Currently a setlist is a folder where you can store presets. I would like the option to create setlist which link to,a preset. So I can have multiple setlist referring to the same song(preset). So when I update the preset, all my setlists have the same version.
+1 for this.
IMHO a setlist is the order to play a list of songs in - not the presets for those songs, which will be pretty static (apart form a bit of venue specific eq).
We often change the set list using a pool of songs depending on the event. Not needing to create multiple copies would be way simpler and more logical (and less prone to cocking up 
)
Dave
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Hello, briefly beforehand. I am still before the purchase decision, but a decent setlist/song feature would be particularly interesting for me. That’s why I would be interested to know to what extent officials are reading along here and how big the chances are to get such wishes on the roadmap.
If I understood correctly, the Quad Cortex has a setlist function, but it doesn’t seem to be really mature yet. Here is my assumption of how it would have to be built for it to be really usable.
Assumption: Most guitarists play the sounds in their songs always in the same order. Example: Intro, verse 1, bridge, chorus, verse 2, bridge middle part, chorus, outro. It would be difficult in a band context if you didn’t specify this.
From this follows: If you always play the sounds in the same order, why do you have to press more than one button? Ok, maybe a back button, if you have switched too much. But with one button always switch one sound further should be enough.
The setlist function of the Quad seems to be able to do something like this, but there is still room for improvement. It should be changed or extended by the following:
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No patches should be copied, but only symbolic links should be set, because if you copy the patch for 30 songs and then want to adjust the patch settings at some point, you have to do that 30 times.
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You should be able to specify which snapshot you jump to, i.e. if you only change snapshots, the patch is not reloaded.
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Another folder level is needed. You need one level for the single songs and one level for the real setlist.
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You should also be able to switch between the songs using the buttons.
Since no manufacturer offers such a function in this form, apart from one exception (moddevices), I built such a pedal myself with a Teensy. Unfortunately, I’m only a UX designer and not a programmer, so I never managed to make the programming of the device simple enough to get new songs in there quickly. But it has been shown that the following information in the display is useful, so that you can orient yourself well:
- Name of the active song
- Freely selectable name for the active part (for example “Verse 1”)
- Name of the active patch/snapshot
- Name of the next part
I can imagine that such a function brings people clearly more advantages than e.g. the 39th reverb variant. Just imagine if you no longer had to think about which button to press next when you perform. Especially when you move away from the board and are back just in time for the next part, this minimizes the danger of setting the wrong sound. Anyone who has accidentally switched to the lead sound instead of the clean sound because the bass player was in the way again and you only got back to the effects unit at the last second knows exactly what I mean.
What do you think?
Btw.I tried to suggest such a feature for the Stomp at Line6 before, but the suggestion management at Line6 is hopelessly overcrowded and you only get heard there if you get a lot of likes (which is difficult, because no one reads the ideas and everyone posts the same idea again.). I hope that this is not yet so burned. I have visualized how this would look on a HX Stomp. If you want me to visualize it for the Quad Cortex, just let me know :-).
Just a quick suggestion how it could look like in gig mode. Due to the fact, that you only need 4 buttons for a decent setlist/song-mode, the right 4 buttons could be used for a small size stump mode for the active preset. Votes, comments and further suggestions are welcome :-).
3 Likes
The scenario you describe is mostly covered in the Scenes functionality of the QC. Essentially, you create a preset that contains all the moving parts you need to survive the song (stomps, multiple amps and cabs). Then you configure scenes for intro, verse, chorus, etc and assign them to the buttons. Now you have one integrated preset for the song that you can place in setlists wherever it is needed to be.
This makes the two levels you are asking for: lower level = scenes, higher level = presets (= songs).
OK, there isn’t a “next scene” button to step through your song, so you’ll actually have to select the correct scene, but that shouldn’t be too demanding… And it is a bit more flexible than a linear “forward-only” setup.
Yes, there may be complex songs that you’ll actually want to use multiple presets for (too many different moving parts for the QC’s processing power), but for the mainstream QC user, scenes should be good enough for 99% of their songs.
Just requires a bit of re-thinking and adapting to the QC approach. It is a different animal than the Kempers or Line6 beasts…
I suggest that once you decide on actually buying the QC, you explore that route. Every new device takes some re-thinking of past approaches. I’ve been there - started with Line 6, spent a lot of time with Fractals and now work with a Kemper and a QC. Like you, I built Teensy-based tools to work around the various devices’ restrictions and make life on stage easier.
With the QC, my primary wish would be for setlists to be more a “by reference” approach instead of a “by value”, i.e. to keep my presets e.g. for a specific band or project in a bank (ordered alphabetically for quick retrieval during rehearsal), and then have setlists just definining the order in which these presets get called up without having to re-arrange the whole bank for the next gig.
That would definitely be a super-useful additional layer… But none of the guitar modeler players on the market seem to have embraced this approach. Either no setlists at all (Kemper) or setlists as banks of presets. Definitively room for improvement
Cheers,
Torsten
1 Like
Yes, with the current feature set and in combination with Scenes you can build up a patch per song and then use Scenes to populate the individual parts. This will probably be the way I will go when my QC arrives :-).You just need some patience to get one.
But it’s just not the perfect solution. I just don’t understand why you still have to deal with the same bank/preset system that my Digitech GSP21 had in the 90s. The Multi-FX today have so much processing power and large displays that it is not understandable that there is still almost no really perfect solution in the actual operating concept.
I am primarily concerned with live performances.
