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

[4Mal]

So EQ2 MIDI issues:
If I connect my EQ2 to my Neuro hub, CC patch change (CC# 104) doesn't work period. If I disconnect my EQ 2 from the Neuro hub and connect the Midi Din leads...and reboot my EQ2...then this same CC#104 command works.
If I power up my EQ2 from cold, it is unresponsive to any CC expression commands until I reboot my EQ2 a second time. However, the same CC midi Expression works first time (first boot) if I disconnect the Midi Din leads and just use the Neuro Hub lead. I am now an expert when dealing with Source Audio gear and midi. The EQ2 in my opinion is just broken where midi is concerned. Before you ask...yes I have done a firmware reset and yes I am using the new beta firmware and no change from the previous firmware.

Interesting. I too have been chasing EQ2 and midi issues. You have been more diligent in your approach than I. I haven't tried the reboot approach. Never dawned on me to try.

I am trying to keep the EQ2 on the hub and not the din connector.

I'll try the reboot thing and see if that works for me as well.

 

[Gibs210]

What midi controllers are you guys using and do you have firmware 1.15? That solved some issues with running status. In my testing, eq2 has responded just fine to CC messages via hub from my soleman, can’t remember if I’ve spent anytime using CCs direct into the din ports to say either way, will do some more testing.

 

[rsmith601]

@rsmith601: would it be possible to add 'Remote Expression' to the AfterShock assigned parameters list?

Making a major change to the firmware of a mature product is asking for all kinds of trouble. I speak from experience on this!

 

[GMC]

What midi controllers are you guys using and do you have firmware 1.15? That solved some issues with running status. In my testing, eq2 has responded just fine to CC messages via hub from my soleman, can’t remember if I’ve spent anytime using CCs direct into the din ports to say either way, will do some more testing.

Gibs210....do not ask me to use Firmware 1.15 again....this will be the 3rd application of the same firmware. Are you trying to irritate me? Next....you'll be asking me to do a factory restore...again. After 8 emails / PM's to you...YOU KNOW what controller I am using. It's even in this thread a few comments up....IT'S A BOSS ES-5. And before you ask again...I have been using this controller with an Aftershock, a Lunar, a C4 and a Hub for a while. I've had the Aftershock and ES-5 for over three years. Expression over midi is a very common requirement on a modern board. You keep saying to me "have you tried firmware 1.15...and I don't under stand it...Please stop fobbing me off and actually do some home work on it or at the very least pass it up stream to Roger. I know of three EQ2 users who are having Midi issues.
I first reported this issue to you Dec 19 on the Gear Page. Jan 14th is where we started to messaging here on Talkbass.

As I said earlier...I'm already regretting buying the rather expensive and buggy EQ2. I paid £285 UKP for this...it's should work properly. If you want to swim in the top tier gear stream...then this stuff needs to work ok.
I love the Aftershock and the C4...but to be honest, the Lunar and this EQ2 are really knocking my Source Audio brand confidence. I could have easily bought from the Boss 200 range, which would have been a lot cheaper and a lot less hassle. But I chose Source Audio...and yes I'm regretting it somewhat.

 

[monkeyfinger]

Gibs210....do not ask me to use Firmware 1.15 again....this will be the 3rd application of the same firmware. Are you trying to irritate me? Next....you'll be asking me to do a factory restore...again. After 8 emails / PM's to you...YOU KNOW what controller I am using. It's even in this thread a few comments up....IT'S A BOSS ES-5. And before you ask again...I have been using this controller with an Aftershock, a Lunar, a C4 and a Hub for a while. I've had the Aftershock and ES-5 for over three years. Expression over midi is a very common requirement on a modern board. You keep saying to me "have you tried firmware 1.15...and I don't under stand it...Please stop fobbing me off and actually do some home work on it or at the very least pass it up stream to Roger. I know of three EQ2 users who are having Midi issues.
I first reported this issue to you Dec 19 on the Gear Page. Jan 14th is where we started to messaging here on Talkbass.

