Bass synth and the search for an accessible arpeggiator.

[AlphaK]

Could you potentially replace your 7 pedals: 

With this?

Check this out and goes into detail from 2.10 in...(although I think he may be using a GK midi pup?). The sequencer is unbelievable! That's probably 'cos it's actually: "two 16-part step sequencers for evolving control of pitch, filter, and amplitude"

 

Edited December 5, 2019 by AlphaK

[Quatschmacher]

2 hours ago, AlphaK said:

Could you potentially replace your 7 pedals: 

With this?

Check this out and goes into detail from 2.10 in...(although I think he may be using a GK midi pup?). The sequencer is unbelievable! That's probably 'cos it's actually: "two 16-part step sequencers for evolving control of pitch, filter, and amplitude"

 

Nope. Though Future Impact makes the Deep Impact completely redundant anyway.

It looks way more user-friendly than the SY-300 though. 

Edited December 5, 2019 by Quatschmacher

[AngelDeVille]

OK, I'll be following this thread closely on how to spend my money....

[Owen]

It does slicing. Happy days!

[Kiwi]

7 hours ago, AlphaK said:

Could you potentially replace your 7 pedals: 

 

With this?

Check this out and goes into detail from 2.10 in...(although I think he may be using a GK midi pup?). The sequencer is unbelievable! That's probably 'cos it's actually: "two 16-part step sequencers for evolving control of pitch, filter, and amplitude"

 

I'm a bit wary of all in one units at the moment.  All it takes is for it to do one thing less than expected and the whole unit ends up redundant.  Seven pedals is a lot but, as you have probably read, if one doesn't do the job as expected then I can swap it and leave the rest of the pedal board as is.

[AlphaK]

14 hours ago, Kiwi said:

All it takes is for it to do one thing less than expected and the whole unit ends up redundant.  

If one thing doesn't come up to scratch, surely it just means you need to get one extra pedal rather than 6 extra?

Edited December 6, 2019 by AlphaK

[Kiwi]

13 hours ago, AlphaK said:

If one thing doesn't come up to scratch, surely it just means you need to get one extra pedal rather than 6 extra?

I think what you are suggesting might be true with two conditions:

1) That the starting point was having an SY1000, which is different to where I am as I had already invested in half the pedals in the signal chain anyway, particularly the FI. 

2) That there were alternatives to the SY1000, which as far as I can tell there aren't.

[AlphaK]

2 hours ago, Kiwi said:

I think what you are suggesting might be true with two conditions:

1) That the starting point was having an SY1000, which is different to where I am as I had already invested in half the pedals in the signal chain anyway, particularly the FI. 

2) That there were alternatives to the SY1000, which as far as I can tell there aren't.

Agree with the first, not sure about the relevance of the second point but given your starting point it doesn't make too much difference I guess!

[Kiwi]

Brief update - Mimmotronics eventually replied to my FB message and apologised for not seeing it sooner.  An EHX Freeze with the wet only mod and soft arcade style button has been ordered - it's a cheaper alternative to the Gamechanger Audio pedal and I avoid paying for features I'm unlikely to use.

[Kiwi]

OK so another update.

1) Mimmotronics sent the modded pedal through but the EHX Freeze no longer freezes.  Noone knows why but Mimmo has offered a repair at no cost to me.  Now just have to wait until CNY is over before the post service is working again.  Sigh.

2) Now that the family is housebound, I had a play around in depth with the editing options on the C4 and discovered that it may suffer from the same issue that the Moment Machine had.  Two adjacent steps at the same pitch merge into each other and become one step of double length.

I'm hoping (
@Quatschmacher) that there are some settings  around envelopes that I've missed where I can assign an envelope to steps rather than to the whole sequence.

Also, while I was trying to replicate some Stock Aitken Waterman basslines, I was starting to find the ADSR options a little limiting on the C4.  It seems I can only choose from presets rather than set the curve.  It makes dialing in some SAW sounds impossible as they used ADSR to fine tune filter responses.
 

[Quatschmacher]

10 hours ago, Kiwi said:

OK so another update.

