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

[stubbsonic]

Then you could save the preset on the pedal.

 

[Mr. voodoobass]

This thread is like 700 pages of people asking how to edit this and that, what a setting means, midi and so in. A testimony of how deep you can go with the pedals. Don’t get me wrong, I love what can be done and the sounds. But it is a pain to edit sometimes.
I would have really wanted something like a 2 stage editor. Simplified and “go deep” settings.

 

[GMC]

Stocking filler??

I like to keep my wife's stockings out of this thread!

 

[GMC]

In 2023 I bought 2 big pedal board purchases. The SA Ventris to swap out my placeholder Collider and a H90. The H90 is still quite new, recent and annoyingly complex, more than it really should be to effectively get me where I was with a pair of H9's. I have several Ventris verbs that are recreation of some of my fav H9 reverbs. I'm using these more than I am the H90 verbs at the moment, which is a big suprise to me.

The Ventris was a pedal that I wanted for some time and I bought a Collider as a stop gap. The Collider really can do 90% of my delay and verb needs and it's an astonishingly small and neat package. I was in 2 minds about keeping the Collider and not side grading to the Nemesis / Ventris combo. I already had a Nemesis that I was quite familiar with, although I am aware that I'm unlikely to become fully familiar with any deep SA pedal. As Roger said earlier, these pedals are a life time of exploration! Maybe in the new year, I'll swap out my Nemesis for a Nemesis ADT.
I really enjoyed my time with the Collider and I particularly like the range of delays and verbs available in such a small space. Vast yet simple and approoachable. It's controls and "under the hood" experience are very simple compared to a Nemesis / Ventris combo. I really haven't delved into the deeper areas of my Ventris yet, after almost a year I'm slightly beyond where I was with my Collider stage. But I'm looking forwards to exploring it deeper in 2024.
I'm also looking forwards to all the new products that SA have been developing this year. They rocked my world with the C4 and then did it again with the Ultrawave. other high notes are the Spectrum and Atlas. I can only wonder what they have awaiting for us in 2024!

 

[mdalamond]

We have actually decided that the best way to describe controls is text when hovering over the controls.

YES, Can’t wait. This is the icing on the cake and I think will prove very helpful.

 

[boing]

On the Ventris/Nemesis, you long-press the preset button to save changes or copy the patch to another preset slot. If you decide not to save or copy, is it possible to exit out of the save/copy mode without having to power cycle the pedal?

 

[stubbsonic]

We have actually decided that the best way to describe controls is text when hovering over the controls.

For a desktop rig, hover-text is great for quick reminders, and brief-but-useful info. Not all controls require it. But that's no substitute for complete docs, IMHO.

For the mobile app, it's trickier as you want to make sure the pop-ups aren't blocked by your hand (i.e., above not below). They could also get quite annoying. Perhaps set the timing right so-- you press and hold a control, but don't move for 2 seconds (?) only then does the help pop up.

I am not sure where you are finding fantastic manuals. I have hundreds of them for all kinds of gear around the house, office and studio. They are universally terrible.

Say what you will about Boss manuals, but they are complete and explain every control. Same with Zoom. Line6 manuals seem pretty good. Mackie manuals, as well. Fractal's manuals and reference docs and wiki resources are impressive. I notice that most questions on the Fractal forum can be responded to with page numbers.

Kurzweil's manuals for the K2xxx series synths were like synthesizer school-- complete and set the standard-- but yea, thick-assed books. The K2xxx was a massive achievement, and the manuals were appropriately epic. The PDFs are great, because you search and everything you need to know is easily found.

I'm not saying the SA manuals need to be super thick, they are just missing quite a few important things.

This thread is like 700 pages of people asking how to edit this and that, what a setting means, midi and so in. A testimony of how deep you can go with the pedals.

There's no question these pedals are deep. Effective and complete documentation would reduce the number of pages/questions here.

 

[rsmith601]

For a desktop rig, hover-text is great for quick reminders, and brief-but-useful info. Not all controls require it. But that's no substitute for complete docs, IMHO.

For the mobile app, it's trickier as you want to make sure the pop-ups aren't blocked by your hand (i.e., above not below). They could also get quite annoying. Perhaps set the timing right so-- you press and hold a control, but don't move for 2 seconds (?) only then does the help pop up.



Say what you will about Boss manuals, but they are complete and explain every control. Same with Zoom. Line6 manuals seem pretty good. Mackie manuals, as well. Fractal's manuals and reference docs and wiki resources are impressive. I notice that most questions on the Fractal forum can be responded to with page numbers.

Kurzweil's manuals for the K2xxx series synths were like synthesizer school-- complete and set the standard-- but yea, thick-assed books. The K2xxx was a massive achievement, and the manuals were appropriately epic. The PDFs are great, because you search and everything you need to know is easily found.

I'm not saying the SA manuals need to be super thick, they are just missing quite a few important things.



There's no question these pedals are deep. Effective and complete documentation would reduce the number of pages/questions here.

Dont want to get too defensive here, but this is a $400 pedal. Best to compare against direct competition.
The RV-500 is the Ventris-equivalent from Boss. The user manual is only 28 pages. Ventris is 68. There is very limited discussion of how spillover works. There are no routing diagrams (we have something like 14). There is no clarity on the analog dry path and how levels should be set. This is one of the most important aspects of a dual reverb pedal and its not explained or addressed.
I will agree that our user manuals can certainly be better, but even with all of their resources I can't see that Boss is definitively better across the board.
OK, time for me to be less defensive!

