Source Audio Sorcerers Society (S.A.S.S) Part 3

[Adamixoye]

Am I right to say that you're only undergoing these problems when your scenes save new presets into your pedal?

As far as I know, yes. I can't explain it, but hopefully the evidence from my videos is conclusive as far as the weird behavior that I'm experiencing.

Have you contacted SA Support? What have they suggested that you do?

I had various issues recently, and I've alternated between working through them here and via the support e-mail.

 

[Nic.]

As far as I know, yes. I can't explain it, but hopefully the evidence from my videos is conclusive as far as the weird behavior that I'm experiencing.

That seems like a very good start then. At the moment I'm very hesitant to update my firmware in case something screws up before my gig (and also because I've midterm exams coming up and I won't have time to troubleshoot), but I'd say that's good enough to start thinking about workarounds.

Other than your OFD problem, you don't have any problems if you -don't- try to save a new patch on the fly, right? Also, from what I've read of your posts, am I right to say that this problem only turns up on your Manta? i.e. none of your other pedals have the problem where, you load a scene that overwrites the internal presets, and then when you try to save a new preset it doesn't save.

IF there is no hardware or other problem with the Manta (and I'm hoping so), my guess would be that the new firmware uses a different mechanism to save the scene to the Manta (rather than, say, loading the scene and then sending a simulated footswitch press-and-hold signal to the Manta to make it save the scene), and this clashes with saving a new patch.

I noticed something about your video that may or may not make a huge difference. Normally, before any changes are made, the LED should NOT be blinking. But I noticed that throughout, no matter what settings it's on, whether it's just engaged or after you made some changes, your LED keeps blinking at the same rate, suggesting that the Manta considers that some change has been done. I don't know how the programming keeps track of changes, but it suggests to me that something's going wrong there.

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By the way, mine is still running on the previous version so these may not be valid issues anymore, but I noticed that sometimes the scenes don't load up correctly somehow. For example, my scene is supposed to be with the MWBD morph controlled by expression, but few days ago when I first started up my pedalboard, it appeared to have some other parameter controlled by expression (either drive or high EQ, not sure which, just sounded like it made the distortion sound more cutting). However, usually just turning off the power and then starting up everything again works.

 

[scotch]

This may be an isolated firmware issue, but it might also be an indication of why other companies roll out far fewer firmware updates. You're bound to run into problems the more often you change a system!

 

[Adamixoye]

That seems like a very good start then. At the moment I'm very hesitant to update my firmware in case something screws up before my gig (and also because I've midterm exams coming up and I won't have time to troubleshoot), but I'd say that's good enough to start thinking about workarounds.

Other than your OFD problem, you don't have any problems if you -don't- try to save a new patch on the fly, right? Also, from what I've read of your posts, am I right to say that this problem only turns up on your Manta? i.e. none of your other pedals have the problem where, you load a scene that overwrites the internal presets, and then when you try to save a new preset it doesn't save.

IF there is no hardware or other problem with the Manta (and I'm hoping so), my guess would be that the new firmware uses a different mechanism to save the scene to the Manta (rather than, say, loading the scene and then sending a simulated footswitch press-and-hold signal to the Manta to make it save the scene), and this clashes with saving a new patch.

So, my blanket answer here is that I haven't tested every permutation and I was just trying a bunch of things to first replicate the problem and then fix it. Let me try and lay it out in very simple terms.

MANTA:
(1) I experienced the behavior shown in the video a few nights ago
(2) Last night, I fired up my board and immediately tried to save to Preset 2. It worked. ("Maybe I am crazy"/"They'll never believe me" I thought.)
(3) Then I started playing around just in general, including switching some scenes. I don't remember if I was doing this with my iPad (I use MIDI Designer into a M-Audio USB-MIDI converter) or with my laptop hooked up. But eventually both were hooked up.
(4) At some point I eventually thought "I should try saving the preset again" and then experienced the video behavior again (and that's when I recorded it).

So I'm not really sure what all I did during Step (3). For the OFD issue, I know a little more about what exactly happened.

OFD:
(1) I had a new sound I wanted to save.
(2) I went to the scene where I wanted to save it (using iPad/Hub).
(3) I dialed in the sound.
(4) I held the "Save" button
(5) I started experiencing the behavior shown in the video, and recorded it
(6) It continued until I hooked up my Hub to my laptop, opened the Hub Manager, and starting changing scenes. Then it finally stopped.

So again, I don't know exactly what did it. But that's what happened to the best of my recollection.

I noticed something about your video that may or may not make a huge difference. Normally, before any changes are made, the LED should NOT be blinking. But I noticed that throughout, no matter what settings it's on, whether it's just engaged or after you made some changes, your LED keeps blinking at the same rate, suggesting that the Manta considers that some change has been done. I don't know how the programming keeps track of changes, but it suggests to me that something's going wrong there.

