Future Impact v3 and now V4

[ped]

6 hours ago, Quatschmacher said:

It’s nothing to do with the pedal at all; it’s about making sure the interface is plugged in to the PC before launching Chrome, otherwise Chrome won’t detect it as it only scans the ports at the point of startup, not dynamically. 

 

Thanks, yes it was all connected but I probably should have restarted the browser after granting Chrome access to MIDI control. My Wifi went down (it never goes down) when I first started, almost like the universe was trying to tell me something!! All went fine in the end though. Thanks for the info.

[AinsleyWalker]

13 hours ago, ped said:

TBH I'm considering just ignoring the software, I never enjoy trying to use it. I can do everything I want from the pedal itself, I think.

 

This new manager and global directory is a game changer. For the first time in nearly 3 years of owning the pedal, I finally have 99 banks that I could genuinely use, rather than like, 10-20. 
Would definitely recommend sitting down with the manual for an hour or two and getting to grips with it, opens up so many doors!

My only wish for the manager would be that you could drag a patch to a spot before others, rather than being limited to just moving to a blank tile or swapping patches.
For example ideally, dragging patch 10 to slot 1 would move patches 1-9 down a space.
This would seriously speed up rearrange/organisation of patches, especially as you start to fill up the 99 tiles, it can be hard moving things around if you change your mind on ordering. 

 

Also some more flexible form of colour coding would be cool. Creating your own categories based on tones/sound/styles rather than just instrument type would be handy visually. 

Edited October 23, 2021 by AinsleyWalker

[ped]

1 minute ago, AinsleyWalker said:

 

This new manager and global directory is a game changer. For the first time in nearly 3 years of owning the pedal, I final have 99 banks that I could genuinely use, rather than like, 10-20. 
Would definitely recommend sitting down with the manual for an hour or two and getting to grips with it, opens up so many doors!

My only wish for the manager would be that you could drag a patch to a spot before others, rather than being limited to just moving to a blank tile or swapping patches.
For example ideally, dragging patch 10 to slot 1 would move patches 1-9 down a space.
This would seriously speed up rearrange/organisation of patches, especially as you start to fill up the 99 tiles, it can be hard moving things around if you change your mind on ordering. 

 

Also some more flexible form of colour coding would be cool. Creating your own categories based on tones/sound/styles rather than just instrument type would be handy visually. 

You’re right of course, and I’ve spent some of this morning doing just that. I kind of assumed that you could edit the patches in the pedal from the software, rather than editing them on the software then sending to the pedal, which works just as well in reality. And I owe it to @Quatschmacher to do it properly! 
 

I think I’m sorted now, and with the house to myself this weekend I plan on spending most of the weekend up to my knees in synth goodness. 
 

One of the reasons I prefer this over the C4 is that you can adjust parameters directly in the pedal as well. 

[Woodinblack]

Really need to give mine a try with this. I have now played it twice, once being at a bass bash (when it did actually sound pretty good).

[Quatschmacher]

20 minutes ago, AinsleyWalker said:

 

This new manager and global directory is a game changer. For the first time in nearly 3 years of owning the pedal, I finally have 99 banks that I could genuinely use, rather than like, 10-20. 
Would definitely recommend sitting down with the manual for an hour or two and getting to grips with it, opens up so many doors!

My only wish for the manager would be that you could drag a patch to a spot before others, rather than being limited to just moving to a blank tile or swapping patches.
For example ideally, dragging patch 10 to slot 1 would move patches 1-9 down a space.
This would seriously speed up rearrange/organisation of patches, especially as you start to fill up the 99 tiles, it can be hard moving things around if you change your mind on ordering. 

 

Also some more flexible form of colour coding would be cool. Creating your own categories based on tones/sound/styles rather than just instrument type would be handy visually. 

Those are all things I suggested at the time and may or may not be implemented. You can move and swap multiple tiles in chunks, which goes some way towards making reordering quick.

 

Remember also that the files themselves are so small that you can easily save multiple setups and quickly load those back in to the pedal.

[ped]

7 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

Really need to give mine a try with this. I have now played it twice, once being at a bass bash (when it did actually sound pretty good).

I’ve now added mine to my home setup rather than in a loop on a separate power strip, so I’ll be using it a lot more and getting to know it properly. Let’s take this journey together 😆

[Quatschmacher]

23 minutes ago, ped said:

One of the reasons I prefer this over the C4 is that you can adjust parameters directly in the pedal as well.

This is a good feature, the only problem is that these changes aren’t stored as part of the preset file, rather they are tied to the memory slot number so won’t be taken into account when reading from the pedal and moving those patches to new slots - whenever a slot is overwritten, it’s hardware change settings are reset to default.

 

I did come up with a way to have these changes stored as part of the patch and be displayed and fully adjustable between 0 and 127 (as opposed to the coarse 1-9) but there wasn’t enough code space and it would’ve required a major rewriting of some of the core code.

