simplify your setup, add an external device, or step up to the FM9.

However, for your example of "ambient intro's that need to get thinner further on in the songs", controlling input gain of a Plex Delay in parallel would achieve that (or a volume block preceding a reverb in parallel). Assigned to an expression you could have real time control of "mix" without impacting effect tails.
 
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Dutch said:
When switching scenes with different delay and reverb settings the FM3 often produces quite loud sounds in the middle of performance. Zippering, pops, ghost reverb tails and such.

Being in the worship community I often use different settings in parts of songs. For example ambient intro's that need to get thinner further on in the songs.

Any way to prevent that? Mute settings?
Don't remember the AX8 doing that.
Click to expand...

The issue is changing channels on those blocks can cut off the current channel unnaturally, or bring in latent tails from the new channel (I'm assuming you're in a situation where spillover doesn't help you).

One way to avoid these artifacts is to set the bypass mode to mute input and do not change channels on those blocks. If you need to switch to a different delay, use two delay blocks and do your switching by bypassing one block while unbypassing the other, instead of changing channels. Yes, that requires more blocks and more cpu, but that's the only way to completely avoid those artifacts. If you're always doing the switching in the same order, you can use that technique to switch through a sequence of more than two effects while only using two blocks. Otherwise, to avoid the artifacts, you'll have to let the tails decay before switching channels. Or sometimes you can use scene controllers to adjust the effect parameters instead of switching channels.
 
I know it's the different settings in the channels. Mute in doesn't help, the stuff is already in there and it will even do it when I've been silent for a while. It sort of generates the sound. Pretty cool stuff if it didn't interfere with my playing.

Anyway. I'll try all of that.
 
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I've run across this across this issue without switching channels or presets whatsoever. It's happened in a kitchen-sink preset of mine where I'm using a Control Switch to modify amp settings to get clean/crunch tones. I'll see if I can replicate the issue and post the preset here for you guys to check out.
 
À solution could be to use parallel chains for time-based effects and the "mute fx in" on bypass. There's a very nice video from @Marco Fanton on this :

I use a lot of time based effects and do not suffer using these principles.
 
If you change channels on a delay block between scenes, you can introduce a zippering effect because you're effectively "turning" the knobs between scenes. Especially a longer delay time/high delay value switching to a shorter delay time/shorter value.
 
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