Delay switching patches

[Mariante]

Hello Everyone, This is my first thread, my name is Henrique, i´m from portugal and a 11R user, wich I love very much.

I'm having some troubles when I switch patches in the same song, for exemple a clean sound to a distortion one. It takes too much time, 1 second more or less, to switch and that makes it impossible to use in a live situation. I searched the internet on this subject but didn't find any answer to my problem, so any help on this will be very much appreciated.

My 11R firmware version is 2,0,1
My foot midi controller is the FCB1010 with the Eureka Prom and its connected to the 11R with one MIDI cable.

Thanks in Advance
Henrique

[AvidEditor]

Originally Posted by Mariante

Hello Everyone, This is my first thread, my name is Henrique, i´m from portugal and a 11R user, wich I love very much.

I'm having some troubles when I switch patches in the same song, for exemple a clean sound to a distortion one. It takes too much time, 1 second more or less, to switch and that makes it impossible to use in a live situation. I searched the internet on this subject but didn't find any answer to my problem, so any help on this will be very much appreciated.

My 11R firmware version is 2,0,1
My foot midi controller is the FCB1010 with the Eureka Prom and its connected to the 11R with one MIDI cable.

Thanks in Advance
Henrique

Hello Henrique,

I use a Rocktron MidiMate and the switching time is in the milliseconds, (very quick) but even though it's fast there is a sound drop out in the switch. When I did gig with 11R and changed rigs within a song (I did this very often) there always was a sound cut off between patches, but even though I'm the only guitar in our band the bass and drums easily hid the drop out. Your controller is very popular, a lot of guys here have it and so they can answer your question but my point is that even if it lags you can hopefully work around it - because even if it did switch faster I assume you'd still have to contend with that moment of sound drop out.

[musicman691]

Problem with the 11R and most other digital processors is that they don't have something called spillover which carries over the sound while changing patches. Changing patches on a dsp system takes a finite amount of time and short of Avid re-programming the 11R there's not much anyone can do about it. And depending on the dsp chips involved spillover might not even be possible with the 11R.

[moff]

My live rig includes 2 11Rs, daisy-chained. I use either an FCB1010 (UnO EPROM) or a Ground Control Pro and expression pedals (I prefer the GCP but will use the FCB if space is limited). I switch between rigs during songs often. I know there is a nasty delay when patch changes are done from the front panel, but I've never noticed any latency or dropouts when using either MIDI controller. It may well be that I've grown so accustomed to using channel-switching amps that I subconsciously anticipate and correct for "switching time", or maybe the action of my foot actually stepping on the pedal is never perfect and any latency is ignored... . At any rate, I have no problem using the 11R live for any size show (and I do 200+ gigs a year, from small clubs to large outdoor festivals and arenas).

OP - Troubleshooting 101: First, test the cable. It's the simplest and easiest thing to test, and often the actual point of failure. MIDI cables are notoriously cheaply made with very thin wires, so can be damaged easily. They can also introduce latency once you get much over 20 feet long (that's why you rarely find them any longer than 20'). Try a different, known good MIDI cable first, and for the purposes of testing, keep it as short as possible (6-10').

Was the FCB1010 new or used? How about the EPROM? If either was used, did you do a full reset?

Try another MIDI Controller with your rig and your MIDI controller with something else. What does the problem follow? If the other device shows latency with your controller, then the problem is your controller. If the 11R continues to show latency with a different controller, then the problem is somewhere in the 11R. Was the 11R purchased new or used, and if it was used, did you do a factory reset?

[derker]

Hey moff; the Avid guys have confirmed that there is a short delay when switching patches. Some people seem not to notice or care about it, but a fair amount of us do. I also use a Behringer FCB and have tried it with multiple MIDI cables. The funny thing is that when using the expression pedals or CC messages there is no delay, it only occurs while doing program changes. I think that tells the tale right there.

[dmock66]

I get the same thing - a dropout when switching patches. It is very short - but can be unnatural. I also look for spots to change between presets - but there are some songs when say a lead break has a seamless transition back into the song. At those times there isn't a clean break point where I can switch presets. That is where I have to do something else to make the change - so I either live with the hard preset change and just deal with it or roll off the guitar volume, or make my own hard preset change point.

[moff]

Originally Posted by derker

Hey moff; the Avid guys have confirmed that there is a short delay when switching patches. Some people seem not to notice or care about it, but a fair amount of us do. I also use a Behringer FCB and have tried it with multiple MIDI cables. The funny thing is that when using the expression pedals or CC messages there is no delay, it only occurs while doing program changes. I think that tells the tale right there.

Cool. I just never noticed. The Mesas and Fenders I've had over the years are full of relay switches, and they don't switch channels instantly either, so like I said before, maybe I just have become so used to it that I've subconsciously developed a counter-measure.

[TieDyedDevil]

Originally Posted by derker

Hey moff; the Avid guys have confirmed that there is a short delay when switching patches. Some people seem not to notice or care about it, but a fair amount of us do. I also use a Behringer FCB and have tried it with multiple MIDI cables. The funny thing is that when using the expression pedals or CC messages there is no delay, it only occurs while doing program changes. I think that tells the tale right there.

A patch is a program for the DSP. Loading and initializing a patch takes a small amount of time; that's the pause you hear.

A CC change only modifies a parameter on the already-running DSP program.

[musicman691]

There's one way Avid could provide spillover in the 11R (and that's what you need to have seamless patch changes). There's two dsp chips, right? They could have both chips running the same patch but when a patch change comes through the patch only changes on one chip. Switching between the two should be almost instantaneous. After the switch over between chips have the first chip with the original patch change to the new one so once again both chips are running the same patch. That way the system will be ready for another patch change dance.

The thing is you wouldn't get instantaneous sound changes but then again you wouldn't have sound drop outs either. Korg's doing something like this on their Kronus keyboards.

[moff]

Not that it really matters - after all, this is an old thread - but I had a couple of minutes to spare this weekend so I did an experiment, just to check the patch-switch delay. Yup, there is one, and it's fairly substantial, so I stand corrected.

The only explanation of why I never noticed it before must be either that I have adjusted my playing over the years to accommodate channel switching, or that I just don't switch in tight places.