source audio c4

[Quatschmacher]

@Quatschmacher ?

Still waiting on a second TRS-MIDI cable from Jesse so I can update the firmware. (Jesse only sent me one cable before Christmas and so I wasn’t able to test the latest version of the firmware. I emailed him to remind him when I got back home after Christmas but haven’t had a reply; perhaps you could nudge him…)

 

[ShoesMagoo]

Thanks to all for the suggetions. I ended up taking my pedal board and bass over to a friend's house to play some. Plugged into his bass rig and only used the factory presets which, as before, sounded fine (but no calibration response). A couple of days later and back home on my rig, I plugged in to give it another go. With no other changes and selecting some of the community patches which previously produced no calibration response, I began to see the red calibration light flash just after selecting the patch. Again, this was not happening previously. I could then get those patches which produced this response to calibrate according to the procedure in the manual. Not all, but some. Excitement ensued.

I borrowed a couple of compressor pedals (a Boss CS-3 and a super cheap Amuzik) and a bass to test. With either compressor in front of the C4, I was able to trigger the expected calibration response on most patches. Woot! The bass I borrowed, an Ibanez SR-300, produced a similar result without the comp. According to every source I can find, that bass is equipped with passive pickups. I'd say there's probably something to QM's suggestion regarding a preamp adding gain to account for low pickup output. I'd still like to be able to determine the reasons for these differences from one bass/preamp/pickup setup output to another, but I'll leave that for another time.

The Boss comp sounded like shite. The cheap Amuzik sounded great and cost a mere $19, so I purchased one for myself along with an Amuzik boost pedal (also $19). With just the boost in front of the C4, most patches trigger correctly. However, with boost>C4>comp, nearly every patch sounds superb. There are still certain users' patches which require me cranking the input gain and volume to open the filters, but at that volume they are way too loud for practicing at home without earplugs, so not particularly usable for me at the moment. fivestringgecko and thehook are two of the featured artists whose patches fall into this category for me. A bit of a shame since they've got so may excellent sounding patches, but it's not like there aren't a gazillion more great ones to choose from so no worries there. I'm curious to know if having a higher-powered amp and a bigger speaker cab will make for a smoother time exploring these sounds. Also would like to see how throwing a microthumpinator into the chain will impact the output. And then there's that Atlas purchase I've been considering which might confer superior compression options. I really don't know enough about how to implement compression, boost, or EQ to know where to go next, so still plenty to explore.

So, while I'm not particularly thrilled with the fact that I had to purchase more stuff to get this pedal to work with my (pretty standard) bass, I am thrilled that it is now working, and under $40 to dip my toes into pedals that I was looking to try out anyway isn't that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. Thanks again for all of the positive input from the experienced users here. Looking forward to digging into patch creation to see what I can come up with.

 

[Quatschmacher]

Thanks to all for the suggetions. I ended up taking my pedal board and bass over to a friend's house to play some. Plugged into his bass rig and only used the factory presets which, as before, sounded fine (but no calibration response). A couple of days later and back home on my rig, I plugged in to give it another go. With no other changes and selecting some of the community patches which previously produced no calibration response, I began to see the red calibration light flash just after selecting the patch. Again, this was not happening previously. I could then get those patches which produced this response to calibrate according to the procedure in the manual. Not all, but some. Excitement ensued.

I borrowed a couple of compressor pedals (a Boss CS-3 and a super cheap Amuzik) and a bass to test. With either compressor in front of the C4, I was able to trigger the expected calibration response on most patches. Woot! The bass I borrowed, an Ibanez SR-300, produced a similar result without the comp. According to every source I can find, that bass is equipped with passive pickups. I'd say there's probably something to QM's suggestion regarding a preamp adding gain to account for low pickup output. I'd still like to be able to determine the reasons for these differences from one bass/preamp/pickup setup output to another, but I'll leave that for another time.

The Boss comp sounded like poopiee. The cheap Amuzik sounded great and cost a mere $19, so I purchased one for myself along with an Amuzik boost pedal (also $19). With just the boost in front of the C4, most patches trigger correctly. However, with boost>C4>comp, nearly every patch sounds superb. There are still certain users' patches which require me cranking the input gain and volume to open the filters, but at that volume they are way too loud for practicing at home without earplugs, so not particularly usable for me at the moment. fivestringgecko and thehook are two of the featured artists whose patches fall into this category for me. A bit of a shame since they've got so may excellent sounding patches, but it's not like there aren't a gazillion more great ones to choose from so no worries there. I'm curious to know if having a higher-powered amp and a bigger speaker cab will make for a smoother time exploring these sounds. Also would like to see how throwing a microthumpinator into the chain will impact the output. And then there's that Atlas purchase I've been considering which might confer superior compression options. I really don't know enough about how to implement compression, boost, or EQ to know where to go next, so still plenty to explore.