Yes, with 8 buttons I have a lot of space. In the rehearsal room and at home in the living room, it’s all great. You’re relaxed and have plenty of time to figure out what to press next. But if you’re like me and you’re a meter or two away from the device at a gig, you’ve probably noticed that when you have to move quickly, you’re not 100% sure that you’re pressing the right button. As I said, who has ever turned on the solo sound in the quiet acoustic passage in front of a few hundred people will understand it :-).
It’s just that technically it’s not a problem to implement one-button operation. At the moment it seems to me that most high-quality Multi-FX behave like a Teslar that is still driven with clutch and gear shift. Yes, you can then certainly decide for yourself in certain passages how high the speed should be, but in 99% of the driven distance this is simply unnecessary. Why concentrate on pushing buttons when all you really want to do is play the guitar?
Let’s take a look at the market:
Currently, there are two devices that can do the desired feature in something. On the one hand, there are the Headrush devices. There you can create a setlist per song and then put the respective patches per dran & drop. The patches are not copied here.So if you have built 50 songs and realize that the lead sound needs a little more lead, you don’t have to go into all 50 songs and adjust that. If you keep this in mind, it should quickly become clear how important it is to separate the patch from the sequence of patches, especially since you usually call up a sound several times per song. If the sound is copied anew each time, you quickly come up with gigantic amounts of identical sound, which you would then have to adjust by hand. But back to the Headrush. This works very well, but it is rather unpleasant to kneel down in front of the device after each song, so that you can change the song. If I remember correctly, you can’t see which sound is coming next. So a little blind flight, especially if the amount of pieces is larger and one has not yet all of the flow perfectly memorized. I once had a Headrush, but returned it after the 3 defect on the USB port within 6 months.
The second is the Moddevices Dwarf. There you come very close to it. You create there pedalboards and for each song part then a snapshot, which can be provided with a name. The pedalboards can be combined via setlists. The whole thing can then be switched with the three buttons. You can get through a whole set without having to intervene with your hand and, once the corresponding song/pedalboard is selected, you only have to press one button to move on. In addition, you always get to see the name of the next snapshot. Very clear. Unfortunately, the implementation is still a bit shaky and the Dwarf can not yet keep up with the big devices in terms of sounds. From my point of view, another big disadvantage is that you can only program the Dwarf usably on a connected computer. Just changing something in the rehearsal room is only possible to a very limited extent.
2 Likes
Interesting about the Headrush and the Dwarf features!
I can relate very much with your wishes - I’ve just kind of resigned myself to taking what’s available on any device and making the most of it, so I’m pretty happy with the Scenes approach on the QC.
My main live rig is an “in-the-box”, fully software-based setup, based on Cantabile, using VST instruments and amp sims (I play keys and guitar). My main controller is a “big red button” on my keyboard that does exactly what you describe: it advances to the next scene (“state”) in a song. When I play guitar, I use my sustain pedal for exactly the same purpose.
It would be super-easy to use Cantabile with the QC using MIDI remote control - but that would require bringing along a laptop or rack PC - not everyone’s preferred option.
A super-easy approach to “one-button operation” would be if NeuralDSP could give us a MIDI command for “next scene” and “previous scene” - then any simple MIDI pedal with very few buttons could enable this “one button operation”. Unfortunately, this MIDI command is currently not available - maybe a useful feature request? Should be easy to realize…
Cheers,
Torsten
1 Like
Bump. Would still like to see some manner of setlist functionality on the QC.
4 Likes
This would be a much better solution. I’m always worried about deleting a patch when cutting and pasting presets around for a set list.
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Voted. Together with gapless switching (Gapless preset swithching/spill-over between preset changes) it would make the best thing ever for live use, especially if you are going to automate all changes via midi. The icing on the cake would be setlists like they are on fractals units where you can create a setlist with songs, that are only pointers to individual presets, and not only that but you can pick scenes from different presets for different parts in one song. That would for example make it possible to build a preset for 6505 based tones with the scenes being clean, crunch and high gain, one preset for mesa recti based tones, etc. And afterwards you pick the tones from all of your presets that are most fitting for the song. Without needing to copy, recreate or change anything in the presets. If you later decide to change something in your 6505 high gain tone this change gets propagated to all your songs in all your setlists, because the setlists only point to the scenes. I can’t express how helpful this approach of organizing presets and scenes into songs would be. 
I created a new 30 song setlist at the weekend for an upcoming gig. Did it using the PC editor for the first time and that made it significantly less painful than messing around on the floor, so that’s a big win. However, I still believe setlists are not implemented correctly. They really should be like an itunes playlist. That is, consisting of links to presets in your library not new copies of those presets. Imagine if every mp3 playlist you made, created a copy of those mp3s? Well, I now have 30 duplicates of presets that didn’t need to be duplicated. If I make another setlist with the same songs in a different order those presets will be different and any modifications I make will need to be replicated manually everywhere those presets appear. This is completely bonkers IMHO.
Any ideas whether this is something that’s being worked on? This ongoing setlist-related nonsense is likely to be the thing that turns me away from the Cortex and onto Fractal.
1 Like
I don’t think we’ve had any word that improvements are in the works for this issue. There have been MANY requests and discussions, but much like the MIDI issues we get a few little fixes here and there but no real hints at exactly what might be on the horizon, if anything.
So far, ‘Setlists’ is definitely a misnomer for the system we have, which is more like “User Presets Folders.” Hopefully they’ll build in more flexibility at some point, but we just don’t know
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Very good way of putting it. I fully expected a “setlist” to link to presets rather than duplicating them - the way this is built at the moment it’s kinda useless.
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