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Future Impact now available!! WAS: deep impact reissue!!! interested?
- Thread starter lokki
- Start date
For bass lines, I don't see the need for Polyphony unless you are really hooked on playing chords and doublestops. I'm not playing chords very often when I write synth bass lines. Quite honestly, when guys use the Juno 106 for basslines, many times they set it in mono mode. Also what 80's music are we discussing here? The early 80's stuff had a fair amount of mono synth lines. Prophet 1, Moog Model D..etc. If you are talking about playing chords and things like that, than yes - polyphony is a must. Not sure if you were talking about bass lines or other parts though.
The Moog is mono. Its amazing and you can patch up an incredibly full and rich bass sound with just a little knowledge of synthesis. IMO, it is THE bass sound. If I could have a pedal that sounded like a real moog and allowed me to play my bass like I'd play it clean, it would probably be on 95% of the time I played. The FI is rather close, in fact so close that it reacts in many ways like an actual synth would. I think what people would love is to somehow have it react like a bass guitar, but that's most likely an impossibility.
The main thing about a great synth bass sound is it's huge and easy to hear compared to a clean electric bass tone. It also mixes itself almost. You just have to control the low end, get the effects right and dial in the mono adjustment right for the lows if it's a stereo print.
Yup the Moog is the bomb for sure. Agree 100%.
I've been experimenting with my FretTrax system and the Arturia mini moog ios synth. With some tweaking, these two have been working very well together. And surprisingly enough tracks very well with hardly any latency considering I'm using an iPad app. I have not tried this out in the wild yet. Still in experimentation mode.
Ok...I quit bass.
That was AWESOME! Notice how for certain patches though, he slowed his playing down to play to the patch...like that analog sound at about 1 min. It tracked amazing though for some of that fast playing.
Yeah I've definitely found that it just tracks some patches better than others. Tracking is not universal across all sounds, it is dependent on what is programmed for any give patch.
I'm not really thinking about polyphonic from a need to play chords, I'm thinking about it from an approach of if it CAN play polyphonic chords, it'll probably track/recognize individual notes in a moving bass line a little better...This also ties into how I was thinking about 80's synths... Just like you said, they wouldn't be able to play chords with a mono synth. The little elves in my head keep whispering that if a synth can play chords, it should logically be better at tracking bass lines too. If that all makes sense. If that makes sense.
Just watched that new Source Audio synth video, and it's still at the same status it was yesterday for me. "Need more info." I'm pretty invested in my FI at this point, and the SA would also require additional gear to get MIDI capabilities.
5sg.
No, I refer to the tracking in general. Maybe I don't mean tracking directly, the main "problem" I have with it is that it often takes the note that was played before and jumps to the next one within a millisecond. Even in the demo of Nathan it is audible at 1:03.
I looped the bassline I want to play and played it back solo (1), through the mastotron with which I created the bassline with (2) and the simple FI-Sound I created to come close to the mastotron (3). Obviously the fi absolute KILLS the squarewave - soundwise.
With my "quality" playing on the files :-D I absolutely get it, that the pedal does what it does, but the aforementioned "jumping" should not happen as I think, especially for the first notes from the G to the E - it's just 4th and 8th-notes at 127bpm...