As I said earlier...I'm already regretting buying the rather expensive and buggy EQ2. I paid £285 UKP for this...it's should work properly. If you want to swim in the top tier gear stream...then this stuff needs to work ok.
I love the Aftershock and the C4...but to be honest, the Lunar and this EQ2 are really knocking my Source Audio brand confidence. I could have easily bought from the Boss 200 range, which would have been a lot cheaper and a lot less hassle. But I chose Source Audio...and yes I'm regretting it somewhat.

Sorry to hear about your frustrations. If you wouldn't mind, would you tell me how you got Expression over midi to work with the AfterShock? Are you mapping individual parameters to CC's whose values are controlled by expression over midi?

 

[rsmith601]

Gibs210....do not ask me to use Firmware 1.15 again....this will be the 3rd application of the same firmware. Are you trying to irritate me? Next....you'll be asking me to do a factory restore...again. After 8 emails / PM's to you...YOU KNOW what controller I am using. It's even in this thread a few comments up....IT'S A BOSS ES-5. And before you ask again...I have been using this controller with an Aftershock, a Lunar, a C4 and a Hub for a while. I've had the Aftershock and ES-5 for over three years. Expression over midi is a very common requirement on a modern board. You keep saying to me "have you tried firmware 1.15...and I don't under stand it...Please stop fobbing me off and actually do some home work on it or at the very least pass it up stream to Roger. I know of three EQ2 users who are having Midi issues.
I first reported this issue to you Dec 19 on the Gear Page. Jan 14th is where we started to messaging here on Talkbass.

As I said earlier...I'm already regretting buying the rather expensive and buggy EQ2. I paid £285 UKP for this...it's should work properly. If you want to swim in the top tier gear stream...then this stuff needs to work ok.
I love the Aftershock and the C4...but to be honest, the Lunar and this EQ2 are really knocking my Source Audio brand confidence. I could have easily bought from the Boss 200 range, which would have been a lot cheaper and a lot less hassle. But I chose Source Audio...and yes I'm regretting it somewhat.

There is one key difference. I am monitoring what you are saying. Making sure that Jesse is aware of this, and making sure that things are addressed and fixed to your satisfaction. You have a direct line to me. That is not the same with Boss!
It looks like there is an issue and we know what it is. We will get it right and you will be happy again. I PROMISE!!

 

[Somnambulance]

Source Audio has been progressively dropping the ball on their gear these past few years it seems.

 

[rsmith601]

Source Audio has been progressively dropping the ball on their gear these past few years it seems.

If that were true, I would not have time to get directly involved with supporting people, as I am with @GMC . Note that the number of pedals we sell today is 5X that of a few years ago.

The C4 and EQ2 are 10X the complexity of things we did a few years ago. Sometimes its hard for us to test everything, because you only find certain things when there are thousands of pedals out in the world. In this case, it looks like when Jesse made an update to one thing that was uncovered in the field it actually broke something else that was working fine before. This is one reason why I am more careful these days to add in small features after a pedal is out there for a while.

 

[Mosfed]

Source Audio has been progressively dropping the ball on their gear these past few years it seems.

this presumes that they ever made gear that worked well and seamlessly with midi. Which just isn’t the case.

 

[Quatschmacher]

If that were true, I would not have time to get directly involved with supporting people, as I am with @GMC . Note that the number of pedals we sell today is 5X that of a few years ago.

The C4 and EQ2 are 10X the complexity of things we did a few years ago. Sometimes its hard for us to test everything, because you only find certain things when there are thousands of pedals out in the world. In this case, it looks like when Jesse made an update to one thing that was uncovered in the field it actually broke something else that was working fine before. This is one reason why I am more careful these days to add in small features after a pedal is out there for a while.