 

I barely use the onboard controls. You can do more stuff like that with MIDI, either exploiting the NRPN assignments or, perhaps more usefully and reliably, by assigning flexis to parameters you want to manipulate and using the standard filter cutoff mapping on expression. There’s plenty on offer. Still my favourite synth pedal by far. 

[Quatschmacher]

Actually, maybe I should try and get to a bass bash somewhere and I could happily do a workshop on the pedal given enough interest.

[Woodinblack]

12 minutes ago, ped said:

I’ve now added mine to my home setup rather than in a loop on a separate power strip, so I’ll be using it a lot more and getting to know it properly. Let’s take this journey together 😆

 

Yes, I had mine in my home setup, although it is fair to say it has quite a pop when you turn it on when it is all on one power strip.

There isn't any room for it on my gigging strip and until I have some presets there is no point having it there, so yes, home is the best option.

[ped]

That would be great. A lot of my favourite gear has quite a steep learning curve that puts many people off, even me! 
 

Interesting re the changes made on the pedal. Still it’s great to be able to make adjustments on the fly like that anyway, so you can see what adjustments you might like to make at a later date, if it all, depending on the way you use the pedal. Adjustments normally need to be made in situ and being able to do so and seeing how the parameters affect the patch helps you get your head around the way the pedal behaves. 
 

Maybe even a recorded webinar or something would be a great resource. 

[Woodinblack]

12 minutes ago, Quatschmacher said:

Actually, maybe I should try and get to a bass bash somewhere and I could happily do a workshop on the pedal given enough interest.

 

Well, people liked it at the SW bass bash. We do workshops too, although it might be a little bit of a jog for you! Do a local one and record it.

[Quatschmacher]

1 minute ago, ped said:

That would be great. A lot of my favourite gear has quite a steep learning curve that puts many people off, even me! 
 

Interesting re the changes made on the pedal. Still it’s great to be able to make adjustments on the fly like that anyway, so you can see what adjustments you might like to make at a later date, if it all, depending on the way you use the pedal. Adjustments normally need to be made in situ and being able to do so and seeing how the parameters affect the patch helps you get your head around the way the pedal behaves. 
 

Maybe even a recorded webinar or something would be a great resource. 

The on-pedal adjustments are a legacy thing from the Deep Inpact, where that was the only way to make changes to the sound. Had I been onboard from the outset, I’d have pushed for integration of those with the preset data but I only got involved from the development of v3.00.

 

Sadly I don’t have the video skills to do that sort of stuff from home (been hoping to do this with @GisserDfor about 18 months now but Covid nixed that). If I could get to a bass bash, perhaps someone with video skills could pair with me to record a workshop which could then be shared on here for other FI users to access.

[Quatschmacher]

1 minute ago, Woodinblack said:

 

Well, people liked it at the SW bass bash. We do workshops too, although it might be a little bit of a jog for you! Do a local one and record it.

If I’d been keeping an eye out, I could’ve done the SW one as I could get down there (though would likely have to take some time off work to do so).

[AinsleyWalker]

29 minutes ago, Quatschmacher said:

Those are all things I suggested at the time and may or may not be implemented. You can move and swap multiple tiles in chunks, which goes some way towards making reordering quick.

 

Remember also that the files themselves are so small that you can easily save multiple setups and quickly load those back in to the pedal.

Do you mean, saving my different types of sounds in different files, and saving them file by file?
IE: first file is loaded into banks 1-10, next file loads into 11-20 and so on? I did consider this but wasn't sure if it'd cause issues when writing to the pedal. 

[Quatschmacher]

Just now, AinsleyWalker said:

Do you mean, saving my different types of sounds in different files, and saving them file by file?
IE: first file is loaded into banks 1-10, next file loads into 11-20 and so on? I did consider this but wasn't sure if it'd cause issues when writing to the pedal. 

I meant complete setups, but yes, saving different smaller chunks at various slot locations as individual files should also work just fine too. There are many approaches that would work and they are all a massive improvement on the old system. 

[Woodinblack]

3 hours ago, Quatschmacher said:

Sadly I don’t have the video skills to do that sort of stuff from home (been hoping to do this with @GisserDfor about 18 months now but Covid nixed that). If I could get to a bass bash, perhaps someone with video skills could pair with me to record a workshop which could then be shared on here for other FI users to access.

 

You don't really need to have video skills, just record some short videos showing various things, just as a static video, that would be useful. 

 

There are videos reviewing it, there are videos showing the sounds, but there are no real videos showing how to do anything with it.

[AinsleyWalker]

3 hours ago, Quatschmacher said:

I meant complete setups, but yes, saving different smaller chunks at various slot locations as individual files should also work just fine too. There are many approaches that would work and they are all a massive improvement on the old system. 

