Quad Cortex Set Lists for Gigging

Quad Cortex Live Gigs 2

Set lists…

For live gigs, I’d really like to have Set List done in a very smart way.

Example: the Helix Floor (I’m not familiar with other products). You have the ability to have multiple set lists - I used this for different types of venue. Not too bad, especially if using the PC to organise. However, it’s not ideal, as you need to create a duplicate of each preset in any set list you create. And then you need to have a smart work flow to make sure any edits you make get replicated to any other set list… blah blah. In the end, functional, but a PIA and takes up too much room.

Here’s an idea that is much smarter - would like to see Neural do it this way.

Maintain presets/rigs/scenes in the current banks and presets as they exist today.

Create a Set List View.

  • Allow us to create multiple set lists with nearly as many songs as we want, in any order we want, using any free form names we want.
  • Each would then simply point to the Preset we want to use for it.
  • Allow scroll up and down to simply scroll through the set list and keep the view (set list, scene, stomp, rig) we prefer
  • this would take nearly no space at all.
  • All presets would only exist once - big saver on many ways
  • Would work for this who use very few presets during a gig
  • Would work for those who use loads of them.
  • Allows for custom set lists depending on the venue or evening…

How is this handled with Kemper or Fractal?

Fractal have no setlist as I know, my AXE-FX II at least not. I use a Gordius Midi Pedal, this works similarly to how you described it in setlist mode. The Songs are simply linked to presets and can be organized in many setlist, easy sortable. Inserting a new Song → Type a name, select a preset, ready.

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I can’t speak for Kractal or Kemper, but it looks like Headrush’s setlist function.

Basicaly, you create a new setlist and enter the entire preset switching sequence for a whole gig. After that, you only have to press “next” or “previous” footswitches through your gig.

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This! Yes pleeeease!

This is my top request to simplify gigging.
Too many times now I’ve not hit a button twice and only realised too late that the bright red confirm/cancel light on the tuner button is still on.

A set list of songs - labelled as the song,- and pointing to a specific preset - labelled as the preset would be perfect.

FYI the Kemper supports 128 banks and up to 5 “rigs” per bank. I think of the banks as the set list, and each song can have 5 tones (different amps, settings, effects, cab etc)
Really easy to step through the set list and switch between verse, chorus, bridge, solo tones.

Other than that, lovin the QC :slight_smile:

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Just re-think your approach - on the QC, the best approach is to have one Preset per song and a scene per song section. So think of your Presets as Kemper Performances and your scenes as rigs. Now you can have 8 “rigs” instead of 5 :wink: (o.k., on the Kemper, you can really have 10 individual settings per performance, using morph).

And you now have 10 setlists of 256 presets each - and building and sorting setlists is not so difficult using drag-and-drop directly on the display. Could be made a bit easier (having to select “swap” vs. “overwrite” could be avoided by being able to drag “between” presets), but that’s fine-tuning…

So use the QCs “setlists” as actual set lists, with one preset per song - just need to build them differently…

Cheers,

Torsten

Hi, thats kind of what I wanted avoid as its a lot of presets to manage! But yes, thats another approach to consider.

I use about 10 different tones across around 80 songs, then select 30-40 songs per gig.

I’d rather not have a load of duplicates to keep in sync if I tweak a tone or find a better ‘funk’ tone for example.

At the moment I just write the patch number next to the song on a piece of paper.

It would be nice to be able to define it in the QC and then hit next between songs :smiley:

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Hmm, then how do you do that on the Kemper? The approach you described above was essentially “one performance per song” and stepping through performances in your set list.

You should be able to duplicate that approach on the QC with presets and scenes, no?

Hi… a few of these responses may be missing the point. Right now, I use one preset per song; they are all in a ‘master list’ … stored by Song name. Some of these are essentially the same preset.

So for me to create a set list for a gig… I essentially copy and past them into a new List (named for the Gig) in another bank in the order we are going to play them. Then I simply step through them during the gig.

If I adjust any settings during the gig… that change exists in the copied version rather than the main one. Not ideal.

What I’d prefer is a ‘set list function’ that simply points to the master song list. Doesn’t make an extra copy of it… if I adjust it… I’d want it to apply to the master copy.

This way… if I have 3 or 4 ‘set lists’ that work for me, depending on the gig, they will still simply point at the master and automatically be ‘right’. Without me having to remember to make a new copy. Another use case is if I’m making changes to the tone or effects on a song… I decide I want to use a new capture or amp, or effect - I can do that on the Master List and it will simply be ‘right’ for every set list I already have.