1) Mimmotronics sent the modded pedal through but the EHX Freeze no longer freezes.  Noone knows why but Mimmo has offered a repair at no cost to me.  Now just have to wait until CNY is over before the post service is working again.  Sigh.

2) Now that the family is housebound, I had a play around in depth with the editing options on the C4 and discovered that it may suffer from the same issue that the Moment Machine had.  Two adjacent steps at the same pitch merge into each other and become one step of double length.

I'm hoping (
@Quatschmacher) that there are some settings  around envelopes that I've missed where I can assign an envelope to steps rather than to the whole sequence.

Also, while I was trying to replicate some Stock Aitken Waterman basslines, I was starting to find the ADSR options a little limiting on the C4.  It seems I can only choose from presets rather than set the curve.  It makes dialing in some SAW sounds impossible as they used ADSR to fine tune filter responses.
 

Nope, no option to set envelope by sequence steps unless you hook up to an external sequencer and send MIDI CC messages on those steps. 

You’ve discovered my gripe with the ADSR. It’s so limited, not even having individual control over the attack and decay. Do me a favour and badger Source Audio about adding full ADSR. I guess the more people that request it, the more likely it will be to happen. It’s what I did with the Future Impact and eventually Andras did it and the FI is now even more amazing.

[Kiwi]

21 minutes ago, Quatschmacher said:

Do me a favour and badger Source Audio about adding full ADSR.

Think I'm going to badger them about a bit more than that:
1) ADSR options
2) Envelope filter applied to individual steps
3) UI of the editing software - returns the user to the top level rather than where they left off after downloading/installing a patch.
4) Impact of form factor on connectivity + accessibility (ie. tap tempo button, patch change buttons and lack of MIDI ports)

 

[GisserD]

I've been following this thread with interest and have a question....

Is there a reason you need this to be pedal based? A fairly simple setup within ableton controlled with a midi controller, would undoubtedly deliver almost exactly what you want, and so much more.

[Quatschmacher]

5 hours ago, Kiwi said:

Think I'm going to badger them about a bit more than that:
1) ADSR options
2) Envelope filter applied to individual steps
3) UI of the editing software - returns the user to the top level rather than where they left off after downloading/installing a patch.
4) Impact of form factor on connectivity + accessibility (ie. tap tempo button, patch change buttons and lack of MIDI ports)

 

MIDI is done via their Hub.

Tap tempo can be had by plugging into the external control port or via a controller plugged into the hub.

I agree about the editor jumping back to the top, I keep forgetting to mention this.

Even a sustain stage control would be a huge improvement. I’ve already outlined a way in which ADSR could be implemented without altering or losing any current functionality but I guess it depends on how much code space it would take as it’s pretty close to full already.  

Edited February 1, 2020 by Quatschmacher

[Kiwi]

9 hours ago, GisserD said:

I've been following this thread with interest and have a question....

Is there a reason you need this to be pedal based? A fairly simple setup within ableton controlled with a midi controller, would undoubtedly deliver almost exactly what you want, and so much more.

MIDI Controller being footpedals or bass with pitch to MIDI?  I don't have a MIDI controller with me at the moment, it's back in the UK.  In any case, the lag of pitch to MIDI makes it impossible to sit in the pocket.  A fallback solution is Industrial Radio's bass controller but I wanted to keep things as analogue as possible and to know what was happening where without the inconvenience of hunting through a load of advanced settings or learning to use new software.  I also didn't want to rely on something as fragile as a laptop on stage or on software based solutions which have inbuilt obsolescence.

[Kiwi]

6 hours ago, Quatschmacher said:

MIDI is done via their Hub.

Tap tempo can be had by plugging into the external control port or via a controller plugged into the hub.

I agree about the editor jumping back to the top, I keep forgetting to mention this.

Even a sustain stage control would be a huge improvement. I’ve already outlined a way in which ADSR could be implemented without altering or losing any current functionality but I guess it depends on how much code space it would take as it’s pretty close to full already.  

Re MIDI, I'm not interested in forking out extra dosh for functionality that comes as basic on other pedals though. I really don't understand why they expect customers to compromise this much.

