Wish MFC-101 able to scroll patches and not engage until scene selected

6stringscott

Inspired
I really like the scenes functionality, and use it extensively for changing sounds within a song.

Sometimes I want to switch patches in the middle of a song, or when practicing with the band to quickly hear how different potential patches sound with the overall mix. I find it very annoying to scroll through the patches using the floorboard one at a time, and each item scrolled through incurs a little delay for the midi message updates, and there is sound bleed-out from the patches I scroll through (e.g. one toy patch I did to make the Pink Floyd "On the Run" sound using step-sequencer and synths, so no input from guitar required to trigger it, but it is annoying to hear that when scrolling through to get to a different patch).

I really liked how the Line6 AX2 2x12 handled this- you had up/down buttons for scrolling through patches, but they didn't actually take effect until you hit a second button to choose A/B/C/D within that patch. So essentially it is a 2-button sequence to trigger the patch change.

The main benefit of this is the ability to keep playing with a given tone, while you tap through to find the alternate patch you want, hit the button to prep that patch, and it switches over instantaneously the moment you select the second button. No hearing a steady stream of interruptions while you tap through a list.


So in MFC-101 terms, this would be a request to not send MIDI CC out when pressing the patch up/down buttons, but rather save that state locally and wait until a scene is selected to actually send the CC for the patch change (if the patch has changed since the last press of a scene change button) and then right after send the scene change.

Is there a way to do this already or is this a net new feature request?
 
Thanks for pointers to the bank style "none" functionality. I had no idea about that.

Does the scene selector switch engage the patch when using bank size 0 and bank style none? If yes, great! Does it also change the MFC display to show the name "on deck" that is ready to be selected via the scene change button? If yes, WooHoo! Ignore the rest of my drivel. If not...


I'm away from home and my unit at the moment, or else I would simply try it out and report back results... but, I can't help myself from posting a follow-on question:

I use my bottom row for all scene selectors, and I don't have a preset selector button configured and don't want to waste one for it... Ideally I would just use the bank up/down buttons with bank size 0 so I scroll through my relatively small number of patches one at a time showing the name of each patch on the display, but not actually engaging the patch change until I press the scene selector.

Here is the closest I can figure out to get this mostly working (all theoretical at this point, I'm away from my unit for a week):

1. MFC101: Bank size: 1
2. MFC101: Bank Style: None
3. AXE FX: PC Mapping Mode: Custom
4. AXE FX: Ignore Redundant PC: On (to preserve seamless scene changes)
5. AXE FX: MAP FROM PC / TO PC / SCENE:
000 / 000 / Scene 1
001 / 000 / Scene 2
002 / 000 / Scene 3
003 / 000 / Scene 4
004 / 000 / Scene 5

005 / 001 / Scene 1
006 / 001 / Scene 2
007 / 001 / Scene 3
008 / 001 / Scene 4
009 / 001 / Scene 5

etc.


This is an ugly mess of manual programming, but it's doable and seems like it would work with some quirks:
1) The patch number displayed on the MFC-101 will probably not be in sync with the patch number on the AxeFX?
2) Five-fold reduction in the total number of selectable patches (which is not a problem for me at all)
3) When I press the bank up/down button, I am choosing the ranges 000-004, 005-009, etc rather than the individual names of the patch that is "on deck" and ready to be selected. So I still can't scroll through the up down patches to see the patch names prior to selecting one with the scene selector button. Is there a way to fix this problem? A work around for this might clear the final show-stopper for me to give it a try.

This is quirky enough for me that I won't use this hack (unless there is a good work-around for #3), but it might be an idea for someone else.

Is there a better way to achieve what I am trying to achieve?


It would be nice if the scene selector switch would engage the patch when using bank size 0 and bank style none, and the display should show the patch that is queued up ready to be selected by pressing the scene change button. That would enable scrolling through names before actually selecting one via scenes, without messing with custom PC/scene mapping.
 
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after reading, i don't understand why you are doing PC mapping.

there really isn't any way to have the name show before the preset is activated when using Bank Size 1 and Bank Up/Down.

i actually suggest using Bank Size 0 instead of Bank Size 1 (more in the link i post below).

what is this "scene selector switch" you speak of?

read this: How do I turn on Scene Mode on the MFC-101?
 
Thanks Chris; the fog of my ignorance is slowly clearing!

I originally followed this guide to set up IA switches 1-5 to be scenes 1-5:
http://forum.fractalaudio.com/mfc-discussion/61105-tutorial-using-scenes-axe-fx-ii-mfc-101-a.html

I have been using bank size 0 so that is why I never had to press reveal to get the scene switch functionality- just direct IA.

Now, I am struggling to get the behavior I would like (keep the functionality of IA1-5 for scenes and use the patch up/down buttons to scroll through patches, but create a two-step patch selection process). I want to see the patch names on the display as I scroll with the up/down buttons, but not have it actually change the patch until I press a bottom row button 1-5 on the foot controller. I know I can't get that right now, just exploring how close I can get with existing features.

A correction to my plan above would be to set bank size = 5. The basic strategy is for mfc-101 to think it's just changing between 5 patches on the bottom row buttons (using the buttons as preset buttons), but AxeFX is configured to convert each group of 5 PC messages to all be the same patch number but different scenes. The point of doing this is so I still get the benefit of scene switching with IA buttons 1-5 on the foot controller, and I can scroll up down between "patches" on axefx side (but technically its just scrolling through banks from the mfc-101 perspective) without actually engaging any "patch" until I press the IA associated with the scene I want in that "patch".

The big missing element here is getting the name display of the patch name on the foot controller before selecting it. I think I can get everything else working.

Is it clear what I'm trying to achieve and how I'm trying to go about it? Is it clear what I'm asking for to make this process simpler?

I'd be surprised if I'm the only one who would like a workflow like this.
 
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I think the main issue is that you want to scroll to a Preset and have it "ready" and then press a particular Scene button and change to both the new Preset AND a particular Scene the same time. This cannot be done "organically" and perhaps is the reason for your custom mapping idea.

But underlying that is the fact that you can't switch to a particular preset and have it waiting to engage, on standby.

You'll probably have to settle for Bank Size 2, only use the first button of each Bank of 2, assign other switches as Scenes, and press 2 switches - Preset (switch 1) then Scene.

Or change the way you think of presets and get rid of the "preset waiting" necessity.
 
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