Building the Next Computer Based Pedalboard

[pipelineaudio]

In case you didn't get the five thousand influencer videos and what not, the Helix Stadium will include "Showcase" features, many of which are normally done by the Playback Engineer (yes that's a thing, a very very critical thing to many modern bands and likely 100% of any band playing stadium level shows), the lighting department and the production manager. Things like autoswitching scenes on the mixer or presets (or snapshots or stomps) on the pedalboards, click playback, cues playback, stinger and sound fx playback, all with definable events on the timeline, stem separation, basically a DAW in your pedalboard

Now the release of the Stadium has some frighteningly UN-Line6 like parallels with the disaster launch of the Quad Cortex (no actual info about the amount of DSP power vs current Helix, no editor at launch?, no plugin parity AFAIK) but that's probably for a whole nother thread.

All that babbling aside, people may be envious that what you normally have to take a computer to the gig for are being done on the Stadium's pedalboard

And maybe the thinking goes 'If I have to bring a computer anyway, why not just play the guitar thru it too?"

What almost seems like ancient history years ago now I did a series of articles and videos along the subject of taking your beautifully manicured studio chain of guitar sounds to the show called Bringing the Studio to the Stage and while this was great fun and showed a lot of promise, it still felt too clunky, unreliable, super labor intensive, confidence destroying and just not really ready. Though with the caveat that there were still many many many guitar players and way way more keyboard players doing just that with Gig Performer, Cantible or Mainstage

Fast forward to today and with the mini computers and mac minis, generally more stable audio systems in the OSs and even dedicated hardware we have some viable systems...maybe

The Paint Audio CE-1 puts a windows computer in a VERY convenient box with interface and buttons, very very cool, touch screen as well. Cons are probably a very underpowered processor and almost 100% surely Thesycon.de drivers for the interface....Still, I will likely be trying it

Along a very similar vein, Octave Technologies unveils their HS-1, with a similar CPU and touch screen, but a divorced pedalboard, probably with the same cons as the CE-1

Very cool, I will likely be trying both these units very soon, but:

I found a used M1 Mac Mini for peanuts on Facebook marketplace and decided to try my hand at my own. I'll be using Gig Performer, Helix Native, likely Jam Origin MIDI Guitar 2/3, maybe Tonex, and definitely a very cool product my company will be releasing in the Tonex-ish sort of vein soon

So Far I'll be basing it on a Focusrite 4i4 (so not getting away from TheSycon.de drivers either, real deal should be an RME Babyface or similar), Behringer FCB1010 (likely to be replaced with a Paint Audio MIDI Captain as it is WAY smaller), some expression pedals, a Shure PSM 300 for IEM and for now a Line 6 Relay G50 for guitar wireless. I definitely need a touch screen monitor, but for now I will be trying Luna Display for the iPad which can turn the iPad into the primary monitor

Learning Gig Performer (especially the scripting) has been pretty tricky for me, but I'm getting there, I have auto engage the tuner on volume pedal minimum and auto engage the wah on wah pedal movement and some obvious at a glance type of view stuff, still working on how to pick songs on the setlist with the pedalboard rather than the touchscreen, but getting there!

Here's the iPad showing the Gig Performer screen

And doing some NAM captures! (WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY easier than doing Tonex captures, though I read that Tonex has a new capture program so maybe its vastly improved?

Tomorrow I'll start wiring this together for real and testing it with the band! Got the software working very well for live performance already

Here's a Pedal Playground mockup and showing the Paint Audio MIDI captain for a size comparison with the FCB 1010

This will probably be a long long thread of updates!

 

[tjnx]

This is cool! I think this is the direction everyone will go. How is the latency?

 

[pipelineaudio]

This is cool! I think this is the direction everyone will go. How is the latency?

Given that its likely 99% of the people out there will be using audio interfaces powered by TheSycon.de drivers, I have a chart that will give you an idea at https://kailuamusicschool.com/audio-tech/

looking at 9-13 milliseconds at 128 samples, its likely with the newer computers that 64 is an option which puts you in the 6-ish range that used to be reserved for the RME stuff at 128.

Not to have a religious argument with Latency Purists, but in general 13 is more than acceptable for the vast vast majority of double blinded tests takers. But start adding it up, digital guitar wireless? Add 2-8miliseconds depending on the unit. Digital IEM? Another 2-8ms. Send and return to analog pedals on your inserts? This can get ugly fast. For that last one, luckily hopefully every effect you want will be on the computer so you don't need to take that hit

When I did the original articles a lot of people were blown away to find that all those artists playing thru their iPads, at a MINIMUM had 20ms latency and weren't bothered by it, especially funny to see those same people complaining about the 2 or so milliseconds latency on Axe FX and Helix

 

[tjnx]

Given that its likely 99% of the people out there will be using audio interfaces powered by TheSycon.de drivers, I have a chart that will give you an idea at https://kailuamusicschool.com/audio-tech/

Yes, x-ms on top of everything else which I can feel. The Babyface is ~ .46ms for real time monitoring with dsp which made tracking infinitely easier. You can simulate direct monitoring with a small mixer with just about any interface IF you are using an amp or hardware.

I mostly use my older laptop and I've found I can get used to the additional latency Reaper and Tonex VST add but direct monitoring with a mic'd cab gives the easiest and best results. 2nd best is offloading the dsp to hardware using the big ToneX pedal. You do get used to it but its not as tight, at least for right hand stuff. Snapping + editing in the box gives a big safety net for amp sims.

If someone can introduce a hardware VST host with similar latency to current modelers its game over. I think the VST format has to do with windows apis so thats probaly why its not been done yet as you need a mini pc.

Same thing with digital mixers, I know they're already using software hosts but anything to get that latency down would really start to open things up.

 

[stratjacket]

Man that sounds like a huge rabbit hole. Sounds fun though.

 

[pipelineaudio]

I mostly use my older laptop and I've found I can get used to the additional latency Reaper and Tonex VST add but direct monitoring with a mic'd

Reaper won’t add any latency on its own. That would be thru purposely delaying outs to sync or a latent plugin

 

[tjnx]

Reaper won’t add any latency on its own. That would be thru purposely delaying outs to sync or a latent plugin

I'm referring to it as a recording method as a whole (using the vst) rather than just saying tonex.

 

[nightlight]

I used to have a computer-based rig, and it did not add anything in the league of 10-12 ms

This is a video I captured while playing. Maybe 2-4ms, but not much else.



Note that I was running the computer output into a Fryette PS-2, then capturing the audio with some camera or the other. There really was imperceptible latency, or very low latency at least,

A bit of talking in there (probably shouldn't have, the video got to 21 minutes), but I liked the tones.

I'd much rather take my laptop to a gig then something that's on the floor and has a screen on it, because accidents do happen on stage. You could just use the laptop to do all that fancy light stuff and also queue preset changes, etc.