Aeros firmware 2.15.x

Hey, could you please specify which of the 3 new features you have on (end of loop/ sync start/ sync length)? This will help me answer your question a little better. That being said, you could overdub that line on m. 3 and 4, overdubs are not linked to the sync functions and can be placed anywhere.

Hi Brennan,
Thanks for responding! So I have:
Sync Tracks Length – On
Sync Tracks Start – Off
Quantize to Measure – Off
Change Song Part/Stop Song – Immediate/OEM

As I switch from the first track to the second track, it goes into record mode so starts recording right away on the second track. It seems to want to record one loops worth before it actually lets me go into Play or Overdub mode. The display changes the button name as I would expect right when I click on the button, but the track keeps recording until one loops worth has occurred.

Ok cool, I would suggest ALWAYS using “end of loop” and not EOM/immediate in freeform if you are trying to keep it all in sync, once you start recording the 2nd part you will see why.

The length sync function is forcing the recording to be the same length (or multiples of) as the original. Right now, the function for creating a loop at half length of original when sync length is on is not supported in freeform, only in quantized mode, where if you press “play” command you will be able to make loop either 1 measure, or any unit fraction (1/2, 1/3, 1/4 1/5, 1/6, etc) of the original loop.

I would suggest again using overdub, or if indiv track volume control is what you’re after here, simply use sync start as well, and don’t play for first two measures and do play the last 2. If you record the top track and then hit next track immediately, you can just wait until the mid point (m.3) and start playing from there, if you hit “play” before the end of first loop, it will be perfectly in sync.

I’m not sure if you’re in 6x6 or 2x2 so let me know if this won’t work for your song.

You could also do this without sync start being on, as the length will be the same as original, keeping it in sync. Doing this without syncing the two tracks in some way will cause ms of disparities and the parts will slowly (or quickly) drift apart and make your phrases un-sync progressively.

If by ‘track hold’ you mean the ‘lock tracks’ (where the track continues playing regardless of which song part you’re in) that is on the plan right after the MIDI implementation. Mono recording is what we’re working on right now!

If the sync start is turned off so tracks begin at different places, the start point used after the Aeros is stopped or when changing song parts is the beginning of the longest recorded track. All other tracks will be aligned relative to that.

Unfortunatley, there is no way to keep the order of both the SD card and internal memory songs once the Aeros is turned off or when the SD card is removed. For example, if you take an SD card from another Aeros and put it in yours, those songs have no order relation to the internal memory songs of the Aeros. That is why we keep the internal memory and SD card songs on their own separate list order which is sorted on power cycle.

I like this idea.

This was a debate – currently pressing stop again will stop it immediately rather than wait until the end of the loop. We figured that sometimes you want to cut if off rather than wait. Maybe holding down the Play/Stop All will cancel the stop?

Panning in the mixer will come after the MIDI implementation. Play/Stop on downpress most like sooner – I’m trying to get that in soon.

I agree – with the end of loop trigger you usually don’t need that second press in 6x6. We’ll be working on an ‘auto change’ feature to remove that extra press.

Wouldn’t it make more sense to control ‘dry volume’ by turning up/down your instrument volume?

We are looking into the loop aging feature.

Backing track loading is on our dev timeline

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Shouldn’t there be an option to remember the offsets from each other.

Easy to do initially, but need to think about how to handle the “first” track being disabled.

Sounds great, but in practice this changes the tone, right? I’m often dimed on my guitar volume because that’s the sound I like and have dialed in.

Nice thing about digital is that you can change volume without changing tone (Fletcher Munson aside).

Also you can only go down in volume, not up (not that volume boost can’t be abused).

If this is serving as a looping mixer, then let me change the mix of the “live” channel and aux, as well as the loops.

I think when you add the pan feature you’ll have another reason.

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Wouldn’t it make more sense to control ‘dry volume’ by turning up/down your instrument volume?

Aeros really seems to boost my signal compared to the Infinity I had in its place before, which has a master volume control. Yes, you can turn down the instrument in principle but there is gain staging going on in my pedals before that in the signal, so it’s not nearly as simple as adjusting my guitar’s volume knob.

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Hi Brennan,
Good suggestion. I thought of that, but sometimes I need to do other things at that moment, like stop a drum machine, or I make little noises while I get ready to play the next track that I don’t want to get recorded. Also, I still think there is some confusion that when you click the PLAY button while the second track is recording, the button label changes to OVERDUB implying you are in play mode and can click on the button to start overdubbing, but in reality the track is still doing its initial recording. I think it would be nice if you can stop recording on the new track before it completes its loop length, although I know internally it needs to go through one loop before it can actually go into play and overdubbing. Perhaps a new button label would be needed for this state.

Hope you think about making the single click cancel the queued stop.

The method to stop immediately is already on a double tap … and that should be the same whether or not a stop us queued. Changing that just because you’re in some “stop queued” mode is one more thing to remember and overkill.

Stopping is a pretty drastic action that should be cancelable.

IMHO any button press that queues up an action should be used to cancel that action if it hasn’t kicked in yet. It’s a toggle in some sense. That said some other action that isn’t already mapped globally should work (but in this case be careful with the hold gesture because that brings up the clear all feature which is scary and will take even longer to back out of to start as soon as possible).