So, while I'm not particularly thrilled with the fact that I had to purchase more stuff to get this pedal to work with my (pretty standard) bass, I am thrilled that it is now working, and under $40 to dip my toes into pedals that I was looking to try out anyway isn't that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. Thanks again for all of the positive input from the experienced users here. Looking forward to digging into patch creation to see what I can come up with.

The output volume of the patches has no effect upon the filters in the patch. As long as you set the input gain where it needs to be, you should be able to adjust the volume down to taste and resave the patches. May also be worth tweaking the envelope sensitivity knobs.

 

[ShoesMagoo]

The output volume of the patches has no effect upon the filters in the patch. As long as you set the input gain where it needs to be, you should be able to adjust the volume down to taste and resave the patches. May also be worth tweaking the envelope sensitivity knobs.

After having read all of this thread and the last relevant few hundred pages of the sass thread, I had surmised that "opening the filters" = "make all the parts of a patch (or at least just the filters?) produce noise as intended." So maybe I didn't say a thing there that was the right thing to say if my terminology is off. However, when I said 'crank the volume' I was referring to the volume knobs on my bass and amp. It looks like you're referring to the output volume here:

and here:

, which control the same parameter, correct? To restate, those certain user patches won't make all of their intended sounds and make them consistently unless I turn up (a lot) the volume on my bass and/or amp. Then they blare out of the speakers at volumes which accost my ears, and even then I have to dig in quite a bit on the strings to get there. I'll have a closer look at the envelope sens knobs.

Hmmm so the amount of volume from my bass (set by the volume knob on my bass) that the pedal takes in is determined by the Input Gain knob, then the Output Volume knob spits out the adjusted total of that and the other things that the pedal does such as envelope sens, etc.? Maybe I'm getting lost in weeds here that aren't relevant. Just trying to wrap my mind around how it is all supposed to work together rather than getting stuck on individual knobs. Not that I have anything against tweaking knobs.

 

[sunbeast]

After having read all of this thread and the last relevant few hundred pages of the sass thread, I had surmised that "opening the filters" = "make all the parts of a patch (or at least just the filters?) produce noise as intended." So maybe I didn't say a thing there that was the right thing to say if my terminology is off. However, when I said 'crank the volume' I was referring to the volume knobs on my bass and amp. It looks like you're referring to the output volume here: View attachment 4972045 and here: View attachment 4972037, which control the same parameter, correct? To restate, those certain user patches won't make all of their intended sounds and make them consistently unless I turn up (a lot) the volume on my bass and/or amp. Then they blare out of the speakers at volumes which accost my ears, and even then I have to dig in quite a bit on the strings to get there. I'll have a closer look at the envelope sens knobs.

Hmmm so the amount of volume from my bass (set by the volume knob on my bass) that the pedal takes in is determined by the Input Gain knob, then the Output Volume knob spits out the adjusted total of that and the other things that the pedal does such as envelope sens, etc.? Maybe I'm getting lost in weeds here that aren't relevant. Just trying to wrap my mind around how it is all supposed to work together rather than getting stuck on individual knobs. Not that I have anything against tweaking knobs.

There is alot going on in many user patches to track down what they are doing (or not doing as it were) sometimes if you are just casually scrolling through them, and because the rigs users are playing through can be all over the place so too can be the input gain, sensitivity, and output volume of community presets which can all interplay to affect what you hear.

There shouldn't be any reason to crank the volume at your amp vs the Output Volume of the pedal/editor though- You should be able to tame any of the sounds into unity gain (ie the same volume as the volume with the pedal bypassed), though of course some filter settings can create sounds that swell up in volume and tone over time, etc.

By the same token you shouldn't need to adjust the volume at your bass either, that's what the Input Gain on the pedal is for. You should be able to get a consistent input calibration setting that works on any preset as long as you aren't adjusting volume or settings on your bass or before the C4 in your signal chain- no need for different Input Gain settings across different presets unless you are changing instruments or pickup settings for different presets.

Sensitivity settings will depend on your playing and can be variable to create different effects- sometimes you might want a sound that triggers with soft playing and some other tones that only trigger when you dig in.