A few of the responses here seem to understand that intent.

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Yes, sorry I didn’t write that very well - the Kemper description is how I have been using the Kemper (it doesn’t have a ‘pointer’ set list function either).

I would rather not have to duplicate patches and just point to the patch as @Bert describes.
Again, sorry for the confusion

Yup - would be an interesting addition. Two downsides to it:

  • it adds another layer of complexity, which may confuse some users and provide a potential source of mess-ups

  • I have a mixed attitude to this “pointer” setlist approach. Yes, it allows you to run a set with fewer presets, which is nice. But OTOH, when you make changes to one of these presets, it immediately affects all songs that use that preset - with sometimes unexpected or unwanted side-effects. In my software-based live setup (around Cantabile), I started out with a lot of re-use, but by now I’m firmly in the “one song, one preset” camp - I tend to fine-tune my song-specific presets a lot, so I want to avoid having that knock through to other songs.

So it really depends on your approach to fine-tuning - I’m not sure if I’d want this “linked” approach as the only standard. For my approach (1 song, 1 preset), this would actually mean an additional level of complexity (whenever I build a new song, I’d need a corresponding setlist entry). OTOH, I could simply have an alphabetically sorted bank of song presets and then build gig-specific setlists pointing to these songs without re-sorting the base list every time.

So a hybrid approach would be nice: keep the existing “setlists” as “repertoire pools” and the ability to step through them easily up and down in their sequence. Then add another layer of “gig setlists” referencing these “repertoire pools” as pointers - with easy re-sorting, plus some nice additional features like managing sets within a gig, having setlist-specific titles and comments displayed (instead of the preset title), specific MIDI commands to advance / step back in the set list, etc

So if you don’t need the additional layer of “pointers”, you can safely ignore it, but if you want the more sophisticated capabilities, you have them available.

Since this layer of setlists would be pretty lean data-wise, it would probably be not a problem to implement it - but a bit of focus would need to be put on the user experience around this, so it doesn’t become over-complex for users who don’t need it…

Just my 0.02 EUR

Cheers,

Torsten

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This could be addressed the same way as in calendars, when you edit a recurring event.
On save after edit, the screen could show a prompt:

This preset is used in %X setlists.
Do you want to affect all of them?
[Yes] [Save as a copy] [Cancel]
:white_large_square: don’t ask me again

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yes please, this would save a load of time.

I use an RJM PBC6X and this is exactly the way I use and build setlists each week. It’s very handy. I actually prefer their naming convention too: “Presets” get loaded into “Songs” which get loaded into “Setlists”. Songs simply point to any Preset and Setlists simply point to any Song. No preset needs to be doubled.

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Exactly, that’s the way to make setlists easy to handle. Not to forget - sorting per drag and drop is a must have, at least for setlists.
The QC is a powerful device with an amazing UI, but this is still a major shortcoming and a simple manual sort has not yet been announced for 2.0 either. Nevertheless I hope so.

Completely agree with this. I’ve had to make notes to try to get my head around the QC file structure. By contrast I’ve used the RJM PBC to easily drag and drop songs into a setlist for a given show with their editor. Then I can go back through the list and pull up an old Setlist, make s few changes, re name and save. Handy for keeping track of what you’ve played where as well. I think this is a really important change for Neural to make for live use, seems much more intuitive.

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Great idea! This is how setlists work in FourScore.
I guess current «setlists» in QC have to change name to «preset bank» or something like that.
It would also be great to be able to lock preset scrolling to one setlist in a circle with up/down switches. Let’s say you ise 3 presets for 3 different guitars. You don’t want to «stray» off by accident to other presets/banks «in the heat of the battle» live.

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That is exactly what I need. Simply put: set lists with shortcuts to presets that would be stored in another bank.
Like a computer…shortcuts :wink:

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Oh, and NDSP, if you are working on this (which I hope you are :stuck_out_tongue: ), please take into account that if we move the original preset (the one that the shortcuts refer to), the shortcuts should be updated to point to the new location (so not really like a Mac/Windows/Linux PC, something a bit smarter :grin: )

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Just stumbled upon the Setlist Feature from Fractal and it looks impressive!

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Yea im all for this!

I think an excellent example of how this can work is actually in Arturia’s ‘Analog Lab’ plugin.

This gets my vote!