The sound I used for (3) is this one:
0 ; field: 0 poti: 0 ser.no.: 1
0 ; field: 0 poti: 1 ser.no.: 2
0 ; field: 0 poti: 2 ser.no.: 3
127 ; field: 0 poti: 3 ser.no.: 4
0 ; field: 0 poti: 4 ser.no.: 5
64 ; field: 0 poti: 5 ser.no.: 6
1 ; field: 0 poti: 6 ser.no.: 7
0 ; field: 0 poti: 7 ser.no.: 8
1 ; field: 0 poti: 8 ser.no.: 9
59 ; field: 0 poti: 9 ser.no.: 10
0 ; field: 0 poti: 10 ser.no.: 11
59 ; field: 0 poti: 11 ser.no.: 12
5 ; field: 1 poti: 0 ser.no.: 13
0 ; field: 1 poti: 1 ser.no.: 14
0 ; field: 1 poti: 2 ser.no.: 15
127 ; field: 1 poti: 3 ser.no.: 16
0 ; field: 1 poti: 4 ser.no.: 17
87 ; field: 1 poti: 5 ser.no.: 18
76 ; field: 1 poti: 6 ser.no.: 19
0 ; field: 1 poti: 7 ser.no.: 20
1 ; field: 1 poti: 8 ser.no.: 21
38 ; field: 1 poti: 9 ser.no.: 22
27 ; field: 1 poti: 10 ser.no.: 23
0 ; field: 1 poti: 11 ser.no.: 24
17 ; field: 2 poti: 0 ser.no.: 25
0 ; field: 2 poti: 1 ser.no.: 26
0 ; field: 2 poti: 2 ser.no.: 27
127 ; field: 2 poti: 3 ser.no.: 28
0 ; field: 2 poti: 4 ser.no.: 29
116 ; field: 2 poti: 5 ser.no.: 30
76 ; field: 2 poti: 6 ser.no.: 31
0 ; field: 2 poti: 7 ser.no.: 32
52 ; field: 2 poti: 8 ser.no.: 33
14 ; field: 2 poti: 9 ser.no.: 34
0 ; field: 2 poti: 10 ser.no.: 35
0 ; field: 2 poti: 11 ser.no.: 36
21 ; field: 3 poti: 0 ser.no.: 37
0 ; field: 3 poti: 1 ser.no.: 38
0 ; field: 3 poti: 2 ser.no.: 39
0 ; field: 3 poti: 3 ser.no.: 40
0 ; field: 3 poti: 4 ser.no.: 41
116 ; field: 3 poti: 5 ser.no.: 42
1 ; field: 3 poti: 6 ser.no.: 43
0 ; field: 3 poti: 7 ser.no.: 44
63 ; field: 3 poti: 8 ser.no.: 45
39 ; field: 3 poti: 9 ser.no.: 46
0 ; field: 3 poti: 10 ser.no.: 47
0 ; field: 3 poti: 11 ser.no.: 48
0 ; field: 4 poti: 0 ser.no.: 49
0 ; field: 4 poti: 1 ser.no.: 50
0 ; field: 4 poti: 2 ser.no.: 51
0 ; field: 4 poti: 3 ser.no.: 52
0 ; field: 4 poti: 4 ser.no.: 53
3 ; field: 4 poti: 5 ser.no.: 54
10 ; field: 4 poti: 6 ser.no.: 55
59 ; field: 4 poti: 7 ser.no.: 56
0 ; field: 5 poti: 0 ser.no.: 57
76 ; field: 5 poti: 1 ser.no.: 58
1 ; field: 6 poti: 0 ser.no.: 59
1 ; field: 6 poti: 1 ser.no.: 60
1 ; field: 6 poti: 2 ser.no.: 61
1 ; field: 6 poti: 3 ser.no.: 62
1 ; field: 6 poti: 4 ser.no.: 63
1 ; field: 6 poti: 5 ser.no.: 64
0 ; field: 7 poti: 0 ser.no.: 65
0 ; field: 7 poti: 1 ser.no.: 66
46 ; field: 7 poti: 2 ser.no.: 67
54 ; field: 7 poti: 3 ser.no.: 68
0 ; field: 7 poti: 4 ser.no.: 69
-1 ; field: 7 poti: 5 ser.no.: 70
122 ; field: 7 poti: 6 ser.no.: 71
0 ; field: 7 poti: 7 ser.no.: 72
0 ; field: 7 poti: 8 ser.no.: 73
0 ; field: 7 poti: 9 ser.no.: 74
0 ; field: 7 poti: 10 ser.no.: 75
0 ; field: 8 poti: 0 ser.no.: 76
7 ; field: 8 poti: 1 ser.no.: 77
1 ; field: 8 poti: 2 ser.no.: 78
0 ; field: 9 poti: 0 ser.no.: 79
0 ; field: 9 poti: 1 ser.no.: 80
0 ; field: 9 poti: 2 ser.no.: 81
0 ; field: 9 poti: 3 ser.no.: 82
0 ; field: 9 poti: 4 ser.no.: 83
0 ; field: 9 poti: 5 ser.no.: 84
0 ; field: 9 poti: 6 ser.no.: 85
1 ; field: 10 poti: 0 ser.no.: 86
1 ; field: 10 poti: 1 ser.no.: 87
0 ; field: 10 poti: 2 ser.no.: 88
0 ; field: 10 poti: 3 ser.no.: 89
0 ; field: 11 poti: 0 ser.no.: 90
0 ; field: 11 poti: 1 ser.no.: 91
0 ; field: 11 poti: 2 ser.no.: 92
0 ; field: 11 poti: 3 ser.no.: 93
0 ; field: 11 poti: 4 ser.no.: 94
0 ; field: 11 poti: 5 ser.no.: 95
0 ; field: 11 poti: 6 ser.no.: 96
0 ; field: 11 poti: 7 ser.no.: 97
0 ; field: 11 poti: 8 ser.no.: 98
0 ; field: 11 poti: 9 ser.no.: 99
0 ; field: 11 poti: 10 ser.no.: 100
0 ; field: 11 poti: 11 ser.no.: 101
0 ; field: 11 poti: 12 ser.no.: 102
0 ; field: 11 poti: 13 ser.no.: 103
0 ; field: 11 poti: 14 ser.no.: 104
0 ; dummy
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Thank you so much for your support.
I had the Enzo Merus. It was polyphonic and it does not track as well as the FI. In fact it's filter retrigger was not really close to what the FI can do. I personally am not sure if polyphony is the path forward.