 

[StormJH1]

Just wanted post about the new Source Audio MIDI adapter (SA168). I got it $49 from American Musical Supply, and it shipped in 2 days. What this does is essentially add 5-pin DIN MIDI connectivity by way of a couple of adapter cables. Because it plugs into the 1/8” Control jack, it avoids the whole issue of needing a USB host like Neuro or Disaster Area. $49 is admittedly pretty steep for what is essentially an adapter cable, but it worked flawlessly.

What really had me excited is what this allows me to do with MIDI on my HX Stomp. My prior methods of changing C4 presets were pretty half-baked. Initially, I had an iPhone app that would send MIDI PC commands, but I didn’t want to have to hook up my phone every time. Later, I used a MIDI Baby 3 to cycle through 24 presets (8 presets x 3 footswitches that cycle thru with LED indicators). But I did not want to permanently tie up 3 footswitches on a MIDI controller just to change C4 presets, and I still had no clue what I was changing to.

HX Stomp with this MIDI cable is like having a Morningstar to control C4. You can assign 3 different C4 patches to each HX Stomp
Preset and trigger them with snapshots. Moreover, you can title the snapshots and then make necessary adjustments, such as volume leveling, EQ, reverb/delay…and that gets saved as a signal chain.

But what I hadn’t appreciated is that the Helix ecosystem has a lot of Synth-related tools that enhance the C4. Simple Pitch works quite well if you want to throw your patch to another octave. There’s tons of compression options. And there are legacy synths in Helix itself, so you could double C4 with another synth sound, or layer them at different pitches.

 

[rsmith601]

Just wanted post about the new Source Audio MIDI adapter (SA168). I got it $49 from American Musical Supply, and it shipped in 2 days. What this does is essentially add 5-pin DIN MIDI connectivity by way of a couple of adapter cables. Because it plugs into the 1/8” Control jack, it avoids the whole issue of needing a USB host like Neuro or Disaster Area. $49 is admittedly pretty steep for what is essentially an adapter cable, but it worked flawlessly.

What really had me excited is what this allows me to do with MIDI on my HX Stomp. My prior methods of changing C4 presets were pretty half-baked. Initially, I had an iPhone app that would send MIDI PC commands, but I didn’t want to have to hook up my phone every time. Later, I used a MIDI Baby 3 to cycle through 24 presets (8 presets x 3 footswitches that cycle thru with LED indicators). But I did not want to permanently tie up 3 footswitches on a MIDI controller just to change C4 presets, and I still had no clue what I was changing to.

HX Stomp with this MIDI cable is like having a Morningstar to control C4. You can assign 3 different C4 patches to each HX Stomp
Preset and trigger them with snapshots. Moreover, you can title the snapshots and then make necessary adjustments, such as volume leveling, EQ, reverb/delay…and that gets saved as a signal chain.

But what I hadn’t appreciated is that the Helix ecosystem has a lot of Synth-related tools that enhance the C4. Simple Pitch works quite well if you want to throw your patch to another octave. There’s tons of compression options. And there are legacy synths in Helix itself, so you could double C4 with another synth sound, or layer them at different pitches.

The SA168 actually has lots of processing going on in that little box. I wanted to sell it for $69, but others on the team pushed me to make it a loss leader.

 

[StormJH1]

The SA168 actually has lots of processing going on in that little box. I wanted to sell it for $69, but others on the team pushed me to make it a loss leader.

I understand. The unit looks pretty unassuming, so it'd be easy to confuse with one of those $12 Amazon MIDI dongles. But what it actually does is pretty amazing - turning the control input jack into essentially the MIDI IN jack that the C4 (and other SA pedals) didn't originally have.

IMO, this is a critically-important post-release "update". Whether $49 or $69 is a good price - both are still cheaper than asking people to go out and buy either a Neuro Hub or a Disaster Area MIDI controller. It's an optional purchase, and even though I'm not a SA "power user" (yet), it immediately made sense for me. Thanks!

 

[rsmith601]

I understand. The unit looks pretty unassuming, so it'd be easy to confuse with one of those $12 Amazon MIDI dongles. But what it actually does is pretty amazing - turning the control input jack into essentially the MIDI IN jack that the C4 (and other SA pedals) didn't originally have.

IMO, this is a critically-important post-release "update". Whether $49 or $69 is a good price - both are still cheaper than asking people to go out and buy either a Neuro Hub or a Disaster Area MIDI controller. It's an optional purchase, and even though I'm not a SA "power user" (yet), it immediately made sense for me. Thanks!

Awesome! So glad you like it!