I can certainly attest to the complexity of testing. There were things I found in C4 well over a year after buying it and using it pretty extensively. The best way to get stuff fixed is to provide clear steps of how to reproduce the problem and send it to support. I worked with Jesse last year in getting bugs in the C4 harmoniser fixed and have submitted other reports. He's only human and I certainly don't expect him to be able to deal with everything all at once. I know of bigger companies with more employees per project who are nowhere near as responsive to fixes as Source Audio are. We are very lucky to have direct engagement with staff here.

 

[monkeyfinger]

[MODERATOR VOICE ON]
Please refrain from making generalized adverse comments about any member of this forum, including companies. @GMC expressed his personal experience with a vendor and product. I am fine with that. I am not ok with 'they suck' type comments.
[MODERATOR VOICE OFF]

 

[Gibs210]

Gibs210....do not ask me to use Firmware 1.15 again....this will be the 3rd application of the same firmware. Are you trying to irritate me? Next....you'll be asking me to do a factory restore...again. After 8 emails / PM's to you...YOU KNOW what controller I am using. It's even in this thread a few comments up....IT'S A BOSS ES-5. And before you ask again...I have been using this controller with an Aftershock, a Lunar, a C4 and a Hub for a while. I've had the Aftershock and ES-5 for over three years. Expression over midi is a very common requirement on a modern board. You keep saying to me "have you tried firmware 1.15...and I don't under stand it...Please stop fobbing me off and actually do some home work on it or at the very least pass it up stream to Roger. I know of three EQ2 users who are having Midi issues.
I first reported this issue to you Dec 19 on the Gear Page. Jan 14th is where we started to messaging here on Talkbass.

As I said earlier...I'm already regretting buying the rather expensive and buggy EQ2. I paid £285 UKP for this...it's should work properly. If you want to swim in the top tier gear stream...then this stuff needs to work ok.
I love the Aftershock and the C4...but to be honest, the Lunar and this EQ2 are really knocking my Source Audio brand confidence. I could have easily bought from the Boss 200 range, which would have been a lot cheaper and a lot less hassle. But I chose Source Audio...and yes I'm regretting it somewhat.

Sorry, sometimes keeping track of PMs, threads, forums, emails, across all sorts of media I forget who’s issue is what. I should have advised emailing direct to [email protected] when things weren’t getting fixed. The smaller issues are easy to address on the forums and in PMs. The bigger stuff it’s often easier to go to our support page as then I’m easily able to keep track of tickets and ask for help from jesse rather than relaying things back and forth in an email chain between me and him (I don’t work in the same state as the rest of the crew). Sorry for all the issues.

 

[Gibs210]

Sorry to hear about your frustrations. If you wouldn't mind, would you tell me how you got Expression over midi to work with the AfterShock? Are you mapping individual parameters to CC's whose values are controlled by expression over midi?

It’s been awhile since I’ve messed around in the Midi map for the older small box pedals, but I am pretty certain that cc remote wasn’t added until after the nemesis, and as @rsmith601 mentioned, adding features to mature products can lead to breaking something that was working fine before. So I don’t think it will be added. The other issue is that the older devices typically only respond to one midi message at a time. This actually was the reason for created cc remote expression on later designs. So unfortunately, if you want to control more than one control at a time when using the hub, it’s best to use the hub expression jack instead of the expression port on your midi controller.

 

[rsmith601]

this presumes that they ever made gear that worked well and seamlessly with midi. Which just isn’t the case.

It is worth addressing this point.

There is no set of established protocols for testing whether something is "MIDI compliant". It is only through years of making a wide variety of MIDI devices such as the Hub, Soleman, and Reflex that we have gained insight into the ways that other manufacturers do things and how to design around whatever it is they have done. There is no independent testing lab to certify that MIDI products are compliant. As an example: some MIDI devices send the data in any easy-to-read relatively slow serial digital format, but some send it in a firehouse of bursty data that requires a dedicated buffer so that that data can be correctly parsed into the right messages. Is it our fault that we cant read those messages, or was it a bad assumption on the part of the other company that every MIDI device needs a dedicated buffer? My point here is that this stuff is REALLY difficult and it takes years to get it right. The good news is that we have now been working on it for years, and Jesse is a way above average systems engineer.