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Here are two ways to implement this. There are probably more:

  • Keep track of the last used time based upon some unique UUID that is assigned to each track This id is stored in the track meta data. The map of id to last used time is stored on the Aeros. Might need to clean up this map in some odd use cases to remove the oldest, but the Aeros has lots of capacity to handle a map with lots of undeleted songs on sd cards.
  • Save the last used time in the meta data (or better a new timestamp file that can be overwritten). Simpler, but lots of small writes to possibly slow SD.

If Aeros does not have a reliable clock, use a counter that increments on each “use” (but watch out for the wrap around case).

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By the way, thanks @DavidPackouz for communicating back to the group on your ideas and plans.

This takes effort and is very helpful. Appreciate it!

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Is your Aeros set to record at instrument or at line level? Perhaps a volume pedal somewhere before it reaches Aeros? Or adjusting your gain staging up to that point?

I think I understand what you mean, but when in free form hitting play on a track (other than the first) you’re currently recording and then hitting overdub will set it to create an overdub on the next pass through on that same track. For example with EOL & sync length on I sing the first harmony for 4 “bars” (mind you we’re in freeform), while recording I can hit “play” and it will automatically set to stop recording and playback at end of first loop. Hitting “overdub” before the loop ends will let me add my 2nd harmony layer right on the one of that next revolution. Does this clear things up? If you want to hit “next track” and have it perfectly synced to other track start you will need sync start on as well. Sadly there is no way to do what you’re asking as well as have the tracks synced together, and without the sync you will have serious drifts in parts. The issue with your scenario is that if you were to loop a shorter phrase, it would still repeat in both the first part of phrase and second, being that the Aeros will not create those 2 bars of empty space you need.

I would strongly suggest an overdub in this scenario to avoid recording sounds you don’t want and to also have it only loop in 2nd half of phrase.

I played with the line vs. instrument level on the Aeros and it did not seem to make much difference - I assume that only affects how it is recorded, not how the dry signal is passed through?

As for adding another pedal or adjusting my gain staging, you can imagine why I would not want a $600 piece of gear to require additional pedals or a massive overhaul of my setup to work correctly. The reason the gain staging is a problem is that if my clean signal is too hot through the Aeros on its own, then turning it down completely changes how it hits my drive pedals.

As I said, the Aeros provides a HUGE signal boost compared to what I had before. Is there some buffering or signal boost happening at the Aeros, or was my Infinity just reducing the signal? I’m not sure, but it was definitely an advantage to having the Infinity in that spot given that it did have a convenient master volume control.

If it’s remotely possible to add a dry volume control to the firmware then I think it’s a critical feature to include.

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Hi Brennan,
I have been using the overdub on the first track, but I am hoping to use additional tracks instead so that I can mute and unmute tracks to bring parts in and out.

As for my suggestion: I click on NEXT TRACK to start recording on the second track. While this track is recording through the loop, the right button says PLAY, but if I click on it before the loop length, it cannot go into Play mode (or Overdub mode) right away as it needs to finish the recording cycle. So the Play or Overdub mode is pending. Is it possible to mute the input to the recorder during this state without affecting how the loop synchronization is working? You could still hear the input through the looper, but it would not be recorded onto the loop during this state. Perhaps a name for this option could be “Mute Input Recording Until Selected Mode Can Be Enabled”. If it is possible, having this option for a song would make my style of looping more effective. Just brainstorming…

Regarding the problems of instruments gains and Aeros output level, and as I have already expressed, it is essential to have two pages to manage level/panoramics of inputs and levels/panoramics outputs of each track.
This will necessarily solve all the problems depending on the instruments used and it will make possible to root inputs to different tracks (nothing new, that’s what made the EHX95000 awesome).

Thank you, @DavidPackouz and @BrennanSingularSound, and thanks to the Singular Sound Dev team!

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Thanks for responding, David, but I’m not sure I understand. If sync is turned off, and I record a second track about 3 measures after the first one starts (because that’s where I want it to start), if I stop the looper and start it, will that second track start 3 measures after the first track started? I hope so, because at least with freeform mode, I want different things to come in at different times, depending on what’s going on. If, all of a sudden, the start of them all get moved to the beginning, it’s not going to sound right.

Thanks for the update… This Release shows a good amount of polishing.

I see though the time limit is still about 2:30
Will that change, I hope? If so, what limit are you thinking?

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Slightly related to this, the end of loop feature would be better if the Aeros was the master of the BB for things like next part. The BB doesn’t know about the loop length. Bonus points for the Aeros having an option to set how far in advance of the end of loop for the BB to start playing the transition fill.

It’s pretty easy for the BB to transition to the next part well before the Aeros starts the next loop. It’s also easy to miss the end of the loop (when using the BB to transition) and have to wait an entire loop to change the part. Have to admit I was cursing the BB until I figured this out. I’ve learned to start the transition well before the end of the loop … and release the BB button well before the start of the next loop.

FYI, I just replied to @AnthonySostre post on the proposed midi implementation here. Not completely thought through and a bit long winded.

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