So “Snapshots”…
In another topic @TheMadman_tobyjenner mentioned a common problem with presets and multi-fx units. Say you have a favorite “core tone” that you’ve dialed in, with an amp an OD pedal and perhaps a certain reverb setting…
But now you want variations on this tone; one with delay for playing solos, one with a wah-wah pedal, etc etc.
You could of course copy your core tone preset to two new slots on the unit, and add the delay and wah - but when you then later discover a new and better tweak of the reverb or amp… then you have to remember to update ALL those copies of the preset. That really is super annoying!
Another problem, which you may or may not find important, is that usually a multi-fx unit cannot load an entirely new preset without the sound dropping out for the briefest moment. So if you, for example, was on some distorted rhythm tone, have a chord ringing, and want to go smoothly into a solo tone - you might not be able to do that without hearing a small “stutter” in the output.
In the Helix products they have a very cool and (IMO) elegant solution to that called “Snapshots”.
Within each preset you can set up 4 or 8 (depending on hardware model) variations of the tone. Each variation - or snapshot - can have it’s own value for any settings you choose on the blocks used in the preset (ex: amp gain, delay time, delay mix etc etc) and it can also turn on/off blocks. But it can NOT add/exchange blocks to something else.
I think the Line6 guys themselves describe it something like this; imagine you have a big traditional pedal board… and an army or pixies ready to instantly help you tweak the knobs or turn things on/off. I don’t know if that description is helpful or not in understanding what it is
But bottom line is; if you can manage to build a preset that contains ALL the blocks you think you will need for all your tones… then it is indeed a fantastic way of both avoiding sound drop-outs when changing tone (because you’re not loading a new DSP program, only changing some values/settings on the existing). You can configure the buttons on the Helix hardware to switch snapshots in the current preset, rather than loading a new preset.
It also solves the problem of having the same tweaks of an amp block or delay effect in multiple presets… if you tweak some core value, which is NOT marked for “per preset value” by you, then it takes effects in all your tones. For example, reverb time or something like that…
I use snapshots extensively. When playing a live show (with the Helix Floor) I stay on the same preset the entire night, but have 6 snapshots set up to cover the tones I need.
The PodGo also have support for snapshots, BUT some of its other limitations makes them a tiny bit less useful there. But more on that in a later post (probably tomorrow) when I will start compating my way of setting up presets on the Helix Floor and the PodGo…