Help me understand these per-track presets

tangram

Alright, so I made a song with eight tracks, four sections yesterday. Tracks 5-8 are based off each other, and the preset, 6A, was copied along when I started each of them.

Today I wanted to change the preset, so I select track 5 and get something I'm happy with. I save the preset to 6A. The other tracks are unaffected. I go to one ot the other tracks, switch presets back and forth to 6A. Still the same sound from yesterday. I go to track 5 and the preset is back the way I want it. I save to 6B. I try the same thing again. 6B is nowhere to be seen. I try to save again, this time it suggests 6C, or I can scroll back to 6B, 6A... I save to 6A. But on the other tracks the preset is still the same. 6B is not in the preset list.

So... presets are apparently saved per track. But where did 6B go, and why can't I save the edited preset?

Sam

Hmm, while I'm hesitant to call this a "bug", it's certainly strange. I'll mention it to Rohan and let you know

rohan

Alright, this is one of the more complicated Deluge workings to explain.

"Where did preset 6B go?" - It's there, but you are not allowed to have two "active" tracks (launch pad is green in song view) assigned to the same preset. So, when you're flipping through the presets looking for 6B, it's not showing it to you because the track you're on is active, and there's another active track that has preset 6B, so you're not allowed to have it on this track as well.

Saving a preset to 6A will not update other tracks which already have this preset - in fact, it will cause them to rename their preset to something else (probably 6C in your example), to "get out of the way" of the freshly "renamed" preset.

Here's what you can do to achieve what you're trying to do:

• To set multiple tracks to the same preset number, first ensure that only one (or none) of them are active.
• If you want the same preset sound on multiple active tracks at once, you'll have to create clones of the preset. One way to do this is to save copies of the preset, as you've been doing. Another way is to note that anytime you modify a saved preset, its suffix letter goes up by one (e.g. as soon as you turn a gold knob on preset 6, it renames to 6A). This then allows you to set another track (even if both are active) to preset 6, which will still sound the same.

I hope that was helpful!

funktree

I’m glad it works this way. I always do some changes to tracks with the same “root” preset
The long term issue with this is to expect big variations of the sound when browsing 6B, 6C, 6D. These sounds will be similar. I also know I can skip the alpha presets by holding down shift while browsing presets it will go like this 6,7,8,9 if you don’t hold the shift it will go 6A,6B,7,7A,7B,8.
One of the signs of good workflow would be to indicate “usage” of a sound.
Pushing down the preset knob could show on 8x16 which song uses that preset or simpler use the upper/lower dot on the display.. to indicate that “sound” is used in a song. This is one of the major problems with older workstations with sound presets. There was NO way to find if the preset has been used and if it is used frequently (how many songs). Instant first 80 songs on 8x10 pads is very easy way to see how many times the preset is used.
Second issue. I NEED to know which preset I’m editing...; say I start with 6B and change only delay or some other effect slightly. Then, I want to save the changes. The DELUGE automatically shows the new empty slot e.g. 6F but I don’t remember that I started with 6B unless I put it on piece of the paper. There should be way (some shift shortcut) to show me where I started so I don’t overwrite another sound possibly used in another song.

tangram

Thanks for trying to clear this up, Rohan.

What you are saying makes sense, but it doesn't really apply. I haven't explained myself well enough, sorry.

I don't want multiple copies of the same preset playing at once. The song has two different voices. Tracks 5-8 are the same voice and use the same preset, but each belongs to one of four sections. So track 5 is blue (in the rightmost section column), 6 is pink and so on, and thus are mutually exclusive as long as I'm using the section column to toggle them.

I wanted to change the timbre of tracks 5-8. So I started with only track 5 active, changed the timbre, and saved the preset (or so I thought...). Altering the preset doesn't update tracks using the preset, that's fine (although unexpected for me). I activated track 6 so I could switch that over to the new preset. It's not there.

However, I noticed today that apparently, I have 4 copies of the same song! The original song 1, then song 6 with the updated preset on track 5 but not the others, song 6A and 6B which are both the same as 6. In the load screen these appear in track mode, but are the same as 1 when I switch to song mode. I thought I was saving the altered preset, but apparently I was saving the song, as indicated by the song button blinking when I press save.

So wha't I'm really asking then, is how do I save this preset? I only get the option of saving the song.

tangram

I also like your comments, funktree. Maybe you should make a feature request post.

tangram

Ah. I have to be in the sound editor, meaning some part of the sound editing menu tree has to be active, to save the preset. Once I've done that, I can load that preset for each of the tracks. Mystery solved!