Hmmm.. interesting...

Drew_TNBD

@Digitalscream @Heartfeltdawn - you lads might be into this...
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/508076981/psyren-one-guitar-pedal-infinite-pedal-boards

sweepy

That is the way forward 

digitalscream

Yes, that's very interesting.

Thing is, though, I'm not going to pledge £850 or so to a Kickstarter project. For now, I'm also pretty unconvinced that they've thought the business side of this through - unless they've got money coming in from somewhere else, $35k only accounts for 25 of these things being built...that's not exactly a good way to get started for a long-lasting, well-supported operation. Then again, case aside there's probably only about $350 worth of hardware in these things, so perhaps they have thought about it. Even then, $20k of profit isn't enough for them to survive a year concentrating on it.

In addition, I want the knobs and live-configurability. Having some kind of user interface with which to do so while on-stage is an absolute requirement for me, and I don't want to have to rely on a phone or tablet to do it. Shit changes while you're at a gig, and if your gear is designed not to allow you to do that, then it's out.

While this is a neat idea, and I'd love to see it gain traction, if I'm going to splash that kind of money then I'd rather wait on the Fractal FX8 if it ever sees the light of day...

EricTheWeary

It is interesting. :bz

ThePrettyDamned

I think that's really exciting - loading, for example, a great sound you've made for recording, but running into PA and guitar cab, then stomp to switch to a LePou set up (for example), with a few extra hits for VST effects.

Problem is, it's... Complex.  I know they're working on that, but it took me a while to fully 'get' recording dry and adding plugins (or recording with a plugin and dealing with the wee bit of latency).  

joeyowen

I like the look of this, but I dunno.

Does it have effects loop to use other effects? (I think it has 1 loop from the vid)

Why this, over say, an M13?

And for the price, why not individual effects/rack stuff/axe effects? (apart from the obvious vst expansion)

I love the idea mind, if I heard some real sound clips, not some 50s looking white gang playing fuzz, i'd be a lot happier.

digitalscream

joeyowen said:

I like the look of this, but I dunno.

Does it have effects loop to use other effects? (I think it has 1 loop from the vid)

Why this, over say, an M13?

And for the price, why not individual effects/rack stuff/axe effects? (apart from the obvious vst expansion)

I love the idea mind, if I heard some real sound clips, not some 50s looking white gang playing fuzz, i'd be a lot happier.

Well, it'd be beyond the scope of a project like this to fit an entire x86 computer into a stompbox format for a start - hence not individual effects. Rack stuff is less likely to sell, so that's not really appropriate for a Kickstarter.

This is really for a select market - people who understand VSTs - at least to start with. The cracker with VSTs is that you can do literally anything with them. There's no reason you couldn't, for example, run Amplitube or Guitar Rig in it (aside from the fact that the CPU is woefully underpowered for that kind of thing...being just a standard PC inside, though, you could easily upgrade it if you could solve the heat problem). In fact, with the number of really high-quality VSTs out there - a lot of them free - there's no reason a device like this couldn't actually become a real competitor to the Fractal gear.

On top of that, you can do really weird and wacky stuff with VSTs that there's simply no way to do with an M13 (or even an AxeFX II).

However...my own personal feeling, based on my experience with repairing computers, is that they've probably woefully underestimated the punishment that giggable gear gets when it's chucked in the back of a van. The fact that they're using a standard modular motherboard means that the connectors, RAM and CPU heatsink are pretty likely to be unseated at some point. For the RAM and connectors, that's not so much an issue; if the heatsink moves out of alignment, or it cracks the motherboard after an impact due to the tension its springs are under, and you're screwed.

ICBM

I like that a lot, especially the idea of making it simple on the outside even though complex and powerful on the inside - they're exactly right that this is how the best technology works. They seem to have gone to quite a lot of trouble to make it platform-independent and hence (as far as can be forseen) future-proof as well.

If only it had been available ten years ago when I had to spend about £300 and have an extra rack unit and a foot controller in my set-up just to duplicate live one effect that I'd used a VST plug-in for in the studio…!

joeyowen

digitalscream said:

joeyowen said:

I like the look of this, but I dunno.