Ah, yes, I did notice this. I didn't know what to make of it, but I noticed it. I don't think they were doing that when I was able to successfully save the preset.

 

[Nic.]

I assume the iPad is just sending MIDI, so it probably shouldn't make a difference. Did the scene overwrite OFD internal presets as well?


Also you mentioned it continued until you hooked up your hub to your laptop; did you try turning everything off and on again?

One more thing, at the end of all that did your OFD manage to save the new preset you wanted?

 

[Adamixoye]

I assume the iPad is just sending MIDI, so it probably shouldn't make a difference. Did the scene overwrite OFD internal presets as well?

I didn't check what was going on with the internal presets.

Also you mentioned it continued until you hooked up your hub to your laptop; did you try turning everything off and on again?

The OFD was still freaking out like that even after a power cycle of both the Hub and the OFD, if that's what you're asking. It did not stop until laptop connection.

One more thing, at the end of all that did your OFD manage to save the new preset you wanted?

So for the OFD, I was actually wanting to save this as a scene. I had already saved a preset in preset 2 (confirming I wasn't having the same problem as the Manta), and I think that remained through this issue, though I'm not 100% sure.

In general, with the new "load scene to preset" option what I really want to do is have a "go-to" sound in internal preset 2, and let preset 1 be the sounds that the Hub is loading.

 

[FretNoMore]

I noticed the blinking LED too, and I think maybe it doesn't blink in the usual way to confirm the save either. Could you try without having the iPad and/or PC hooked up to the Hub? Maybe they interfere with the save process somehow, perhaps by sending some MIDI messages (which causes the blinking)?

(Grasping for straws here ...)

 

[sifi2112]

Just bought a new Orbital Mod (sounds fab & Resonator surprised me & now a preset) ... next Manta / Dim Rev & exp ped ... budget £50 a month so may take awhile ... ah patience grasshopper

 

[Adamixoye]

I noticed the blinking LED too, and I think maybe it doesn't blink in the usual way to confirm the save either. Could you try without having the iPad and/or PC hooked up to the Hub? Maybe they interfere with the save process somehow, perhaps by sending some MIDI messages (which causes the blinking)?

(Grasping for straws here ...)

It definitely doesn't blink to "save" the preset; it keeps blinking the way it was and then disengages the preset no matter how long I've been holding the switch.

I realize I might be introducing a huge variable by having the iPad hooked up, so maybe I will try that. Then again, it shouldn't be sending any continuous data.

 

[gastric]

Troubleshooting is a process of elimination:

Step1 - disconnecting the Source Audio pedals from the Hub. See if the pedals behave normally as stand alone pedals in regards to operation, and saving to preset 1 and preset 2 via the footswitches.

If so.

Step2 - connect the pedals to the Hub, but no MIDI controller, Hothand, expression, etc. to the Hub and definitely not to your iPad. See if the pedals behave normally. Try saving to preset 1 and preset 2 via the footswitches.

If so.

Connect a simple MIDI Controller to the hub. Now try saving to a scene on the Hub, then changing scenes, then recalling the scene you just saved. I'm not sure if you have a more basic MIDI controller like a MIDI Mouse that only sends MIDI PC commands but that would be ideal as you eliminate the possibility that your MIDI controller (iPad) is sending multiple MIDI PC and/or MIDI CC (which can be changing pedal settings).

If that all works continue adding ONE VARIABLE back into the equation until you determine specifically which variable if the cause of the problem.

 

[scotch]

Yeah, I'm no MIDI wizard, but I'd bet the iPad MIDI converter is somehow sending a corrupted message.

 

[Adamixoye]

Troubleshooting is a process of elimination:

Step1 - disconnecting the Source Audio pedals from the Hub. See if the pedals behave normally as stand alone pedals in regards to operation, and saving to preset 1 and preset 2 via the footswitches.

If so.

Step2 - connect the pedals to the Hub, but no MIDI controller, Hothand, expression, etc. to the Hub and definitely not to your iPad. See if the pedals behave normally. Try saving to preset 1 and preset 2 via the footswitches.

If so.

Connect a simple MIDI Controller to the hub. Now try saving to a scene on the Hub, then changing scenes, then recalling the scene you just saved. I'm not sure if you have a more basic MIDI controller like a MIDI Mouse that only sends MIDI PC commands but that would be ideal as you eliminate the possibility that your MIDI controller (iPad) is sending multiple MIDI PC and/or MIDI CC (which can be changing pedal settings).

