Gapless preset switching

Quad Cortex Feature Requests
21

I guess you can do the second half of that already though? Just save the scene you want as the default scene, then step through presets?

22

But that would be limited to the next and previous preset (and also to the default scene. I don’t want to change the default scene for every song, and I also don’t want to copy the preset for every song it is needed for, because than I have to edit all the copies I made if I want to change anything in it). If a song could consist of any scene of any preset it could change the way we use presets in a good way. Instead of building presets for particular songs one could build presets around a single amplifier (clean, crunch, high gain, dreamy) or dedicated to different playing styles (a slap bass preset with different scenes for really clean, slightly overdriven, really clean and subby, etc.). If you have to add a new song to the setlist you would just go by: “Ok it starts with a cleanish intro, let’s go with scene 4 of preset A. Next part is a slap part but is kinda djenty, let’s try scene 1 of preset D. For the following rnb’ish part I think scene 7 of preset B could fit very good.” and so on without the need to copy or edit anything preset / scene related. A change made to a preset or scene would automatically propagate to every song that uses it because the song just points to scenes in presets. The example is of course made up, but you get the point.

23

Just out of a weekend’s rehearsals and the gaps between presets are bugging me more than they used to. I work with one preset per song and scenes for different tones in the song. It’s great that scene switches are seamless but the non-seamless preset loading is quite obvious and jarring. More to the point they get in the way of segues between songs, or any situation where you don’t have the luxury of complete silence for a few seconds.

Assuming that full gapless preset switching is simply not possible because it’s too much strain on the hardware, a couple of thoughts of how the gaps could be made less annoying:

  1. Make the gaps shorter! Could the code for loading presets be optimised somehow? You’d still get an audible audio interruption and lose delay/reverb trails etc, but at least your new sound would be available to play sooner.

  2. Could a “freeze” type sample of the audio be taken at the point of switching and sustained while the new preset loads? Then either have this cut out or fade once loading is complete. It’s not a “true” spillover but it would at least cover the gaps.

Or, if fade out after load isn’t possible, fade it during the loading gap to fill the audible hole.

Just some thoughts for the dev team.

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