Oh I see, lots to try out! 
Yes it really is an improvement I've been hoping for an organiser/manager like this since I bought the pedal! Great stuff

[AinsleyWalker]

45 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

 

You don't really need to have video skills, just record some short videos showing various things, just as a static video, that would be useful. 

 

There are videos reviewing it, there are videos showing the sounds, but there are no real videos showing how to do anything with it.

Yeah definitely, there's quite a lot of content out there for the C4 synth, by comparison, by both the creators and other users. 
Source Audio put out a 12min video a few months back showing how to download presets and programme your own, I don't believe anything like this exists for the Future Impact. The only demos that exist just showcase the sounds of complete patches, as you say.

 
The manual is great, and this forum is amazing! but even a video briefly going over the sections of the editor, showcasing changes in parameters etc would be really great for new users.
This pedal has been my gateway in synths, programming, and then production in general so a lot of the terminology and concepts were completely new to me, and I bet the same is true for a lot of people buying synth pedals in general.

Learning through trial and error was lots of fun, but a visual resource that shows someone programming in some patches, talking about the basics of each area of the editor and letting the viewer hear the changes would be really useful and make the product more accessible for sure  

Edited October 23, 2021 by AinsleyWalker

[Quatschmacher]

Re videos, I’m not even sure I have the nous to do screen capture with direct sound and mic.

 

The manager functionality is something I’d been pushing for even before I got involved formally with the project. Took a good two years of being involved before my nagging paid off!😆

 

In the absence of videos, the tutorials I wrote in the manual are pretty useful for learning the ropes. 

[Woodinblack]

Well, this spurred me on to try connecting the editor.

Connected the midi, turned everything on, nothing (but quite a lot of digital noise). Tried to get the ports of a midisport air to connect, but still nothing. Used a midi monitor was getting a channel change message from the FI when I pressed the footpedal. Checked the midi leads, they were fine.

Generally the FI Editor would just lock up if you tried to do anything and without reading the manual it was very confusing what it was trying to do, except if you went to the manager (would be nice if this wasn't a menu, but whatevs!), if you click a preset (which was grey), that was it you couldn't do anything after that, apart from quit. Also if you went to the directory and selected remote login, but didn't have a login, you also had to quit as you can't get back from there.

Almost gave up!

Tried a different interface, the midisport 4x4. Didn't work, remembered it actually had to have a driver, installed driver, driver didn't work, system to late, downloaded one from github, installed it. Yay, actually appears and now I can connect and all is fine.

 

With a midi interface working ok, connecting and going to the manager loads all the presets, and as I had signed up with an account online as I wanted a way of not having to quit when I pressed that button, I had access to those too.

 

Loaded some presets and played the tracks they went with (Clothes off worked really well), seemed like I had got somewhere, but taken a while getting there so had to go and do other things. Next time I get a chance at least I will be able to do a bit more and the manual will be more use from here on in!

[Woodinblack]

So can you edit anything other than the VCF and overall patches from Midi? It doesn't list them in the implimentation list (but there isn't an implimentation chart in the manual). I presume you can seeing as the editor is only connected via midi anyway?

[Quatschmacher]

1 hour ago, Woodinblack said:

So can you edit anything other than the VCF and overall patches from Midi? It doesn't list them in the implimentation list (but there isn't an implimentation chart in the manual). I presume you can seeing as the editor is only connected via midi anyway?

Yes, you can. There is a list of MIDI implementation in the manual. 
 

And as almost any parameter can be assigned as a Flexi destination with a vast choice of MIDI CCs as the source, you can control most stuff. See the sections on Flexi Controllers. 

 

I haven’t yet integrated the full NRPN assignments into the manual, which covers all parameters, but those have been made public on Talkbass as a separate file. Partly because it’s extra work and is likely to only be used by a few more experienced users. 

Edited October 24, 2021 by Quatschmacher

[iamtheelvy]

Apologies if this has been covered already (there’s a lot of pages of discussion here…)

 

Just took delivery of a FI v3 this afternoon, so haven’t had a lot of time to fiddle with it. As I understood the original model had the first 9 presets the same as the old Deep Impact, but apart from preset 1, mine seem very different… Did they change them all for V3?

[Quatschmacher]

6 minutes ago, iamtheelvy said:

Apologies if this has been covered already (there’s a lot of pages of discussion here…)

 

Just took delivery of a FI v3 this afternoon, so haven’t had a lot of time to fiddle with it. As I understood the original model had the first 9 presets the same as the old Deep Impact, but apart from preset 1, mine seem very different… Did they change them all for V3?

Yes, they are now 21-29 of the v3.5 factory set.

Edited January 18, 2022 by Quatschmacher

[iamtheelvy]

Just now, Quatschmacher said:

Yes, they are now 21-29 of the factory set.

Ahhhh… Will check that out in a bit…