Future Impact v3 and now V4

[prowla]

1 hour ago, stewblack said:

I thought this is a midi controller?🤔

 

Sorry - I meant the FI!

I think I missed the Behringer thing, somehow; yes, that is a MIDI controller!

 

 

 

 

Edited May 23, 2020 by prowla

[stewblack]

It appeals to me as it is affordable and nice big easy to see hard to miss buttons for stage work. Not necessary but interesting. I like @Quatschmacher idea of chords!

Anyway had a great session with the FI this afternoon. Just continuing to feel my way in. Followed the tutorial on making a chorus pedal and then did a prolonged 'what if' session. By which I mean, what  if I wanted an octave lower, distortion to track the chorus? Or what if I want the clean signal mixed with a different sound that kind of thing. By doing this I find I'm building an idea of how different controls impact on the over all sound.

[prowla]

Well, I plugged it into the computer today and blundered around doing stuff 'til some sounds came out.

Some feedback:

• The manual could do with a "Hello World!" section, describing how to connect for the first time and get a sound out.
• The app could use an indicator that it has connected to the FI, or maybe a "Check connection" menu option.
• I tried using a small Akai LPK25 USB keyboard and it worked on one run of 4. (I was running it on a Windoze 10 laptop.)

[Quatschmacher]

44 minutes ago, prowla said:

The manual could do with a "Hello World!" section, describing how to connect for the first time and get a sound out.

Do you mean getting sounds from the pedal itself as a stand-alone thing? Or do you mean how to connect it to the the editor and get sounds via it?

Did you read the section on “how to build your first sound”?

 

47 minutes ago, prowla said:

The app could use an indicator that it has connected to the FI, or maybe a "Check connection" menu option.

Not sure if that’s even possible as it’s only one-way communication from the computer to the pedal (except when writing patches to the pedal).

 

55 minutes ago, prowla said:

I tried using a small Akai LPK25 USB keyboard and it worked on one run of 4. (I was running it on a Windoze 10 laptop.)

What do you mean worked on one run of 4? Do you mean it only made sound on about 25% of the patches? Some patches are comprised of instrument-derived sound only so have no synth content and so a keyboard won’t work. Did you select the Akai as the “keyboard input instrument”?

[prowla]

2 hours ago, Quatschmacher said:

Do you mean getting sounds from the pedal itself as a stand-alone thing? Or do you mean how to connect it to the the editor and get sounds via it?

Did you read the section on “how to build your first sound”?

How to connect the editor to it and get sounds out.

I wasn't looking at building a sound - just how to get something at all from the editor, without twiddling knobs/sliders; maybe one of the existing sounds.

2 hours ago, Quatschmacher said:

Not sure if that’s even possible as it’s only one-way communication from the computer to the pedal (except when writing patches to the pedal).

Well, I had both In and Out connected (ie. computer MIDI Out connected to FI MIDI In port and computer MIDI In plugged into the FI's MIDI Out port).

I tried saving one sound from the FI to file, but the editor crashed, so I didn't know if it was connecting or not (it did this every time I tried; I only specified program #1 to pull) but then I chose the option to save all programs from FI to files and that worked!

Having done that, I was then able to use the +/- buttons in the editor (also left/right arrow keys) to go through the programs and control/tweak the FI settings in real-time.

2 hours ago, Quatschmacher said:

What do you mean worked on one run of 4? Do you mean it only made sound on about 25% of the patches? Some patches are comprised of instrument-derived sound only so have no synth content and so a keyboard won’t work. Did you select the Akai as the “keyboard input instrument”?

Yep using the Akai as a keyboard, instead of the little one at the bottom of the editor.

I could play a note on the virtual keyboard and it was OK, but swapping the keyboard setting to the Akai only worked once for me.

(Yes, I selected it as the Keyboard, with the FI as both Input and Output in the Preferences dialog.)

[Quatschmacher]

13 hours ago, prowla said:

How to connect the editor to it and get sounds out.

I wasn't looking at building a sound - just how to get something at all from the editor, without twiddling knobs/sliders; maybe one of the existing sounds.

