TC Electronic RH450 discussion - Tweaking the Preamp

[Eublet]

Another (kinder and gentler) answer would be...

We don't know yet what TC's plans for for marketing the software.

It could be that they intend to make it available for a fee so that those who want additional tweaking power can have it.

It could be that TC wants to include it as a "value added" offering with new amp purchase, or as a download from their website for current owners of the RH450.

And as has been said, it could be that no product emerges from this at all, although that probably not too likely...

So we want to be very careful about managing everyone's expectations.

It would be HORRIBLE if somehow this commendable exercise customer-focused R&D somehow got turned around and became a source of customer disappointment, you know?

True, and I don't want to cause that by putting in terse messages. I just pop in and throw quick responses in without really taking much time to word things. I don't mean to be harsh by any means. I'll try to slow down.

So Tom, your position as the diplomat has been solidified! LOL!

 

[The Butler]

Subscribed, This is extremely cool of TC.

 

[Tom7]

... So Tom, your position as the diplomat has been solidified! LOL!

[Chuckle] I was wondering what I could bring to the table already seated with such an illustrious group.

Well, diplomat would be fine -- and an upgrade from my role on some teams: floor mat!

 

[superbassman2000]

Well, here's another guess (I'm just full of those, right?), but the midi connectory on the back isn't meant as a midi interface. Sure they use the connector type, which is nice because it makes replacing the footswitch cable easy. You can pick one up anywhere in a pinch and use it. But the interface is used for more than that as we are all now aware. Because of this it seems it would have to be a proprietary interface logically even though it uses an industry standard pin-out and cable.

lol i know that--that's basically what I was saying in my post. My question is why couldn't they have added MIDI control capabilities to at least preset settings? that's only 3 program changes to add.
for example, say I have two effect processors and the amp. with the two effect processors i make drastically different sounds, maybe one being a synth-type sound and another one being a bass-y dub type sound. the synth combination would use a high gain setting, and the dub would be the low gain setting. well, if the RH450 could receive those kinds of midi codes, then I could change all three units at the same time. even if they come out with the adaptor cable (and i know it's not even a product yet, just an idea) I still won't understand it--to me it's like a meeting between an american and and englishman and bringing along a frenchman to translate between them. Why not just have the american and englishman talk to each other in the language that they both understand? That's my belief in the power of MIDI. Or maybe I am just trying to build another tower of babel lol

And that's just asking for presets--what would really be cool (and possibly the reason they avoided this the first time) would be if you could assign each knob to a MIDI CC message for some sweet automation effects.

all-in-all, the RH450 is a really cool amp, and I am not complaining about it's downsides, I am just hoping that this message can somehow make it to the good folks at TCE and maybe they'll at least consider it, or tell me why they didn't do it in the first place--I am not angry, I just want to know

 

[Eublet]

lol i know that--that's basically what I was saying in my post. My question is why couldn't they have added MIDI control capabilities to at least preset settings? that's only 3 program changes to add.
for example, say I have two effect processors and the amp. with the two effect processors i make drastically different sounds, maybe one being a synth-type sound and another one being a bass-y dub type sound. the synth combination would use a high gain setting, and the dub would be the low gain setting. well, if the RH450 could receive those kinds of midi codes, then I could change all three units at the same time. even if they come out with the adaptor cable (and i know it's not even a product yet, just an idea) I still won't understand it--to me it's like a meeting between an american and and englishman and bringing along a frenchman to translate between them. Why not just have the american and englishman talk to each other in the language that they both understand? That's my belief in the power of MIDI. Or maybe I am just trying to build another tower of babel lol

And that's just asking for presets--what would really be cool (and possibly the reason they avoided this the first time) would be if you could assign each knob to a MIDI CC message for some sweet automation effects.

all-in-all, the RH450 is a really cool amp, and I am not complaining about it's downsides, I am just hoping that this message can somehow make it to the good folks at TCE and maybe they'll at least consider it, or tell me why they didn't do it in the first place--I am not angry, I just want to know

I guess I'm just wondering if you could make it do all that via MIDI yet have it retains it's current function as a programming interface for the preamp. Seems to me having that kind of MIDI control would mean they couldn't use it for their own proprietary purposes. I could be wrong.