Does it have effects loop to use other effects? (I think it has 1 loop from the vid)

Why this, over say, an M13?

And for the price, why not individual effects/rack stuff/axe effects? (apart from the obvious vst expansion)

I love the idea mind, if I heard some real sound clips, not some 50s looking white gang playing fuzz, i'd be a lot happier.

Well, it'd be beyond the scope of a project like this to fit an entire x86 computer into a stompbox format for a start - hence not individual effects. Rack stuff is less likely to sell, so that's not really appropriate for a Kickstarter.

This is really for a select market - people who understand VSTs - at least to start with. The cracker with VSTs is that you can do literally anything with them. There's no reason you couldn't, for example, run Amplitube or Guitar Rig in it (aside from the fact that the CPU is woefully underpowered for that kind of thing...being just a standard PC inside, though, you could easily upgrade it if you could solve the heat problem). In fact, with the number of really high-quality VSTs out there - a lot of them free - there's no reason a device like this couldn't actually become a real competitor to the Fractal gear.

On top of that, you can do really weird and wacky stuff with VSTs that there's simply no way to do with an M13 (or even an AxeFX II).

However...my own personal feeling, based on my experience with repairing computers, is that they've probably woefully underestimated the punishment that giggable gear gets when it's chucked in the back of a van. The fact that they're using a standard modular motherboard means that the connectors, RAM and CPU heatsink are pretty likely to be unseated at some point. For the RAM and connectors, that's not so much an issue; if the heatsink moves out of alignment, or it cracks the motherboard after an impact due to the tension its springs are under, and you're screwed.

All fair points, my creativity doesn't stretch that far I guess.

There smashed ipad is a strange angle to take, because just lake a laptop/ipad, if you dropped that bit of gear I imagine it would break

ICBM

joeyowen said:

There smashed ipad is a strange angle to take, because just lake a laptop/ipad, if you dropped that bit of gear I imagine it would break

No reason it should, particularly if it doesn't have a hard drive… most other computer components can be made extremely robust, and the whole thing is going to be in a solid plastic (presumably, if they're doing it by 3D printing, unless that's just a prototype) or metal casing. The big problem with an iPad is the screen.

I take digitalscream's point, and I'd be the first to point out potential failure problems, but floorboard multi-FX units are not *too* much different and seem to hold up to massive abuse fairly well - jacks aside usually.

joeyowen

Again, fair points.

I know it sounds like I'm grilling, but I reallllly want this to do well.  I'm grilling more out of interest, than being a twat.

digitalscream

ICBM said:

I take digitalscream's point, and I'd be the first to point out potential failure problems, but floorboard multi-FX units are not *too* much different and seem to hold up to massive abuse fairly well - jacks aside usually.

The one thing that most multi-effects (and rack) gear don't have is a board-mounted heatsink. Judging from the photos, and the likely location of the CPU, I can't see that they've done much in the way of mounting it so that it's not going to put pressure on the motherboard. In most effects units, the main processing units are fairly low-power and thus don't kick out enough heat to warrant a massive heatsink the way x86 CPUs tend to. The whole general-purpose CPU thing is usually out of the window for that exact reason - too much power and heat dissipation required, relative to DSP units designed specifically to handle streaming data in realtime.

Now...if one of the big boys got hold of this and did it with a modern GPU instead of a CPU, you'd have many times more simultaneous processing power than even the AxeFX II has. To put it in perspective, I believe the TigerSHARC unit in the AxeFX II can do 4 Gflop/s (and there are two of them). A passively-cooled modern low-end GPU like that in the NVIDIA GT 620 can do around 270 Gflop/s, and it's designed specifically for parallel processing (the 620 can handle 96 simultaneous threads).

If only Intel had finished the GPU they were working on with an x86-compatible instruction set...then VST processing (with standard VSTs) via the GPU would've been a realistic possibility.

hubobulous

Reminds me very loosely of the Peavey Musebox

ICBM

digitalscream said:

The one thing that most multi-effects (and rack) gear don't have is a board-mounted heatsink. Judging from the photos, and the likely location of the CPU, I can't see that they've done much in the way of mounting it so that it's not going to put pressure on the motherboard.