For tap tempo, I could set up another pedal like the Adrenalinn as the clock source but it takes a second/couple of beats to sync.

Sustain stage control is a good one, it would dispense with the need for the modded Freeze pedal completely.

[Quatschmacher]

9 hours ago, Kiwi said:

Re MIDI, I'm not interested in forking out extra dosh for functionality that comes as basic on other pedals though. I really don't understand why they expect customers to compromise this much.

For tap tempo, I could set up another pedal like the Adrenalinn as the clock source but it takes a second/couple of beats to sync.

Sustain stage control is a good one, it would dispense with the need for the modded Freeze pedal completely.

If you want to use the C4 with MIDI then I’m afraid you will have to suck it up and buy at least one piece of external gear, annoying as that is. Second-hand hubs are pretty cheap. 

By controller, I was thinking of the Morningstar MC6 or equivalent, with which you can send PC and CC messages and MIDI clock to the C4

[Quatschmacher]

9 hours ago, Kiwi said:

Sustain stage control is a good one, it would dispense with the need for the modded Freeze pedal completely.

By sustain, I meant the S stage in an ADSR envelope as opposed to note sustain. 

[Cuzzie]

Disaster Area DMC range of midi controllers can work without the hub and into the C4

[Kiwi]

@Quatschmacher message sent - 6 points covered.

[Quatschmacher]

1 hour ago, Kiwi said:

@Quatschmacher message sent - 6 points covered.

Excellent. To whom did you send it? The general support email or one of the individual team members? Also it’s worth posting on C4 thread on The Gear Page forum as Roger and a few others from Source Audio are active there. That is where I made suggestions while the C4 was in development and some of the things I suggested got used (sadly full ADSR wasn’t one of them).

[Kiwi]

I sent it through the general contact page - it seemed appropriate given I don't know any of the staff personally.  I guess it might take a few days to respond though. 

I'm not a a member of the gear page so will need to set something up. 

Points were (IIRC)
1) Envelope for individual steps
2) Mute for individual steps
3) More control over ADSR
4) UI issue in editing software
5) Form factor and connectivity - tap tempo/patch change/MIDI ports in a MkII version
6) New idea - sustain function for incoming notes

[Kiwi]

On 03/02/2020 at 10:57, Kiwi said:

I sent it through the general contact page - it seemed appropriate given I don't know any of the staff personally.  I guess it might take a few days to respond though. 

I'm not a a member of the gear page so will need to set something up. 

Points were (IIRC)
1) Envelope for individual steps
2) Mute for individual steps
3) More control over ADSR
4) UI issue in editing software
5) Form factor and connectivity - tap tempo/patch change/MIDI ports in a MkII version
6) New idea - sustain function for incoming notes

Update on this:  Source Audio mentioned that they discussed the email over staff lunch the day after I sent it which was promising.  I haven't heard anything more back from them than that.

The Freeze pedal will be couriered back to Mimmo for repair very soon now that couriers are sending stuff out of China again. So hopefully it will be with him soon.
 

[Kiwi]

Just a quick update:  The repaired Freeze pedal from Mimmotronics finally arrived.  It works as it should - so I can recommend Mimmo as reputable and trust worthy.  Next thing, when I can find the time, is to get back to exploring and developing some Freemason type arp patches on the C4.  And trying (again) to sort out the mess of patch cables...it seems that no matter how methodical and careful I am with soldering and getting the right lengths of cable, there is ALWAYS one cable that misbehaves...and the more I shift the other pedals around, because I can't find a replacement of the right length, the more tangled they become.  And now I've run out of L shaped 1/4" jacks as well.

And I've found a cheaper alternative to the Eventide H9 harmoniser, the Line 6 ME5, both have multi effects options and MIDI capability.  Lots of compact format ME pedals lack the MIDI connection for some reason.  The Line 6 only does 1 effect at a time though but it's OK there are effects options within the C4 as well so I can use the ME5 for tempo locked delays and maybe chorus while the C4 does phasing and pitch shift.