 

[stubbsonic]

I know I've been pretty critical of SA's manuals in this and the Neuro thread. It's because I've often had burning questions; and lots of frustrating dead ends in the docs.

One quick question about Ventris. In the ROOM engine, the SIZE parameter list has a mixture of "size" type words, as well as "dimension" plates, springs, and metal box. Would be cool to understand what's happening there. Also, in the knob assigns, etc. what does Custom 1, 2...5, Soft Control mean?

 

[boing]

Dimension is an earlier Source Audio reverb pedal, so I assume it's the old programs. The product page is 404 but it's listed on the legacy products list:

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

 

[rsmith601]

I know I've been pretty critical of SA's manuals in this and the Neuro thread. It's because I've often had burning questions; and lots of frustrating dead ends in the docs.

One quick question about Ventris. In the ROOM engine, the SIZE parameter list has a mixture of "size" type words, as well as "dimension" plates, springs, and metal box. Would be cool to understand what's happening there. Also, in the knob assigns, etc. what does Custom 1, 2...5, Soft Control mean?

Perfect example of how we get ourselves in trouble. The Room and E-Dome programs were taken from the Dimension Reverb, which is perhaps the best reverb value in the used market. Its mono, in an odd-looking housing and as a consequence it was largely overlooked when it came out. At some point I mentioned to Jesse that we ought to allow users to find the sounds from the Dimension Reverb. Metal Box is cool. It occurred to him that it would be early to do this in the "size" menu. So he added it in and for some reason it never made it into any updates to the User Manual. A company with more restraint would never have thrown that into the mix. I thought, why not? Better to have it in there unexplained than not in there at all? I take full ownership on that one. I dont see that knob assigns in the Desktop. Where is that?

 

[boing]

I dont see that knob assigns in the Desktop. Where is that?

They’re only in the Mobile app.

 

[bassbrad]

I know I've been pretty critical of SA's manuals in this and the Neuro thread. It's because I've often had burning questions; and lots of frustrating dead ends in the docs.

One quick question about Ventris. In the ROOM engine, the SIZE parameter list has a mixture of "size" type words, as well as "dimension" plates, springs, and metal box. Would be cool to understand what's happening there. Also, in the knob assigns, etc. what does Custom 1, 2...5, Soft Control mean?

There are times you just have to reach in there and use your level of perceptive listening to find out such things. Not meant to be critical, because I often face the same frustration with manuals and not only with SA. To me that discovery is the joy of music gear especially the types of technology was have available these days.

 

[rsmith601]

They’re only in the Mobile app.

@Gibs210 do you know?

 

[stubbsonic]

There are times you just have to reach in there and use your level of perceptive listening to find out such things.

You make a valid point. However, there are different learning approaches, and some learn more effectively with diagrams and/or text.

For example whether an EQ applies to dry signal or wet signal or both is useful. So labeling it Wet EQ, or Dry EQ, or Mix EQ is helpful. Having the manual give more details about what is happening with a slider that has an ambiguous name is also really helpful.

Also, before I purchased all 5 of my SA pedals I bought, I watched/listened to lots of demos, read the manuals cover to cover, and spent a fair amount of time messing with mobile Neuro to see what features, algorithms, controls, routing, etc. were on offer. Now that I have them, I'm all ears, but some things are really helpful to know. (case in point, the "bonus engines" tucked inside the ROOM size list!!!)

 

[Gibs210]

@Gibs210 do you know?

It’s right next to the option switch assign under engine A/B controls in the desktop editor.

 

[rsmith601]

It’s right next to the option switch assign under engine A/B controls in the desktop editor.

How is it used?

 

[Gibs210]

How is it used?

Most of them are self explanatory as to what they will control once mapped to control 1 or 2. The custom 1 to 5 correspond to the third row of knobs in the engine controls for engine specific controls, so some of them will not work for anything if there’s no additional controls for that engine (like Hall L only has 2 engine specific controls if I remember correctly, so custom 3,4,5 and won’t be assignable).

 

[Luke the Fluke]

Am I being stupid

I’m in the desktop app… I fiddle with settings and now want to save them and burn them to the c4 …. Am I missing something obvious?

I can easy find someone else’s patch and burn it, I can download into my library - but I don’t know how the edit - save - burn function is supposed to work!! I equalised the volume on my patches a few months back so I obviously worked it out then - but think I used the mobile app

 

[stubbsonic]

I’m in the desktop app… I fiddle with settings and now want to save them and burn them to the c4 …. Am I missing something obvious?

I can easy find someone else’s patch and burn it, I can download into my library - but I don’t know how the edit - save - burn function is supposed to work!!

I think the desktop works this way:
When you connect your pedal, and click the wrench icon, you're in the device editor-- viewing and editing the presets that are on the pedal.

Here, you can select one of the presets that's on the pedal from that list on the right side. Make some edits. When you hit save, it will save it to the pedal. When you it Save As... it will give you the option to store it on a different preset # on the pedal. Import & Export let you load & store (respectively) from/to your computer. Save to Cloud puts the preset up where it can be accessed by you (also from the mobile app), and other users.

On the upper right corner, if you switch the view from Device to Cloud, you will now see lots of cloud-based presets, and may need to filter for this specific device. Once you are looking at a preset for your specific device that is on the cloud, if you want to move it from the cloud to your device you need to use the burn function (flame icon). This works similarly to the Save As... in that it allows you to choose a location on the pedal for the cloud-based preset to be "burned"/saved.

If I understand this all correctly.