 

[PaulS]

I assume there is a way to assign a channel to the SA168? I have other pedals midi channels 1 and 2, and want to add my C4 as channel 3, so I need to be able to pass signal through to it can I do that?

 

[Derek Williams]

I assume there is a way to assign a channel to the SA168? I have other pedals midi channels 1 and 2, and want to add my C4 as channel 3, so I need to be able to pass signal through to it can I do that?

You need to configure the midi channel on the pedal itself, using the desktop app.

 

[StormJH1]

I assume there is a way to assign a channel to the SA168? I have other pedals midi channels 1 and 2, and want to add my C4 as channel 3, so I need to be able to pass signal through to it can I do that?

You need to configure the midi channel on the pedal itself, using the desktop app.

Right, so if you plug the C4 into a desktop computer (or the phone app using a CCK, I believe), you are able to change the MIDI channel of the C4 that way.

The SA168 is basically just a cable/adapter. I has some processing going on to translate MIDI to whatever can be understood by the control jack, but you don't set MIDI channels or anything specific to the adapter itself.

SA168 does have a MIDI thru jack, but note that it only comes one DIN MIDI adapter cable. You'd need a second one to connect another DIN MIDI and send out to external gear - unless it's another SA pedal that uses that 1/8" connection. I have a few other random DIN MIDI dongles from Arturia, UNO and other synth stuff, so I may try one of those out to see if it works.

 

[Adamixoye]

Hypothetically

If you had a TRRS splitter could you run two pedals off of one adapter?

 

[Gibs210]

yes, the 168 has a processor in it for handling translation, it also helps to alleviate the processors in the pedal from doing the workload, so that midi messages are more efficient and less likely to cause problems that we had seen in the past with older hardware. That’s the gist of what I got from Jesse when I was testing it pre release.

I understand. The unit looks pretty unassuming, so it'd be easy to confuse with one of those $12 Amazon MIDI dongles. But what it actually does is pretty amazing - turning the control input jack into essentially the MIDI IN jack that the C4 (and other SA pedals) didn't originally have.

IMO, this is a critically-important post-release "update". Whether $49 or $69 is a good price - both are still cheaper than asking people to go out and buy either a Neuro Hub or a Disaster Area MIDI controller. It's an optional purchase, and even though I'm not a SA "power user" (yet), it immediately made sense for me. Thanks!

I can think of a certain pedal company with high popularity that literally sells a trs to midi cable (albeit I think it has some sort of built in isolation or some sort of small passive circuit in it) for about $50. So yes, I could see justifying $50 or more for the adapter as well.

Hypothetically

If you had a TRRS splitter could you run two pedals off of one adapter?

no, one adapter per pedal. Hub would be the better route once you start getting past 2 adapters imo.

 

[PaulS]

Thank you @Derek Williams and @StormJH1

 

[StormJH1]

Nothing but positive things to say about the SA168 adapter, the thing just works. Now the only problem I have is that my main pedalboard with HX Stomp is completely stuffed and I'm wondering if there is any way to cram my C4 back onto it!

 

[fivestringgecko]

Nothing but positive things to say about the SA168 adapter, the thing just works. Now the only problem I have is that my main pedalboard with HX Stomp is completely stuffed and I'm wondering if there is any way to cram my C4 back onto it!

I just ordered a SA168 yesterday, looking forward to trying it out.

I know I haven't been active in this thread in a while, but have lurked and haven't forgotten about it... I've been trying to get back to programming patches, but continually seem to find persistent life stuff that gets in the way, along with getting into a new project. But... I do have a batch of patches that's almost done. Will post back as soon as I get them finished up!

5sg.

 

[rsmith601]

I just ordered a SA168 yesterday, looking forward to trying it out.

I know I haven't been active in this thread in a while, but have lurked and haven't forgotten about it... I've been trying to get back to programming patches, but continually seem to find persistent life stuff that gets in the way, along with getting into a new project. But... I do have a batch of patches that's almost done. Will post back as soon as I get them finished up!

5sg.

I was just thinking about you the other day. Welcome back, 5sg!

 

[fivestringgecko]

I was just thinking about you the other day. Welcome back, 5sg!

The last several months (half) of 2022 were fun, but intense. I thought January was going to slow down a bit, but that's when I got the message about the bassist for a band I sub with stepping down, so I started transitioning into the full time bassist spot. Things are starting to settle into a routine, so just need to get back to programming patches. New band is an 80's cover band, so lots of synth to be had there! ha ha

5sg.

 

[bassplaynbaiken]

Can anyone recommend a preset that will get me close to this synth tone? Thanks in advance