is it possible to snapshot the current state of all plugins in a pedalboard (for instance, to reflect several parts of a song for a live perfomance) and “step through” these snapshots in a defined order? there’s some parts where i need to change more than one pedal at a time between parts. it can be done via CV, but i’d rather have a preset for each song which loads a running order of those settings snapshots, so all i need to care about is two footswitches (one to go to the next part, the other for the reverse to be safe, perhaps a reset to start again). this would boost the usability for live performances big time, at least for me.
It also describes that the order of snapshots currently cannot be changed (this sounds like a reasonable feature request though, as I can imagine that a set-list can change and then the order of snapshots may not make sense any more)
and you’re right, the inability to freely order (and repeat!) snapshots is a bit of a bummer. i do have a MIDI controller, but it looks like the current assignment abilities is not what i am looking for. i do not want to load one particular snapshot with a particular switch, but go through a list of snapshots in a defined order during a song. like one snapshot for the intro, next one for the verse, next one for the chorus, now repeat the verse snapshot, go to the solo snapshot and finally go back to the chorus snapshot again, all by pressing the same footswitch (to toggle “next part of this song starts here”). and ideally, this composition of snapshots to load would be stored in a preset named after the song in the plugin that initiates the switches.
ah, that sounds useful. can you also repeat snapshots in that list and have multiple of these lists of snaphots without loading different (but actually identical) pedalboards?
ok, so that breaks it down to loading one pedalboard per song with snapshots for each part. so i’ll have to figure out a way how to comfortably switch between pedalboards. currently i’m using one pedalboard for everything and switch to one other for one particular song.
looks like loading pedalboards like plugin presets (just turning an assigned knob) is off the table then.
hrmmmm… i’m guessing you don’t have one of the Control Chain arduino shields, from “back in the day”?? …without having delved deeply into mine yet, this seems like it might be an excellent application for that. were i in your position, i’d be investigating possibilities around programming a CC device with a couple of buttons and a display, which might help to navigate a large, grouped list of snapshots with the help of some numerical logic.
@m.useon i’m sorry if this is completely-useless-for-you “spitballing”… just thought i’d throw down what my brain is musing about in case it has any utility at all for anybody.
I tried this several times to come up with something like that but gave up halfway.
You either have a “master” pedalboard where you have everything for every song.
Then it’s just saving a new pedalboard for a specific song and deleting what you don’t need.
what disqualifies the use of one pedalboard per song for me is the time they need to load: you can’t seamlessly move from one song into the next one while the dwarf is silent for a few seconds.
i think what i want would technically be possible by using the virtual MIDI feedback feature with a MIDI plugin that generated program change messages. each song would be stored as a preset, each preset would consist of a list of PC messages that advances when triggered.
In order to have groups of snapshots with the same pedalboard. I know it’s not ideal, but what about prefixing the sanpshot names with the song’s name ?
i was toying around with this already and ran into some issues. my first series of snapshots contained a looper plugin, i.e., at one point the looper is activated and records, the next snapshot changes the panning, stops recording and plays the loop. as long as you do that only one time in the intended order of snapshots it works really well. but using the knobs to go back to the first snapshot currently totally messes up the looper. i must not forget to manually reset the previdous loops and make sure recording is not active.
i then tried selecting the first snapshot directly in navigation mode, but when i go back to control mode to play the song, the list of snapshots assiged to the two foot switches is unchanged. this means i can’t play the song using the foot switches, unless i move them back snapshot by snapshot to the first one that was already loaded before hitting the foot switches. and then i’m back at problem number one above.
this makes it unusable for live performances. skipping a song means going through all snapshots between the current one and the needed one, with potentionally audible changes to the running plugins (flanger on, flanger off, distortion on…). i can live with that in the studio or during rehearsal, but not on stage.
I use a hotone ampero control midi controller. it has 4 foot switches and every footswitch is assigned to a snapshot. so you have 4 snapshots per song and can call them in every order you want to.
i also have a MIDI controller with 10 footswitches, but this doesn’t solve the main problem: i still couldn’t switch between songs without issues. and actually i would like to get rid of that large pedal use only the dwarf and maybe an expression pedal.