 

[Tom7]

Quick sidebar:

My wife is British, born and raised.

To the best of our knowledge, we do not share a common language that "both understand."

The United States and the United Kingdom are two great nations separated by a common language.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled forum. ;-)

 

[Eublet]

Quick sidebar:

My wife is British, born and raised.

To the best of our knowledge, we do not share a common language that "both understand."

The United States and the United Kingdom are two great nations separated by a common language.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled forum. ;-)

Having been to England, they can barely communicate between themselves half the time it seems. It's hard to believe there are so many differences and dialects in the English language just inside the UK!!!

 

[Musicman20]

Ha! You guys should realise how fun it was to move from the sorta mid east coast of England to the north, (Newcastle).

The accent is very different! But it is also now my favourite city.

 

[JackANSI]

I guess I'm just wondering if you could make it do all that via MIDI yet have it retains it's current function as a programming interface for the preamp. Seems to me having that kind of MIDI control would mean they couldn't use it for their own proprietary purposes. I could be wrong.

I'll find out through testing, but some automakers have a "handshake" you need to know before the OBD interface will let you into the more intimate things like reflashing the ECU code. If it doesn't hear that handshake in a certain number of cycles, it drops into regular OBD mode.

I'm extremely interested in knowing if you can switch presets from the PC through the software, because then you could make a proprietary-to-MIDI converter. If that is possible, you might be able to play with all the variables in realtime over the same MIDI converter. Soft-wah anyone?

I'll snap some pics while I have the top off the RH450 in case anyone is interested in knowing what the guts look like (gotta find part numbers so I can find voltage tolerances and bus specs ).

 

[Tom7]

I'll snap some pics while I have the top off the RH450 in case anyone is interested in knowing what the guts look like (gotta find part numbers so I can find voltage tolerances and bus specs ).

Ew! Yes, please post them!

 

[Tom7]

BTW, we testers are not only waiting for the gear and software... we are also waiting for more guidance from TC.

Your questions are, in many cases, beyond what we actually KNOW.

We all are afraid of misspeaking, and at the same time afraid of not being as responsive as we can be to y'all, you know?

Hopefully some of the mystery will be lifted soon.

 

[superbassman2000]

Quick sidebar:

My wife is British, born and raised.

To the best of our knowledge, we do not share a common language that "both understand."

The United States and the United Kingdom are two great nations separated by a common language.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled forum. ;-)

of course, you are also trying to cross an additional language barrier there too--the mars/venus barrier

but that's hardly the point haha

I guess I'm just wondering if you could make it do all that via MIDI yet have it retains it's current function as a programming interface for the preamp. Seems to me having that kind of MIDI control would mean they couldn't use it for their own proprietary purposes. I could be wrong.

no, you'd be right, sort of. According to the original post, TCE wants to make it possible to basically create presets. My guess is that you will a screen with a nice looking UI (TCE does have a really nice sense of aesthetics imo) where you will be able to tweak all the settings of the RH450 and maybe even a few more that are built in but are static and you can't change them other than digitally. When you are done, you save it as a preset. This is nothing they couldn't do with MIDI. In fact, there are some software designers who have made PC editors for a lot of synths that never were meant to be plugged into a computer, but all the communication is done via MIDI. The same thing could have been done here, but they chose to make it proprietary. The interesting thing to me is that they even use a MIDI jack for their remote jack.

oddly all I want in the RH450 is the presets being called up by midi--i don't care about real-time midi control of the knobs. to have a few extra lines of code put in the digital preamp to know that when I send a MIDI program change #1 (or whatever they want to assign it to be), then I get preset #1, and when I send program change #2, then i get preset #2, and so on. As far as proprietary operation goes, one possibility that TCE faces is that they might not sell as many of their foot controllers, as some bassists will use the foot controller they already have, or get one that would interact better with the rest of their gear. On the other hand, it opens up a new profit opportunity as they can make a bigger foot controller and sell that one along with the RH4, or even sell bass players the G-switch or something along that line.

