Timeliine won't play nicely with others

[Wheresthedug]

This is probably more of a Strymon issue than PBC but I thought I would mention it and see if anyone else has a similar problem.

It appears to me that turning on and off a Loop on the PBC effectively mutes and unmutes the send but not the return. Therefore if you have a noisy pedal or a pedal with a noticeable LFO sweep in the background you can still hear this even when the loop is turned off. Is that correct?

At the moment I have my Strymon Timeline in Loop 9 in parallel followed by a TC Hall of Fame in Loop 10 also in parallel. If the Timeline is sitting on a preset with a high level of feedback/repeats and/or an LFO sweep I can still hear the sweep even when the T/L is switched out of the path i.e. Loop 9 is off. Also sometimes the T/L goes into self oscillation and repeats start building up and eventually becoming uncontrollable even when Loop 9 is off.

I have just tried to fix this by making the button controlling Loop 9 also send a toggle on off CC102 (the bypass command for the T/L) when turning the loop on and off. This seems to stop the sweep and feedback issue but it also creates an audible pop.

Is there a way round this? Will it only happen if I run the loop in parallel mode? I have an old Mesa Dual Rectifier with a parallel FX loop which also does the same thing so I am starting to think the issue is to do with parallel loops.

Any ideas?

 

[shoelesscraig]

This is probably more of a Strymon issue than PBC but I thought I would mention it and see if anyone else has a similar problem.

It appears to me that turning on and off a Loop on the PBC effectively mutes and unmutes the send but not the return. Therefore if you have a noisy pedal or a pedal with a noticeable LFO sweep in the background you can still hear this even when the loop is turned off. Is that correct?

At the moment I have my Strymon Timeline in Loop 9 in parallel followed by a TC Hall of Fame in Loop 10 also in parallel. If the Timeline is sitting on a preset with a high level of feedback/repeats and/or an LFO sweep I can still hear the sweep even when the T/L is switched out of the path i.e. Loop 9 is off. Also sometimes the T/L goes into self oscillation and repeats start building up and eventually becoming uncontrollable even when Loop 9 is off.

I have just tried to fix this by making the button controlling Loop 9 also send a toggle on off CC102 (the bypass command for the T/L) when turning the loop on and off. This seems to stop the sweep and feedback issue but it also creates an audible pop.

Is there a way round this? Will it only happen if I run the loop in parallel mode? I have an old Mesa Dual Rectifier with a parallel FX loop which also does the same thing so I am starting to think the issue is to do with parallel loops.

Any ideas?

I've been a Timeline owner for years...so I can speak from experience. First, (don't take this the wrong way) if you have the repeats up high enough for it to start oscillating and get out of control, you have it up too high. I've done this accidentally before and unless you have some special reason for doing it, it's basically worthless and sounds like junk at those settings. I'm guessing that you are having this issue when using the Tape mode (Strymon calls it dTape). The Timeline doesn't seem to do it as easy on other modes such as analog (dBucket).

The PBC has a feature on it that allows the trails to continue until they die out on loops 7-10....only if they are in parallel mode. That is why you're having this issue. The loop won't shut off until it doesn't detect any sound, and obviously it does detect sound when the oscillation happens. The beauty of this feature is that if you have a delay or verb going and switch presets you can let the trails of the previous sound trail off as you start the next part.

This "Trails" feature can be switched off in the software if you desire...but honestly it just sounds like you have the settings too high. The "Trails" setting is either on or off....it can't be changed per preset, so you'll have to decide how you'd like to fix it. If you need the settings that high (to cause the oscillation) and don't need the trails feature...just turn it off and you're good to go.

 

[Wheresthedug]

Thanks. Don't worry I wont take anything the wrong way ;-)

I totally get what you mean about too much repeat or level killing your sound. I actually rarely use any more than 3 or 4 repeats absolute max and I like the level tucked in behind the guita rather than swamping it so I know exactly what you mean. The problem is more to do with using midi to select presets and the fact the Strymon's factory presets are mainly overkill. So, if I am using a preset that doesn't have the T/L on but the midi PC from my PBC is sending a default number then I get problems in the background. Obviously this can be solved by manually saving a different T/L patch with my PBC preset but sometimes in a rehearsal situation or on a gig I want set up sound on the fly which can cause a surprise sound to jump out my amp. The answer might just be to ensure that every PBC preset defaults to sending a low level slapback unless specifically overwitten.

I understand about the trails feature and feel that I want it on most of the time. The ability to select it on apreset rather than global level would probably be nice but I suspect the architecture of the PBC mixer won't allow that to be added.

Thanks for the helpful comments.

Alan

 

[shoelesscraig]

Thanks. Don't worry I wont take anything the wrong way ;-)

I totally get what you mean about too much repeat or level killing your sound. I actually rarely use any more than 3 or 4 repeats absolute max and I like the level tucked in behind the guita rather than swamping it so I know exactly what you mean. The problem is more to do with using midi to select presets and the fact the Strymon's factory presets are mainly overkill. So, if I am using a preset that doesn't have the T/L on but the midi PC from my PBC is sending a default number then I get problems in the background. Obviously this can be solved by manually saving a different T/L patch with my PBC preset but sometimes in a rehearsal situation or on a gig I want set up sound on the fly which can cause a surprise sound to jump out my amp. The answer might just be to ensure that every PBC preset defaults to sending a low level slapback unless specifically overwitten.

I understand about the trails feature and feel that I want it on most of the time. The ability to select it on apreset rather than global level would probably be nice but I suspect the architecture of the PBC mixer won't allow that to be added.

Thanks for the helpful comments.

Alan

Maybe I am still missing something (happens all the time, haha) but why are you sending midi changes to the Timeline if the loop is off? Did you leave the default PBC software setting where it sequentially sends 0 on preset 0, 1 on preset 1, etc??? If so, go to the Devices tab in the editor, select the Timeline and then select "Set Preset PC's to None" at the bottom. This will make every preset send NO change to the T/L be default. You'll have to go back and fix the ones you do need it to send on, but for every other one it won't do anything unless you specifically tell it to.

I have the Timeline, BigSky and Mobius (along with a MIDI programmable EQ) and I did this to all 4 of them before I started creating PBC presets. So, nothing gets a command from the PBC unless I need it to and only if the loop is on for that preset.

 

[rjmmusic]

You can't change the trails setting from preset to preset, but you can set the loop to series on presets where you aren't using the pedal. That will mute the loop return. Or, create a preset on the Timeline that has no effect so you don't get as much noise.

 

[Wheresthedug]

Thanks Ron. Both of those suggestions would work for me.

@shoelesscraig , you were correct I still had the PBC in default sequential PC numbering. I have changed this and it makes life a lot easier a.. round. I also realised that the reason I had such a pronounced problem the other day was because I had the Timeline in front a of heavily over driven amp. I had forgotten about this as I normally run the delay and reverb in the FX loop but I was trying out two diffeent amps (an old Boogie Studio 22 and the new Mark V:25 to see how similar/different they sound. Therefore, I needed to connect the amps directly to Out A and Out B to allow instant switching. This meant I had to unplug the FX loop. Stupid me never thought about that so whatever noise the T/L was generating in the background (that would normally have gone by unnoticed) got massively gained up by the dirty channel on the amps. DOH!