If that all works continue adding ONE VARIABLE back into the equation until you determine specifically which variable if the cause of the problem.

Yeah, I'm no MIDI wizard, but I'd bet the iPad MIDI converter is somehow sending a corrupted message.

Well, that's all pretty reasonable and it's my next step (I didn't have a chance to troubleshoot last night, I will tonight).

However, there are a few problems with it. One is that I don't have a "simple" MIDI controller, by which I take it you mean something like a MIDI Mouse or One Control Gecko. So I can't change scenes without connecting a device (laptop, iPad, or Android device---I could do any of the above). This limits how well I can isolate the variables you are talking about, although I can still isolate things up to a point.

A lesser problem, and not so much a problem per se, is that in theory I should know when my iPad/MIDI Designer/M-Audio UNO setup is sending MIDI data. Lights blink when data is being sent---on both the app and the interface. Even though there seems to be a correlation between what is hooked up and the problems, there doesn't seem to be a correlation between what MIDI data I've tried to send (or when I'm sending it---there is not continuous data being sent from the iPad) and the problems. Furthermore, I've had pretty much perfect success with this setup and all of my other pedals. So while I agree it's something I should test---it wouldn't be scientific if I didn't---that explanation doesn't seem as likely to me as it seems it might be to the rest of you.

 

[bassvirtuoso]

I don't have a "simple" MIDI controller, by which I take it you mean something like a MIDI Mouse or One Control Gecko. So I can't change scenes without connecting a device (laptop, iPad, or Android device---I could do any of the above). This limits how well I can isolate the variables you are talking about, although I can still isolate things up to a point.

Adam, are you still in NE? I have a One Control Gecko you could borrow...

 

[Adamixoye]

Adam, are you still in NE? I have a One Control Gecko you could borrow...

Hey Dave, thanks! I'm going to troubleshoot as much else as I can first, but I might take you up on that. I'm in Kearney right now, remind me where you are?

 

[bassvirtuoso]

@Adamixoye I'm in Omaha. I have a gig on the 19th and 26th where I need it, but after that you could borrow it until mid-April.

 

[Adamixoye]

I actually might be in Omaha in between those dates but leaving before the 26th. I'll get back to you after I've done more troubleshooting.

 

[gastric]

I'm no suggesting the blame lies with any particular piece of your puzzle. I'm simply suggesting you need approach the troubleshooting in a more specific manner so you can more easily isolate what is truly causing your problems. It could be a bad cable, for example. But if you have 10 cables connected to 10 pedals you'll have a hard time isolating that. So you may even want to start with just the Manta as a stand alone pedal. Test that. Just the Manta as the only/single pedal connected to the Hub (nothing else connected to the Hub). Test that. Then connect the MIDI to the Hub, but add nothing else. Baby steps. One at a time.

Annoying and tedious. But should allow you to more quickly get to the root source causing the problems.

 

[questionmaker]

Hey guys!
Quick question, is it possible to connect moog ep3 expression pedal to SA manta2?
Manta has these little jacks for hot hand and moog is standard 1/4inch and i got all confused

 

[FretNoMore]

Hey guys!
Quick question, is it possible to connect moog ep3 expression pedal to SA manta2?
Manta has these little jacks for hot hand and moog is standard 1/4inch and i got all confused

No, you can only connect a Source Audio expression pedal using the 1/8" sensor connector. Other standard expression pedals connects via the Source Audio Hub.

 

[Adamixoye]

Well, I want to thank you guys for your advice. I think...I think...I figured out (sort of) and solved the "automatically turning on" OFD problem, and in part it was due to the discussion here.

First off, apparently my solution the other night was not permanent---it started happening again after I fired up my board tonight.

If we hadn't had our discussion, I don't know if I would have thought to disconnect every device that was sending MIDI in my MIDI chain. So I did that and I found something shocking. There was a clear correlation with whether or not my Beat Buddy was hooked up. Beat Buddy MIDI disconnected---minutes on end without doing it. Beat Buddy MIDI reconnected---turned back on within a minute or sooner.

Now, the last thing I needed was to try and get SA and Beat Buddy talking to each to figure out a mutual firmware problem that might be difficult to replicate. But I realized that even though the Beat Buddy correlation was clear, there had to be something new. This started after I tried to save a scene. I had tried power cycling the other night, but what I didn't do was a factory reset.

So...I guess it's fixed now? I think I tried power cycling my whole board again, I can't remember. I kind of got tired of troubleshooting and just wanted to play.

So TL;DR I think the OFD was legitimately glitching and needed a factory reset, but the glitching was triggered by the Beat Buddy MIDI signal (which should have only been sending tempo).

I didn't deal with the Manta issue. I'll save that for another night.