And like i said, don't take this as complaining--I really do like TC electronics gear--I have gone through a lot of their rack gear, and the next rack effect I buy will most likely be the G-major2, and I am looking at the powercore for my recording setup--I love them, but I also think that midi implementation is a better idea so as to run my rig the most efficient--just like all the pedal guys on the forum who don't want to do a tap dance before every song and get the effect loop pedals and whatnot so that they only have to hit one footswitch before the song

 

[Musicman20]

BTW, we testers are not only waiting for the gear and software... we are also waiting for more guidance from TC.

Your questions are, in many cases, beyond what we actually KNOW.

We all are afraid of misspeaking, and at the same time afraid of not being as responsive as we can be to y'all, you know?

Hopefully some of the mystery will be lifted soon.

Big + 1. The team are all awaiting what happens next. I don't want to answer anything incorrectly.

Everything will become much clearer soon. I envisage the presets on the screen for different 'baked in' tones like what they did with the Staccato 51.

 

[JackANSI]

*sweet* Will it cost?

I was thinking about this on the drive home. I can't imagine it will be any cheaper than the difference between the staccato and the rh450. Afterall this does expose that they over charged the staccato guys by ~200.

If I were a betting man, I would put my money on the 249 - 299 range (I wouldn't want to pay more than $99, personally).

 

[nostatic]

If you buy the Markbass SuperSynth for $279 you get software (cross platform) to tweak parameters. I find it hard to swallow the thought of having to pay extra for that capability with a $1K head.

 

[stflbn]

I was thinking $100 add-on for the cable and ability about right. Then likely just including that cable along with future sales of RH450 heads.

 

[Eublet]

I was thinking about this on the drive home. I can't imagine it will be any cheaper than the difference between the staccato and the rh450. Afterall this does expose that they over charged the staccato guys by ~200.

Totally, completely, categorically disagree with this as much as anything I've ever disagreed with here on TB.

 

[Eublet]

I was thinking $100 add-on for the cable and ability about right. Then likely just including that cable along with future sales of RH450 heads.

Typically, from a business perspective, it's easier to keep prices and AND increase profit when you DON'T include things like this with a head. It also makes sense for the end users as most folks won't want this, the footswitch, or the bag. So it let's a company sell a product at a cheaper price with a better profit margin, and then sell the value-add accessories at a very reasonable rate just for folks who want them. It's more than just "what the product is worth." It's also a matter of supply chain management which gets very tricky when you have to control more and more items to go into a product.

 

[Tom7]

Totally, completely, categorically disagree with this as much as anything I've ever disagreed with here on TB.

Don't hold back, Jason. Tell us how you really feel.

Typically, from a business perspective, it's easier to keep prices and AND increase profit when you DON'T include things like this with a head. It also makes sense for the end users as most folks won't want this, the footswitch, or the bag. So it let's a company sell a product at a cheaper price with a better profit margin, and then sell the value-add accessories at a very reasonable rate just for folks who want them. It's more than just "what the product is worth." It's also a matter of supply chain management which gets very tricky when you have to control more and more items to go into a product.

When it comes to price, we may as well be debating whether or not Adam had a belly button guys, 'cause at this point in time we just don't know.

Besides, how can we debate a product whose features aren't really even known yet?

Instead, let's redirect the conversation to wish list type thinking in terms of functionality.

For instance, I for one am curious how many people we have out there who would want the software to work on..

Macs?
Windows 7?
Windows Vista?
Windows XP?
Android?
iPhone / iPod / iTouch
Web?

A great point was brought up earlier. Many home and professional studios are Mac based. Perhaps Mac OS X is a major or even primary platform for the software.

 

[Rick Auricchio]

If the tweaker were something I'd buy, then I definitely would want it on a Mac. The iPhone would require some type of hardware adapter, and it may not even have the MacOS Audio/Midi frameworks---that would make software development far more difficult.

One thing we should all do is to stop giving our ideas about pricing. There is no product here yet, if ever. All we have is a great opportunity to provide our suggestions to the five testers. Let's keep things in the technical domain and not make Uffe sorry he included us.