Future Impact v3 and now V4

[Quatschmacher]

Guessing I can finally post this family shot:

[Quatschmacher]

Important points:

 

All existing v1 and v3 patches can be loaded onto a V4 pedal.

 

 

V4 is new hardware, firmware structure and patch file structure. This means that:
 

V4 firmware cannot be loaded onto earlier pedals;

 

Patches created in V4 cannot be loaded onto earlier pedals.

Edited March 4 by Quatschmacher

[Quatschmacher]

The manual should hopefully be available relatively soon. I just have one small part left to integrate and then some finessing to do.

[lidl e]

Answered...

 

Gotta feel for the person who bought the last V3.

Edited March 4 by lidl e

[Quatschmacher]

1 hour ago, lidl e said:

Answered...

 

Gotta feel for the person who bought the last V3.

There were no surprises. V4 was talked about publicly on Talkbass in March 2023.

 

v3 is still the great pedal it always was and was heavily discounted over the last year. 

Edited March 4 by Quatschmacher

[lidl e]

29 minutes ago, Quatschmacher said:

There were no surprises. V4 was talked about publicly on Talkbass in March 2023.

 

v3 is still the great pedal it always was and was heavily discounted over the last year. 

So there's a lot to take in there

 

In layman's terms, as someone who loves my FI but really only use other peoples patches with slight tweaks, what am i missing out as far as new sounds? 

 

Are there going to be some new crazy patches that sre just not possible with the v3?

 

Is this really only exciting for heavy duty deep divers, or is there something that would immediately jump out to a casual user just plugging a v3 and v4 in side by side?

[Al Krow]

9 minutes ago, lidl e said:

So there's a lot to take in there

 

In layman's terms, as someone who loves my FI but really only use other peoples patches with slight tweaks, what am i missing out as far as new sounds? 

 

Are there going to be some new crazy patches that sre just not possible with the v3?

 

Is this really only exciting for heavy duty deep divers, or is there something that would immediately jump out to a casual user just plugging a v3 and v4 in side by side?

 

" Superior pitch tracking - Greatly reduced latency and increased sensitivity to input instrument dynamics. Pitch detection can now be set to prioritize speed or accuracy;" 

 

The tracking was always my stumbling block with the FI. Appreciate it's done in a different manner, but the lack of glitchiness and tight tracking of the Boss SY1 / SY-200 was the key differentiator for me even though the FI always had better sounds. This change has definitely got my attention!

[lidl e]

8 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

 

" Superior pitch tracking - Greatly reduced latency and increased sensitivity to input instrument dynamics. Pitch detection can now be set to prioritize speed or accuracy;" 

 

The tracking was always my stumbling block with the FI. Appreciate it's done in a different manner, but the lack of glitchiness and tight tracking of the Boss SY1 / SY-200 was the key differentiator for me even though the FI always had better sounds. This change has definitely got my attention!

Ya, thats the one for sure.

 

Let us know how dramatic the difference is when you get the v4!

[Quatschmacher]

10 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

tight tracking of the Boss SY1 / SY-200

Just to avoid perpetuating a falsehood, these Boss pedals do not track anything at all, they simply overlay the existing audio with a signal that makes it sound like a synth. 

[Quatschmacher]

6 minutes ago, lidl e said:

Ya, thats the one for sure.

 

Let us know how dramatic the difference is when you get the v4!

The ACCURACY priority setting does get rid of the pitch blip entirely.

 

Was it not clear from the picture I posted and the fact that I have been one of the primary contributors to the development that I already have the pedal? I’ve been testing and developing it for months. 

Edited March 4 by Quatschmacher

[Quatschmacher]

33 minutes ago, lidl e said:

So there's a lot to take in there

 

In layman's terms, as someone who loves my FI but really only use other peoples patches with slight tweaks, what am i missing out as far as new sounds? 

 

Are there going to be some new crazy patches that sre just not possible with the v3?

 

Is this really only exciting for heavy duty deep divers, or is there something that would immediately jump out to a casual user just plugging a v3 and v4 in side by side?

Sound quality is noticeably better. Oscillator sync patches are cool. (I can now share a clip; excuse the background noise as I had a ground loop as I was daisy-chaining.)

 

If you do on-pedal tweaks there’s MUCH more variation available without ever having to load any patches on and you can save them permanently to the patch data. Sensitivity improvements are very welcome.

 

Having release on the ADSR even when using a bass is a massive difference. You can pluck and stop a note but have the synth note ring out for ages. 

Edited March 4 by Quatschmacher

[lidl e]

7 minutes ago, Quatschmacher said:

The ACCURACY priority setting does get rid of the pitch blip entirely.

 

Was it not clear from the picture I posted and the fact that I have been one of the primary contributors to the development that I already have the pedal? I’ve been testing and developing it for months. 

That was to Al Krow!

[Quatschmacher]

1 minute ago, lidl e said:

That was to Al Krow!

My sincere apologies, I clearly didn’t read that properly! (Too much testing and not enough sleep.)

Edited March 4 by Quatschmacher

[Al Krow]

3 minutes ago, Quatschmacher said:

Just to avoid perpetuating a falsehood, these Boss pedals do not track anything at all, they simply overlay the existing audio with a signal that makes it sound like a synth. 

 

Yes that point has been made multiple times, haha, hence my stating that they use a different mechanism.

 

But as a user of the pedal the underlying electronic wizardry is much less important for me (and I suspect others) ie what we're interested is how it sounds / works for ourselves and our audiences. The recent Boss pedals SY-1 and SY-200 "tracking" of what we're playing is pretty flawless (and a massive improvement on the SYB-3 and SYB-5 predecessors) and the lack of glitch blip set them apart from the FI for live use for me.

