Help modifying Cali Dream preset for CPU issue

Quad Cortex
1

Hi guys, first post, long time lurker…

I’m trying to mod the California Dream preset and having some difficulty. The features I want in this preset are:

  • The ability to assign different pan levels before the signals hit the output
  • The ability to add more devices as I go to build a rig
  • Have room to add other inputs with their own lane (specifically for a vocal mic)

With reference to the screenshot of the orginal Cali Dream preset below, I have created a preset with only the bottom lane in it. However, the lane is so overloaded in the original and my own copy of it, that when adding new pedals/devices I get the ‘Not enough CPU’ issue…

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So I created a preset that essentially splits out the splitter/mixer path into their own individual lanes (the amps are different btw) as I had read that “Lane 1 and 2 use half the processing power of the QC, 3 and 4 use the other half. If you’re only using 1 and 2, you’re limited to half the capacity of the unit”.
I have the outputs going to 3/4 on both lanes so I could pan them (and true enough it seems I can add more devices this way).

*tried to upload a screenshot of my preset but as a new user I can only upload 1 pic :frowning:

HOWEVER, now I cannot figure out a way to assign different pan levels to different scenes on the outputs. Assigning different pan levels in the orginal Cali Dream preset is achieved with the splitter/mixer but it seems that you cannot do this with output blocks

I’m asking for help to redesign this, as I love the bottom half of the original Cali Dream factory preset but it is totally restrictive because of the CPU issue

Does anyone have any ideas??

Thanks folks!

2

I’m not sure if I understood correctly. But let’s give it a shot.

Does this help?

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Split the first lanes (or set them both to In 1 to save the splitter) then send 1/2 to 3/4 and use only the mixer at the end so you can set the pan.

This way you have two parallel paths and you can add more devices in the upper and lower half to distribute them across CPU cores.

3

Thanks for replying derdoe, I’ll play about with this.

Although, do the ‘Prev. Row’ inputs mean that they will be affected by whatever devices I happen to put in the top lane?

4

In this layout Row 3 is the extension of Row 1 and Row 4 is the extension of Row 2
Row 1 → Row 3
Row 2 → Row 4

If you want to put blocks in front that affect both lanes you could move the splitter to the right and put blocks before that.

5

Thanks again for the above, derdoe. This got me going and I think I’ve got something workable now with a lane free for another input

Not all devices are still available for addition though, is it possible that the amps in the California Dream are particularly hungry?

6

yes, are those the John Petrucci amps? If so- VERY CPU hungry (turn on your CPU meter and you’ll see)

7

Yeah they are a couple of the JP captures I think. I’ll get the exact names of them and stick them in here because I might try and find less hungry equivalents

Although these ones are dialled in sooo nice…

8

Okay so the amps are the neural captures of the CA MkCC+ 7 and the CA Studio+290 2. Now these essentially mean nothing to me so if someone can suggest a couple of Mesa’s that might take their place nicely that are less CPU intensive then I might mess around!