Maybe the Helix is the best modeler of all, I don't know, and I never talk about anything I haven't used thoroughly. Personally, the only competition I enter is for the best music. The TMP works extremely well for this competition: I feel inspired, not limited at all in my music. I've owned and still own a bit of hardware, some very good amps, I didn't like the Kemper, I got bored of the Axe Fx II and for the moment the TMP suits me. I know I've paid for comfort, the fact that I don't have to spend time tweaking hours to get ... hem I didn't even know: with the TMP I get something good straight away. That's it. Now I can play.
Fender Tone Master Pro: Episode IV - A New Hope
- Thread starter jellodog
- Start date
It's all good, and that's what I love to hear. I just think you shouldn't be quite so dismissive of critiques of the UI and UX. Like, we're gear junkies who wanna give stuff a chance and give our money away frivolously. If we're pumping the breaks and sounding the alarm on things like low information density screens and a lack of snapshots/scenes....that should tell you something. It's not just because we've been brainwashed by having to do "workarounds" on other devices.
Also, the gapless presets and awesome Fender spring reverb differentiating features this launched with have become pretty commoditized in the Fractal and Line 6 worlds now. Just table stakes.
You have that backwards. Cliff said the opposite of that. The proof is in the high amount of aliasing on the TMP.
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Having to maintain a dumptruck full of presets vs. a couple of kitchen sinks with slight variances is really not a point I can understand anyone arguing in favor of? Unless there are global blocks in play that make that bloated preset list easy to manage and maintain.
Sascha Franck
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I'd actually like to use a sort of happy medium. Stay within a preset as long as you don't plan or need to deviate too much, change presets in case you need some special stuff and use global blocks wherever possible to keep things manageable.
IMO both large kitchen sink presets and a whole truckload of different presets are pretty much horrorshow after a while. Just recently I opened one of my main gigging presets on the Helix Floor of a mate (I had it opened in HXN before but due to the loss of all switch assignments, that's completely pointless) and I didn't even exactly know what I was doing anymore, had to use HX Edit for closer inspection and some kinda reverse engineering (my mate wanted to see whether he could make use of some ideas, he's rather new to HX land).
I'd rather not go there again but rather distribute both CPU load and routing madness to multiple presets. With my Helix presets, splitting each preset into two would've been perfect, I almost went there, too, especially as I could've made use of spillover in that case (which unfortunately only got introduced when I was already about to sell the unit) - but then, without global blocks, I possibly wouldn't do that anyway.
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That's where I sit with this too. Though I just stay on one preset the whole night.
For as much dumb stuff as I put a preset through for a gig; I am pretty tame overall. Tweaked my gigging preset a hair on the FM9 over the weekend. Scenes on 5 switches, volume boost, gain up, gain down and tuner on the remaining switches. Synths on expression pedal. It doesn't have to be anything too nutty
metropolis_4
Shredder
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The big reason I think it’s unfortunate they don’t have Snapshots/Scenes is because they do have songs/setlists and the combo of the two is an amazing workflow for live work because it allows you to keep one single instance of each amp sound while changing the effects around it separately.
Think of this. Let’s say you know you’ll need these basic sounds for your gig and you want to use songs/setlists for this gig:
Clean dry
Clean + reverb
Clean + delay
Clean + chorus
Drive dry
Drive + delay
Now let’s say you get to the gig and realize you need to tweak the EQ and bump up the volume on your clean amp.
With Snapshots/Scenes you have one preset for your clean tones. It has your clean amp, and you make 4 separate Snapshots within that preset: dry, reverb, delay, chorus.
At your gig you just need to tweak the amp on this one preset and all four of your clean sounds automatically adjust because they all use the same amp.
On TMP without Snapshots/Scenes you have to make 4 separate presets for your clean tones: dry, with reverb, with delay, with chorus.
At your gig you now have to tweak four amps across four separate presets and try to keep them all in sync because each clean tone uses a separate amp.
the-trooper
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The same as with almost any modeler on the market.
