Songs - Are presets compulsory?

M

Mr.E

Well-Known Member
Hi,

still investigating the MMGT.
I'm looking at songs.
If I'm not mistaken, presets are not compulsory.
So I can make the following entries:
Button 1: PC 001; activate some blocks...
Button 2: set some other blocks
Button 3: PC 002; with some other blocks active

This could be a very nice feature because you wouldn't need to use any presets and keep the presets to sync with the unit you're controlling, in my case an Axe-Fx.

This would also be the way I used to work with the Lake Butler Midi Mitigator.
It's a Midi controler form the late eighties that was lightyears ahead from the controllers at that time.
You had 128 songs, 5 presets per song with 127 commands per preset.

You entered the title, the appropriate commands (PC, CC, Pedal....)
So if you don't need to enter a preset for a song, this would work exactly like the Mitigator, and that's what I've been looking for for a very long time.
 
Songs are just banks of presets, displayed in your chosen order. Songs without presets wouldn't do anything...

In the MIDI Mitigator, what else did songs do except act as a way to group 5 presets?
 
Well they weren't a group of five presets.
Just a 5 groups of various midi commands.

What I've seen with all of the new generation Midi controllers is that they want to bind a bank of presets to a song.
But it doesn't have to be that way.
That's why I was also a bit confused when looking at the song page.

For a song, you need at least one preset.
This can be one PC or a collection of PC's when using multiple units together.
But if we take the Axe-Fx for example.
the first button would choose the preset on the Axe-FX.
perhaps set some IA's too.
The other buttons would switch IA's on and of.
That's it.
And perhaps assign a pedal.
But you wouldn't have to assign a preset to each button.

In fact, you could assign a preset that's activated when selecting a song.
And the each button would act as a combination of IA's to make a certain sound.
The first could be a delay.
The second a chorus.
The third a drive, delay and volume boost for solo's.
And so on...

When I use your editor, for each button, you can make a list of commands.
This is exactly what the Mitigatir did.
But you didn't have to define presets first and then assign the presets to a song.
Just a list of commands for each button.
 
Wow - so the MIDI Mitigator could reassign its buttons for each song? That is impressive, especially considering its age. Quite a few years went by before another controller came along that could do that.

If I understand correctly, allowing a song to have its own button page, and maybe even its own list of actions to run, would cover that requirement.
 
Yep.
In a song I assigned from left to right in the order I needed for the song.
A intro
B bridge
C Chorus
D Lead
E Harmony Lead

sometimes I only needed two, sometimes more.
But you wouldn't have to reserve a fixed number of buttons for a song.
just the ability to assign a button with its own list of actions to each switch.
 
You know, since each song has at least one preset, you could create a local preset page for that one preset, and define the page any way you like. Wouldn't that accomplish the same thing?
 
That's what I do on the Gordius.
I make a preset for each song with all the song specific commands:
Preset on the Axe-fx
Tempo
settings for harmonizer (sysex) if needed
Effect initialisation
....
But for every preset you make for a song, that's one preset less to sync with your device or to make combinations of a preset and IA's.
That's why the dynamic memory of the Gordius was so important to me.

to give you an example.
I only use about 30 presets on the axe-fx.
On the Gordius I have 215 presets; 97 songs but that list will grow to +400 since I'm planning to make presets for every song I've played
then there's 58 triggers, 116 IA's (or two state effects); 274 macros
Why so many macros?
That's because there's no way to set the tempo on the axe-fx except by using sysex.
 
I could be happy with the MMGT's properties as they are now.
But since €1899 for a controller isn't cheap - it's 2.5 times the price of a Gordius - I want to think of the future.
I never thought I was going to need a controller with little LCD screens for each button but as my presets on the Axe-fx got more complex, this changed.
Now I'm limited by the controller to do what I want with the Axe-Fx.

So now for the big question:
Does the memory of the MMGT allow future expansions?
It would be nice if I could be able access al six banks of the axe-FX and have room for user presets.
If not, how fast can one load a setup from a stick?
And while we're on the subject of sticks, couldn't that be used for memory expansion?
 
There's a pretty large amount of memory available in the GT. Most of it is being used right now, but in a way that optimizes speed instead of available space. We could possibly rearrange things to make better use of the space we have.

Loading from a flash drive takes about 35 seconds, longer if you have a lot of local pages defined. Using the flash drive as expansion is an interesting idea - I'd have to look at the speed of the flash drive vs. internal memory, and also error handling strategies (what happens if someone pulls the flash drive while you're using the controller?)

Another possibility is offering expanded memory, the main difficulty being the upgrade path for existing users, but that would probably be the easiest option in terms of the amount of work required.
 
That's great.
Do you think it will be possible in the future to sync with the Xl with it's 768 presets?
I really like the way you respond to suggestions.
This makes me confident the MMGT might be the way to go.
Thanks again for the fast responses Ron.

Geert
 
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