Future Impact v3 and now V4

[Quatschmacher]

10 hours ago, mattpbass said:

Patches are a weak point currently, too many silly ones, not enough (or maybe just too spread out) useable ones for playing actual bass lines.

This is a tricky thing, and partly a result of muddled/lack of marketing/market research.

 

The FI is derived from a pedal that was a bass-only product. However, the FI goes way beyond that. The patches show what the device is capable of in terms of programmability. The manual reflects the pedal’s ability to cover lots of territory. However, the marketing continues to focus almost solely on its being a “bass” pedal. This does mean that bass players have understandably felt perplexed by the seeming lack of bass-focused patches.

 

Now it is a synth so there probably was an expectation for users to roll their own sounds to taste. However, earlier versions of the editor weren’t so user-friendly in terms of ease-of-connection, layout and patch management. These are things that I’ve pushed to improve in every iteration since 2019 and I feel the interface is much easier to work with than it was. Sure, it still has its own quirks and isn’t as slick as other companies’ editors, but it’s reasonably straightforward now and doesn’t suffer the software bloat/overload of other editors. The depth of on-panel parameter editing was also finally improved in v4 (I’d been pushing my implementation since 2019).

 

Notwithstanding the aforementioned improvements, there are still many users who couldn’t or didn’t want to create their own patches via the editor. I hope that with a chunk of new classic sounds,  the newly-added ability to copy and move patches directly on the pedal, and the deeper on-pedal parameter editing capability, these users will finally feel catered to; they’ll be able to modify the classic patches to their taste and copy the result to a new slot.

 

As regards the DX patches, in addition to the obvious ones from the original DX7 internal patches which were all over records from the 80s, I’ve aimed to create and locate decent bass patches. If these don’t make the factory set, I’ll share them anyway via the cloud.

Edited 4 hours ago by Quatschmacher

[Quatschmacher]

If I get a spare moment, I might manage a couple of clips of some of the DX7 sounds I’ve made. 

[mattpbass]

Really appreciate your efforts to push the product in the right direction, like you said earlier maybe the MXR was needed to show what the market wants. The addition of FM is just a dream bonus that I never imagined would be possible. 

[mattpbass]

4 minutes ago, Quatschmacher said:

If I get a spare moment, I might manage a couple of clips of some of the DX7 sounds I’ve made. 

Please!

[LukeFRC]

From my outside view… 

it feels like the FI1 was a reissue of the DI with more things a synth geek would want - that then gets added too and more and more functionality. Which is cool and you end up with a pretty awesome bass synth … that requires a bit of knowledge to program and tweak…

but a lot of people want a microkorg, with a big knob that they can select “trance patch 1” and not tweak. I think with the DX7 stuff that might be even more of a thing as I’ve messed around with Dexed and it kinda made my head explode a bit! 

[mattpbass]

Yeah absolutely, I play synth all the time but programming patches is my least favourite aspect of it. Good presets are a must and that’s where the MXR (with very strong marketing) has convinced people. As for trying to program FM… no thanks! 😅

[LawrenceH]

It's a tricky thing to get right. I really like simple analogue synth programming and the real-time morphing possibilities, as long as I'm working on a classic-style synth like an Odyssey or Minimoog, where every function has a dedicated knob/slider. Also that approach relies on keyboard as an input method as I can play with one hand and tweak with the other.

 

Much harder to make that work in a pedal format - keyboard naturally has all that space above the keys. Assignable expression pedal is about the limit imo.

 

I've not spent enough time trying to make sense of FM with the benefit of a good instruction manual, but it's certainly not intuitive like analogue. I think most users treated the DX7 as a tweakable preset machine and I expect that's how 99% of the FI4.5 users are going to approach it.

 

Really looking forward to the release of this update! Though it's going to require me to make a new pedalboard, to fit it in.

[Kiwi]

2 hours ago, LukeFRC said:

a lot of people want a microkorg, with a big knob that they can select “trance patch 1” and not tweak. I think with the DX7 stuff that might be even more of a thing as I’ve messed around with Dexed and it kinda made my head explode a bit! 

I think the start-off-with-something-familiar and then use it as a base from which to explore other sounds (and the way the settings interact) is how many players would prefer to approach discovery.  Having sounds from familiar songs gives some reassurance that the pedal is fit for purpose out of the box without faff but...faff is an option for those down times when owners have a couple of hours to kill.  It keeps things interesting.

I think MXR and FI are both on the right track in that context and I hope they continue to expand the repetoire of familiar patches.

 

3 hours ago, Quatschmacher said:

The FI is derived from a pedal that was a bass-only product. However, the FI goes way beyond that. The patches show what the device is capable of in terms of programmability.

Yeah but there is a question of relevance and perceptions of value.  The value for a player is convenience in the beginning, then as their relationship with the unit grows...or not, they can explore when they get bored or have time - 'what else can I work out given it gets to close to X?'  I think LukeFRC is absolutely right when he says "it feels like the FI1 was a reissue of the DI with more things a synth geek would want".  This is not really a reason for gigging players to buy the pedal unless they're in an originals band.  And there are fewer of those around now than even just five years ago.  Most of us play covers.  

Speaking of which...there is still a gap in the market for a decent arpeggiator.  So many companys have taken aim and missed.

[Kev]

I think the whole bass synth thing is interesting.  Remember, the Deep Impact, the former holy grail, ended up being a discontinued bargain bin buy because literally no-one was buying them.  

 

Interest is clearly higher now, but I'm sure a lot of it is hype, and without big/influential names using it (Chris Wolstenholm for the DI, Ian for the MXR) they're just not going to take off.

[LukeFRC]

14 minutes ago, Kev said:

I think the whole bass synth thing is interesting.  Remember, the Deep Impact, the former holy grail, ended up being a discontinued bargain bin buy because literally no-one was buying them.  

 

Interest is clearly higher now, but I'm sure a lot of it is hype, and without big/influential names using it (Chris Wolstenholm for the DI, Ian for the MXR) they're just not going to take off.

That’s the dilemma - everyone wants a really really well equipped synth with every feature known to man… but they also want quick easy presets so they don’t need to learn how to use every feature known to man. 
I don’t envy panda or source audio!! 
 

@Kiwi would FI4 midi out let you drive any arpeggiator you want? Or depending how it works could the midi out from pitch detector go to arpegiator and then as midi back into fi?