Sascha Franck
Rock Star
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Same here - but rather out of necessity, because (as said before) I often need to adjust things to accomodate certain situations during soundcheck (and sometimes some finetunigs during the gig), which simply isn't possible with multiple presets (hence: gimme global blocks, ffs!). Ever since I went back to my half-traditional pedalboard, I'm actually using some more fun sounds that I can call up at will. Wouldn't have been possible with the Helix as my live presets were all pretty much maxed out, especially in terms of switching options.
Well, tbh, to get through pretty much each and every gig I could imagine, I basically need exactly two main sounds and two variations. Clean plus lead variation, dirt plus lead variation. Ideally, the clean lead variation would have a little reverb on it, the dirty lead would have a mix of delay and reverb. And that's about it. My little Stomp rig is pretty much like that, works a treat.
But obviously, I sometimes want some icing on the cake, some inspirational fun and what not here and there. But I really don't want to go through hoops to get there. My current pedalboard is just about perfect for all that and if anything, I really wish I could mimic it inside whatever all-in-one modeler, but there's just no way (maybe with an Axe FX, at least sort of, but that's out of the equation).
Sascha Franck
Rock Star
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This is why we all need global blocks in all our modelers!
(regardless of the TMP also needing scenes/snapshots)
metropolis_4
Shredder
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I almost went with an AxeFX instead of the FM9 just because of global blocks. It is an amazing feature I wish every device would offer
Sascha Franck
Rock Star
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You know, just for kinda giggles (in fact not really, but still...), when I was asking @ TOP whether the Helix would have something like that one day (shortly after Helix release), I was almost butchered. "Hahaha, you don't know how to dial in your stuff!", "Have you ever seen professionals finetuning their sounds at gigs?" (in fact, I have, countless times) and what not.
Only took 7-8 years for it to become a halfway respected feature request. Might take another decade to become an even remotely common feature...
metropolis_4
Shredder
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Here’s the dumb thing about that argument:
even if a “professional” didn’t fine tune their sound during the gig, do these people think professionals never have to fine tune during a rehearsal? Or during sound check?
Do these people think that feature is only useful during the actual show?
I don’t think anyone who would say that has ever experienced a situation where they’ve got a full crew being paid by the hour and a bunch of musicians on union time sitting around waiting while they try to dial in their tones! It’s way more stressful and time-sensitive than doing it during the show
Sascha Franck
Rock Star
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They just never do. Their toanz are awsome by nature.
They don't even think it's useful at all.
Seriously, there's plenty of reasons why global blocks are making sense (which you seem to be absolutely aware of) and it's absolutely beyond me why we don't see them more often. Admittedly, it's certainly not a trivial thing to implement properly (so it doesn't get in the way, is easy to understand and use, etc.), but the benefits are obvious.
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Even the head rush gui touchscreen. Rivals the fenders in ease and real estate use
This is what it's all about. You've found the modeler that works for you. Doesn't matter what anyone else on the internet says.
Buuuuuut, this is a gear forum (it's even in the name
) and that means that many of us here are some level of power user with extensive experience with this stuff. I can fairly easily get my basic tone how I want it on most modelers I've used, but for me Fractal is the happy place. I just get something good straight away. And then it enables me to tweak as much as I want to, if I want to. Since switching back to Fractal in december, I've pretty much built a couple of basic patches and just make slight adjustments to taste when I feel like it.
Sascha Franck
Rock Star
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Not really, given that the Headrush has 3 encoders vs. 10 on the TMP. I know, that doesn't say much about touch screen efficiency, but overall, more encoders available instantly speed up any editing process significantly.
In the example you give, I would put everything into a single preset. And I could even add another amp and a handful of effects, and dial in eight basic sounds with the switches (that can easily be combined in 10-12 usables sounds). I understand the need for song mode and snapshot: in my opinion, it can be useful if you're playing in a cover band with a large (50-60) set from many different artists (and amps). It' not my case at all. I play in different projects, whithin which my sound doesn't vary much. Putting everything in a single preset simplify operations, help to keep a coherent and personal sound. The benefit of modeling, for me, is that I can be very versatile from one project to the next, to stuck at something very specific, "tailored" for the band/artist I play with. But it's not about having a different sound on every song.
KHAAAAAAANNNNNNN!!!!!!!!
Shredder
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Studies have now shown the tone is in the modeled grill cloth.