A solution that may be though, is something like this, which apparently can trigger any synth via CV. I have no idea about the latency, etc.
Invalid Link Removed
I'm not totally following what you're saying here. But as far as the tracking goes, that just comes down to technique most of the time. It tracks what it "hears." So if there's any hang over from the previous pitch played, that can cause it to glitch, as you seem to be suggesting. Is that what we're talking about?
I have experienced the FI tracking the pitch I've played an octave above or below on accident a bunch. This is only remedied, IME, by tailoring the pedals' settings to track best with your patch and instrument. I'd guess that particular glitch is just an artifact from it being a digital conversion process. A brief misinterpretation of input, if you will.
Does any of that make sense to anyone but me? hahaha
- May 16, 2007
- 3,395
- 4,869
- Disclosures
- Volunteer developer/beta tester with Source Audio, Morningstar Engineering & MORTRIX
I had a Squaver. It triggers pretty quickly. Though as with any pitch detection system, you don’t always get a steady pitch, especially at note-on. It does sound the business. The reason I sent it back was due to noise problems (which have now been fixed) and the fact that that the filter only had an envelope follower (no ADSR).
For clip #3, the problem is the patch. The decay is too long. You can clearly hear that the sound isn't finished playing when you play your next note...sound continues to deteriorate and notes bleed together since they have to stop playing. If your patch rings out when you play a quick note then thats the sound of the patch. Without polyphony you will ofcourse have issues. Your issue is not in the tracking of the device, it is in the decay of the patch you are using. If you listen to clip 2, the effect finishes playing and there is a brief pause between your notes. Later this evening, I will post clips of the same looped line w a few different patches to show how the patch affects the perception of tracking (time and memory permitting)
Agree. Patch settings is the issue on clip 3. So perhaps the problems you are experiencing @Leocapri are not technique issues, more like programming issues. Clip 2 sounds fine, clip 3 has a bit of a glitch due to your patch settings.
But the decay is at 0 or 1 overall?! I don't get it. The setting on the pedal itself is on 5. Did I get the function of "decay" wrong? *sigh*
I didn't cut any clips, but last night I decided to give Donna Lee a whirl scrolling through my FI patch library. I can't play the whole song, but the first several phrases are burned into my muscle memory from studying that one years ago so I can easily play the beginning to speed so I popped it into a ditto looper and ran that through the FI.
Results...
- Most of my normal patches fell apart and although the listener familiar with Donna Lee would have clearly known the song, many of the notes were blurred together.
- At the end of the loop, my playing got a bit sloppy and my notes did not ring clear enough for any patch to articulate cleanly that did not have a significant unaffected bass as part of the patch
- I did find a good amount of patches that were able to keep up with my attempt at Donna Lee. The notes that I played cleanly rang cleanly with these patches, but the notes I slurred were slurred in the patches...though the musical message was understood and you could name that tune.
Conclusion: The Future Impact is awesome, it is an extremely flexible instrument...but it is an instrument, not just a pedal. As with any instrument, you need to set it up for the way you play and adjust the way you play to get the most out of it. Does it have it's drawbacks? You bet...but there are many solutions to pursue depending on your pain point from tailoring any parameter to taste as well as accessing functionality through MIDI. If you are looking for a simple device w 3 knobs, this is not it...but if you are looking for a device that will give you ultimate flexibility limited only by your imagination and willingness to commit time and learn and experiment - this is IT (although Source Audio seems to think that their new little box is gonna replace the Future Impact as the defacto go to pedal).
Results...
- Most of my normal patches fell apart and although the listener familiar with Donna Lee would have clearly known the song, many of the notes were blurred together.
- At the end of the loop, my playing got a bit sloppy and my notes did not ring clear enough for any patch to articulate cleanly that did not have a significant unaffected bass as part of the patch
- I did find a good amount of patches that were able to keep up with my attempt at Donna Lee. The notes that I played cleanly rang cleanly with these patches, but the notes I slurred were slurred in the patches...though the musical message was understood and you could name that tune.
Conclusion: The Future Impact is awesome, it is an extremely flexible instrument...but it is an instrument, not just a pedal. As with any instrument, you need to set it up for the way you play and adjust the way you play to get the most out of it. Does it have it's drawbacks? You bet...but there are many solutions to pursue depending on your pain point from tailoring any parameter to taste as well as accessing functionality through MIDI. If you are looking for a simple device w 3 knobs, this is not it...but if you are looking for a device that will give you ultimate flexibility limited only by your imagination and willingness to commit time and learn and experiment - this is IT (although Source Audio seems to think that their new little box is gonna replace the Future Impact as the defacto go to pedal).
Pull open the editor, bring up the patch...play...tweak...play...tweak...you will get it where you want it if you spend the time.
Here you go, just change the extension to .prg.
Talkbass doesn't let me upload the FI-Patches.oki. I will try to check this out this evening when I get home from work.Here you go, just change the extension to .prg.
