how are your FX mapped?

DJ Life & Community General Discussion
1

how are your FX mapped?

i’m going through a little bit of a workflow revamp and want some opinions and ideas from you all about how to set up FX.

i mainly do 2 deck mixing with 4 FX panels with my BCD 3000 and padKONTROL as controllers.

right now, i have all my FX set up on my korg padkontrol using farmpad. i have 8 buttons dedicated to activating effects for each deck (4 FX x 2 decks = 8 FX on/off buttons).

then i have 4 modifier buttons dedicated to controlling each bank. so if i have modifier 1 on, then my x/y axis, the three buttons next to it, as well as two other knobs all control FX bank 1. if all 4 modifier buttons are turned on, then i control all 12 chained FXs with just a couple of fingers (handy, but there’s almost never any reason to actually do this).

this workflow has proven pretty sweet, as i love having precise control over each chained FX. but as you can imagine, it gets pretty messy (ie impossible) when i start doing different FX on different lvls on different decks… enter smart knobs?

in my head, it seemed like it would be easier if i did away with the control modifiers and simply assigned a single effect, or a good combination of a few to a specific knob. then one knob would always be gater + filter + dry/wet for that chain, x/y would always be phaser + iceverb, etc… but i ran into problems with this too.

^all that description was probably unnecessary for the question i’m actually after: what works for you? a limited, but precise control over just some core FX, or a flexible, amorphous mapping that gives just a few inputs potential control over a bunch of effects? i’m trying to make the best use of my button/knob real estate: over both of my controllers i’ve got an x/y axis, ~20 buttons, and 6 knobs free.

(i did snoop around for some threads about this but searching for “effects setup” wasn’t exactly precise. so i’m sorry if this issue has been beaten to death!)

2

When it comes to knobs i hate multiple functions through modifiers, I think Moldover has it right where a knob does one thing.

Dont get me wrong though shift states are useful and i do use them for buttons and touch sensitive favors. The only time i would use shift states on knobs and faders is if they were motorized.

Soo i personally like multiple effects on a single knob controlling a specific deck - with a unit like the VCI-100 though i can definitely see why you would want modifiers on the knobs because 4 knobs dedicated to effects really isn’t enough to control all of the effects you need. Which in turn is why mixing externally makes a lot of sense becaue that frees up a large number of controls to control more effects with - personally i stick with internal mixing and just own more midi controllers though !

3

I use a NanoKontrol for all my FX, it controls everything no problem. I also use my PadKontrol to do my beat mashing and i have the pads set up on scene 4 to do beatslicing, I love it, great setup. I was going to implement smart knobs, but I dont really find the need for it right now. Time will tell.

4

Once you go smartknobs you never go back !

5

bento, thanks for the tips, but i’m curious how you handle your FX on and off for each deck. do you just leave them all on both decks and have your knobs control on/off for each specific effect? or do you still use something basic like my 4 on/off buttons for each deck?

it also seems like having 2 knobs for each effect (one for each deck) would take up a lot of room (not a problem for you since you don’t mind having a bunch of controllers, i suppose!) could you give me an example of one of your smartknobs?

animus, i’m having trouble understanding how you use the pads for beatslicing. i’d definitely be curious to hear more about this!

6

I actually went back to completely bare bones recently when moving from Traktor + Ableton to completely Ableton and M4L (huge jump !)- so currently i have got 0 effects because i haven’t started doing my next generation of effects at the moment.

When i do get to effects though i will be doing stuff like a beatmasher + gater + delay in one knob effect.

I really like Moldovers theory of smart-knobs, they are reaaaaly expressive and only take a single hand to execute what you would have extreme trouble doing with 2 hands. My fav moldover smartknob is the one he uses on his drum bus personally, very impressive effect to make instant really awesome sounding drum rolls :slight_smile:

7

can i see this somewhere ?

8

I use my pads for beatslicing like this

XXXX1O
XXXX2T

Pressing the T pad cycles through which deck would get the slicer effect
Pressing 0 captures a sample
Each X has 2 presets for the slicing to get 8 different patterns
1 turns on the double sample size toggle
2 I forget, but it does the other toggle effect

9

When I used only one controller, I limited myself intentionally with regards to fx. At first I tried out the “every function is mapped, there’s nothing in Traktor that can’t be accessed” route and found that for limited surfaces trying to manage four decks, things can get pretty confusing pretty fast. Your goal should be that you can get the sound you need, on the deck you need it with, without even having to stop to think. If I’m only using one smaller controller, like a VCI-100, one thing I like to do is simply assign one fx unit to one deck, permanently. The routing never changes, and its always on.You lose flexibility, but eliminate fiddling and guesswork. The knobs always do the same thing. I also think that’s very important - not so much that they only do one thing, but that the function is always the same. “This knob controls dry/wet, etc”.
Another thing I find indispensable is to have a snapshot saved of every effect in your preferred default state. Add to that a collection of commands dedicated to loading specific fx directly to the unit your hands are already on, and sh!^ is fast, fast, fast.

Since adding the APC40 to my rig I allow the ability to route anywhere, but that’s only because I can SEE exactly what’s going on on any deck. I think for using two decks only on your gear, you can get VERY direct.

10

I use a VCI-100 and a Nanopad.

FX 1&3 are always advanced FX for decks A&B
FX 2&4 are always chained FX for decks A&B

I use the x-y pad on the Nanopad as smart knobs and trigger for the chained FX, the pads select my favourite chained FX and sets up the values for the x-y pad.

I can also hit buttons on my VCI to select beatmasher or slicer advanced, and then the pads on the Nanopad will trigger different tempo mash effects.

11

I use VCI 100, Akai LPD 8, and midifighter. On my VCI, I use FX bank 1 as a permanant adavanced delay. FX bank 2 I often switch to whatever I want. While my LPD8 knobs I have in chained mode for FX bank 3 and 4. The first knobs turns on the effect and the FX bank when the dry/wet us turned up. In turn it lets me use effects with just a turn of a couple knobs. FX bank 3 is dedicated to deck A, FX bank 4, is dedicated to deck B.

Then I use my four buttons on my LPD 8 for hotcues for decks A and B, which gives me a permanent juggle availability. This combined with midifighter effects, you can’t go wrong.

12

with a vci-100:

two decks, each with a fx toggle that turns both fx 1 and fx 2 on. fx 3 is permanently set to deck a, with a filter 92, and likewise with fx 4 and deck b. fx 1 is chained, and usually has beatmasher/gater/flanger flux, fx 2 is advanced and is always set to a delay with a smart knob for adjusting wet/dry and feedback, and a button for toggling the delay out.

I use fx units for filters because ever since one of those updates back whenever, the xone filter’s res on the mixer unit got nerfed and I’ve hated it ever since. I’ve tried plenty of other fx configurations, including jog wheel fx and even using the faders as smart fx control, but for now I’ve settled for simple but functional.