That's true… and one of the things I have been known to criticise the likes of Ashdown bass amps for is PCB-mounted heatsinks which make them prone to vibration cracking.

Hmmm…..

kskelectrics

Hi - I'm one of the "50s looking white gang." I'll try to answer your thoughtful questions. 

A recurring question is about ruggedness. The prototypes shown are indeed prototypes. We are still iterating through physical designs and will be turning over the design we settle upon to an experienced metal engineer.

Regarding money. Yes, we do have other funding. We have been supporting development for a year and have some additional runway left. Kickstarter will provide funds yes. More importantly to us will demonstrate to us, if successful, that the market accepts the concept. If unsuccessful we will endeavor to pivot - altering the project so that the market will accept it.

Concerning performance, the Intel G1820 is the current processor in the prototype. Already it has been refreshed by newer parts offering marginally higher performance at the same cost (and to which we will likely switch). Passmark score on the G1820 is 2753. The G1850 is 3185, for instance. 

For the G1820 these figures are quoted:

Dhrystone  G1820 57 GIPS
Whetstone G1820 20 GFLOPS (more important) 

We have found even the G1820 more than powerful enough to run many demanding VSTs concurrently. The bigger killer in complex VSTs is their sample latency.

Answering one comment: There is an entire x86 (actually x64) based computer in there. 

Concerning being oriented to VST savvy users, our intent it exactly the opposite. We are refining our pitch to focus on modern VST host mimicking pedal boards of old. We think we can demonstrate this more effectively in the coming days via more video demonstrations and pictures. 

One commenter got our intent exactly right - modern on the inside - old school on the outside. After set up, 2014 technology like laptops and tablets can be put away. 

I've answered just a few of your questions and points - please toss more at me - I'll try to answer quickly. THANK YOU 

Drew_TNBD

I'd be curious to see how FXpansion Bloom runs on the thing - hit me up via PM if you want an NFR.

kskelectrics

I might add, regarding ruggedness, if we can't solve this particular problem we have no product. Clearly it is very high on our list of must haves.

digitalscream

kskelectrics said:

I might add, regarding ruggedness, if we can't solve this particular problem we have no product. Clearly it is very high on our list of must haves.

Have you considered under-clocking and under-volting a faster CPU? That should drop the heat dissipation requirement, and thus mean you can probably use a smaller laptop-style copper heatsink/heatpipe arrangement - bolt the socket-mounted heatpipe to the case through the motherboard, and the external heatsink to the back of the case.

Apologies if I'm stating the obvious here

EDIT: Of course, under-clocking means you'll have to reduce the FSB, which means - in most non-enthusiast motherboards - reducing the memory speed and therefore bandwidth. However, I doubt that'll have enough of an effect on performance to make a difference.

Drew_TNBD

I have a question actually - my main beef with some other gear out there has been with patch change latency and gaps of silence between the patches.

Have you looked at this at all?

I see that Revalver 4 has a live mode, which is supposed to give seamless patch changes.

kskelectrics

digitalscream said:

kskelectrics said:

I might add, regarding ruggedness, if we can't solve this particular problem we have no product. Clearly it is very high on our list of must haves.

Have you considered under-clocking and under-volting a faster CPU? That should drop the heat dissipation requirement, and thus mean you can probably use a smaller laptop-style copper heatsink/heatpipe arrangement - bolt the socket-mounted heatpipe to the case through the motherboard, and the external heatsink to the back of the case.

Apologies if I'm stating the obvious here

EDIT: Of course, under-clocking means you'll have to reduce the FSB, which means - in most non-enthusiast motherboards - reducing the memory speed and therefore bandwidth. However, I doubt that'll have enough of an effect on performance to make a difference.

These are great suggestions. I think heat will not prove to be a problem. Temperature probes inserted into the current plywood prototypes aren't raising red flags yet. We expect a metal box to be better still. Part of the choice of the G18xx Haswell series is driven by lower power / lower heat.

(One of the co-founders, Karu Sankaralingam's own research area is reducing power and heat of modern computer systems.)

Drew_TNBD

Also, many plugins do not respond well to tap-tempo. They warble and warp and introduce pitch artifacts. Have you considered getting in bed with a software company to do some to-spec plugins?