Well, I had both In and Out connected (ie. computer MIDI Out connected to FI MIDI In port and computer MIDI In plugged into the FI's MIDI Out port).

I tried saving one sound from the FI to file, but the editor crashed, so I didn't know if it was connecting or not (it did this every time I tried; I only specified program #1 to pull) but then I chose the option to save all programs from FI to files and that worked!

Having done that, I was then able to use the +/- buttons in the editor (also left/right arrow keys) to go through the programs and control/tweak the FI settings in real-time.

Yep using the Akai as a keyboard, instead of the little one at the bottom of the editor.

I could play a note on the virtual keyboard and it was OK, but swapping the keyboard setting to the Akai only worked once for me.

(Yes, I selected it as the Keyboard, with the FI as both Input and Output in the Preferences dialog.)

You only need to hook up one cable when performing any function other than writing patches to the pedal’s memory slots (midi out from computer to midi in on FI). Have you read the FAQ section? This is covered there under the item called “how do I listen to and add new sounds to my pedal”.

Edited May 24, 2020 by Quatschmacher

[Quatschmacher]

@prowla your keyboard problem might be that windows only allows one instance of midi over usb at once. 

[prowla]

42 minutes ago, Quatschmacher said:

@prowla your keyboard problem might be that windows only allows one instance of midi over usb at once. 

Might be that, but I think I've had items daisy-chained before; I may go back and try some more diagnosis out at some point. 🙂

[Quatschmacher]

30 minutes ago, prowla said:

Might be that, but I think I've had items daisy-chained before; I may go back and try some more diagnosis out at some point. 🙂

Also, you should unplug the FI midi out port if you’re not writing patches to the pedal as it can cause midi loop problems otherwise. 

[Quatschmacher]

34 minutes ago, prowla said:

Might be that, but I think I've had items daisy-chained before; I may go back and try some more diagnosis out at some point. 🙂

How do you mean “daisy chained”?

Windows only allows one instance of USB MIDI. I cannot have the FI editor open and use my Morningstar web midi editor at the same time. Once one is open, the other either won’t boot or won’t receive data. I’ve never tried using the FI via pc with a usb keyboard connection but imagine the same problem will occur. I usually use the DIN port on my keyboard and go into either my interface or the MC8. Previously I’ve done it with the UM-One mk2 - plugging the um-one mk2’s “out” cable into the FI’s MIDI input and the keyboard’s MIDI out into the UM-one mk2’s “in” cable. Does the Akai also have DIN ports? If so, you could power it via usb but use the DIN port to send the midi signals, which might solve your problem. 

[prowla]

2 hours ago, Quatschmacher said:

Also, you should unplug the FI midi out port if you’re not writing patches to the pedal as it can cause midi loop problems otherwise. 

OK - I'll bear that in mind; thanks.

2 hours ago, Quatschmacher said:

How do you mean “daisy chained”?

Windows only allows one instance of USB MIDI. I cannot have the FI editor open and use my Morningstar web midi editor at the same time. Once one is open, the other either won’t boot or won’t receive data. I’ve never tried using the FI via pc with a usb keyboard connection but imagine the same problem will occur. I usually use the DIN port on my keyboard and go into either my interface or the MC8. Previously I’ve done it with the UM-One mk2 - plugging the um-one mk2’s “out” cable into the FI’s MIDI input and the keyboard’s MIDI out into the UM-one mk2’s “in” cable. Does the Akai also have DIN ports? If so, you could power it via usb but use the DIN port to send the midi signals, which might solve your problem. 

The Akai is just a little hand-held unit with a USB connector; I had it plugged in to the USB port next to my Yamaha USB MIDI interface.

So I had 2 MIDI units plugged in to Windows USB ports, each with their own driver, but only the FI app up.

(I have got DIN MIDI keyboards, but just had the Akai one in my laptop bag, so I plugged it in!)