[Al Krow]

4 minutes ago, Quatschmacher said:

My sincere apologies, I clearly didn’t read that properly! (Too much testing and not enough sleep.)

 

You've done an amazing job, Peter. No one'd going to deny that!

[lidl e]

7 minutes ago, Quatschmacher said:

Sound quality is noticeably better. Oscillator sync patches are cool. (I can now share a clip; excuse the background noise as I had a ground loop as I was daisy-chaining.)

 

If you do on-pedal tweaks there’s MUCH more variation available without ever having to load any patches on and you can save them permanently to the patch data. Sensitivity improvements are very welcome.

 

Having release on the ADSR even when using a bass is a massive difference. You can pluck and stop a note but have the synth note ring out for ages. 

 

That sounds killer for sure!

 

Is that a patch that will wotk om v4 only?

 

Any chance you have a patch that works on both that might give an audible difference you can post?

[Quatschmacher]

Just now, lidl e said:

That sounds killer for sure!

 

Is that a patch that will wotk om v4 only?

 

Any chance you have a patch that works on both that might give an audible difference you can post?

Yes, that’s a sync patch so V4 only.

 

You mean a sound comparison of the same patch on v3 and V4 to hear the audio quality differences? I can probably manage that at some point. Could trigger it via MIDI too so that the input is exactly the same for both. 

[Al Krow]

20 minutes ago, Quatschmacher said:

The ACCURACY priority setting does get rid of the pitch blip entirely.

 

If we select ACCURACY priority, how much latency in terms of ms should we be expecting?

[Quatschmacher]

2 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

 

If we select ACCURACY priority, how much latency in terms of ms should we be expecting?

I don’t know, I have no means of measuring it. It’s dependent on the note played too. There is some more optimisation work going on at the moment before release so I can’t give a final figure until that work is fully implemented. 

[lidl e]

17 minutes ago, Quatschmacher said:

Yes, that’s a sync patch so V4 only.

 

You mean a sound comparison of the same patch on v3 and V4 to hear the audio quality differences? I can probably manage that at some point. Could trigger it via MIDI too so that the input is exactly the same for both. 

If you find the time and it isnt too much effort.

 

Thanks, QM!

 

 

[Quatschmacher]

10 minutes ago, lidl e said:

If you find the time and it isnt too much effort.

 

Thanks, QM!

 

 

Will do my best but I have a lot of very pressing life stuff going on at the moment so it might have to wait a bit. (Need to finish up the manual before everything at home kicks off too.)

[Kiwi]

I'm glad Andras is going from strength to strength in the FI story. 

FWIW is all I would like in ANY bass synth pedal is a 16 step arpeggiator with ADSR control and mute for each step.  Source Audio thought it was a good idea but had already hit the limits of their hardware.  Obviously Andras is taking things in a different direction too which is disappointing for me but no doubt the bulk of users out there don't need it.
 

 

On 24/02/2024 at 04:56, Quatschmacher said:

Who says FI doesn’t sound like a “proper synth”?

 

Which bass are you using for this clip, Peter?  I found even with the Akai SB1 that single pickup basses tended to track best.  I'm wondering if that might have changed.

[Quatschmacher]

1 hour ago, Kiwi said:

I'm glad Andras is going from strength to strength in the FI story. 

FWIW is all I would like in ANY bass synth pedal is a 16 step arpeggiator with ADSR control and mute for each step.  Source Audio thought it was a good idea but had already hit the limits of their hardware.  Obviously Andras is taking things in a different direction too which is disappointing for me but no doubt the bulk of users out there don't need it.
 

 

Which bass are you using for this clip, Peter?  I found even with the Akai SB1 that single pickup basses tended to track best.  I'm wondering if that might have changed.

The fact that the FI responds to MIDI means you can use any other bit of sequencer/arp hardware to trigger it. Korg make some cheap sequencers.

 

This clip is a Precision bass but I’ve had plenty of success using Jazz basses with it in the past.

 

Also, as there’s still more than half the space left in the new pedal there are some things we’re developing that will take this even further. (Technically there are 4 separate apps and only two are in use with the current implementation.)

Edited March 4 by Quatschmacher

[Al Krow]

51 minutes ago, Quatschmacher said:

The fact that the FI responds to MIDI means you can use any other bit of sequencer/arp hardware to trigger it. Korg make some cheap sequencers.

 

This clip is a Precision bass but I’ve had plenty of success using Jazz basses with it in the past.

 

Also, as there’s still more than half the space left in the new pedal there are some things we’re developing that will take this even further. (Technically there are 4 separate apps and only two are in use with the current implementation.)

 

Good point re midi and arp sequencers.

 

"More than half the space left" = the V4 has more than double the memory capacity of the V3? Nice one!

Edited March 4 by Al Krow

[Quatschmacher]

1 hour ago, Al Krow said:

 

Good point re midi and arp sequencers.

 

"More than half the space left" = the V4 has more than double the memory capacity of the V3? Nice one!

There’s a caveat. As I said, it’s split into 4 apps internally and two of these are taken up with the current implementation. The other two apps won’t be extensions to the current VA engine but will be different things (such as an FM synth, effects (I’ve suggested a simple-architecture polysynth too (obviously MIDI-only))).

 

Yes, in the same way that the FI was developed over 6 years, V4 has space to be developed over the next few years. 

Edited March 4 by Quatschmacher