 

[monkeyfinger]

It’s been awhile since I’ve messed around in the Midi map for the older small box pedals, but I am pretty certain that cc remote wasn’t added until after the nemesis, and as @rsmith601 mentioned, adding features to mature products can lead to breaking something that was working fine before. So I don’t think it will be added. The other issue is that the older devices typically only respond to one midi message at a time. This actually was the reason for created cc remote expression on later designs. So unfortunately, if you want to control more than one control at a time when using the hub, it’s best to use the hub expression jack instead of the expression port on your midi controller.

Will the UltraWave have Remote Expression as an assignable parameter?

 

[rsmith601]

Will the UltraWave have Remote Expression as an assignable parameter?

Absolutely! You can set up 3 of them, and you can select from about 50 different parameters.

 

[4Mal]

What midi controllers are you guys using and do you have firmware 1.15? That solved some issues with running status. In my testing, eq2 has responded just fine to CC messages via hub from my soleman, can’t remember if I’ve spent anytime using CCs direct into the din ports to say either way, will do some more testing.

Soleman and neuro hub in my case. I'm on EQ2 v1.14

How do I get 1.15 ? Latest I see on the SA Support Editors & Firmware page is Desktop 8.1 which has Eq2 1.14

And Iguess if you guys have a fix in the works, is there a point to getting 1.15 anyway?

I am Mac based though I can bring a Win 10 PC into the mix if necessary.

 

[Gibs210]

Soleman and neuro hub in my case. I'm on EQ2 v1.14

How do I get 1.15 ? Latest I see on the SA Support Editors & Firmware page is Desktop 8.1 which has Eq2 1.14

And Iguess if you guys have a fix in the works, is there a point to getting 1.15 anyway?

I am Mac based though I can bring a Win 10 PC into the mix if necessary.

Looking into it currently. Seems to be an issue with hub, 1.15 is a beta firmware that we would have to send out, but 1.15 addressed more issues with the boss controllers and what is referred to as running status messages, we have a beta 1.19 for hub that fixes some running status issues, but it seems that it still has some issues that need ironed out. Jesse is going to be looking into this tomorrow hopefully, so I hope to have some better answers for you all soon. I’ll let everyone know, probably have you message contact if your need the updates to resolve any issues your having. Just so we can better monitor if it fixes the problem or if we need to do some more digging.

 

[4Mal]

Thanks for the update. I as always appreciate the Source Audio support.

 

[dieselbass42]

Sorry to hear about your frustrations. If you wouldn't mind, would you tell me how you got Expression over midi to work with the AfterShock? Are you mapping individual parameters to CC's whose values are controlled by expression over midi?

Not sure if you got this working yet, but I've been making it work with the Reflex sending midi CCs to the Aftershock via the hub. I struggled with it for a while, couldn't figure out how to select parameters in the midi map. Problem was I didn't have the Aftershock connected to my PC via USB, I had the hub connected. To edit the device midi map, you need to have that device connected to open it's own editor. Once I did that, I could assign any CC# to almost any parameter on the AS. I've been using the reflex to morph between sounds by raising left output and lowering right output at the same time, and visa versa. I have presets set to change drive and sometimes voice via the reflex as well. Big advantage over using the hub's expression port is that you can control each channel's parameters (gain, output, mix, etc.) separately. Also set a CC to toggle on/off for certain presets/scenes where I just want to go between clean/dirt without actually stepping on the pedal (if I use the pedal footswitch, I loose the sound saved in the scene when I engage it again). Anyway, not sure if this is what you were talking about or not. But it does work. Just have to connect the Aftershock to the computer directly, not through the hub, to edit the midi map.