[Bass-Face]

On 23/05/2020 at 13:34, stewblack said:

At the moment it's just a idea. If I use the FI as a multi effect (which I shall) it would be nice to turn on and of certain effects as and when I want to use them in a song. At the moment I'd have to place them in a specific order and click / double click back and forth to find each one. I wondered about assigning certain pedals on something like this to certain patches (or programmes, or effects or however you like to think of them)

Watching this as I was thinking the same thing 

[Quatschmacher]

3 hours ago, Bass-Face said:

Watching this as I was thinking the same thing 

Easily done with an MC6. You can even label the buttons via the display to say stuff like “chorus”, “distortion” etc.

Edited May 25, 2020 by Quatschmacher

[stewblack]

15 minutes ago, Quatschmacher said:

Easily down with an MC6. You can even label the buttons via the display to say stuff like “chorus”, “distortion” etc.

That does look great, however it is very expensive

[Al Krow]

20 minutes ago, Quatschmacher said:

Easily down with an MC6. You can even label the buttons via the display to say stuff like “chorus”, “distortion” etc.

 

4 minutes ago, stewblack said:

That does look great, however it is very expensive

Really liking the thinking here, but by the time you've got this set up would it not make more sense to have simply got a capable multifx, with the added benefits of parallel routing, EQ, limiter, pitch shifting etc for less money and smaller overall footprint? 

[stewblack]

3 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

 

Really liking the thinking here, but by the time you've got this set up would it not make more sense to have simply got a capable multifx, with the added benefits of parallel routing, EQ, limiter, pitch shifting etc for less money and smaller overall footprint? 

Well, no not really. I don't mean that a goos multi fx cant do amazing things but the FI is different in every way. You create the noises/effects from scratch yourself and the available synth sounds are extraordinary.

With something like the Behringer total cost would be in the region of 300. Obviously not saying you can't buy a great multi fx for that, but I bought the FI as a standalone synth, I was surprised to find myself selling of a ton of pedals now made obsolete by it. Another 100 quid to make it fully stage worthy doesn't sound that much considering the pedal sales mor ethan cover that.

[stewblack]

Just watched a youtube video on operating the Behringer. It acrtually made sense to me (in a way) but I got a headache as it became increasingly complex so I'll save the second part until later.

Considering I didn't know what a midi cable was a couple of weeks ago, I'm quite enjoying the learning curve

 

[Quatschmacher]

57 minutes ago, stewblack said:

That does look great, however it is very expensive

You can pick them up used. They come up pretty often. There’s one on eBay right now. It’s the business, amazingly compact, easy to program and runs on standard 9V.  I only sold mine to buy the bigger MC8.

[Owen]

The business would actually be someone who says "I will sell you patches which will make the MC6 or MC8 function like you want it to function". I am still traumatised by my time with that synth pedal from Australia that I have (probably deliberately) forgotten it's name.

[Quatschmacher]

6 minutes ago, owen said:

The business would actually be someone who says "I will sell you patches which will make the MC6 or MC8 function like you want it to function". I am still traumatised by my time with that synth pedal from Australia that I have (probably deliberately) forgotten it's name.

I could do that easily.

You mean the Octavius Squeezer

Edited May 25, 2020 by Quatschmacher

[Owen]

I was hoping you might volunteer,

Yes, it was the Squeezer. Fun sounds but an interface which was utterly closed to me.

[Quatschmacher]

9 hours ago, owen said:

I was hoping you might volunteer,

Yes, it was the Squeezer. Fun sounds but an interface which was utterly closed to me.

I’ve never played one but I read the manual and it sounded like a ball ache, which is borne out by other users’ experiences.

[Quatschmacher]

Just created and shared some simple brass patches:

 

[stewblack]

Love these, thank you 

[Quatschmacher]

I’ve just uploaded a few tremolo patches.

I had to fudge them a bit. If you assign a square wave to the INSTR slider in the main mixer then the output is quite clicky. I suspect this might be because it is a linear volume control. My workaround was to set that control to zero and instead put the dry signal through the VCF input but bypass the filter and then apply the square wave LFO to the VCF LOG slider.