Been using S-Gear within Cantabile for almost 3 years with no issues, but only as a single instance. Due to adding some complex songs with 4 or more tones in a song, now I need to have 2 instances, 1 per Rack, and just solo between them. Works fine, except I get an intermittent problem… sometimes when I open a song, there’s distortion that’s almost like an impedance overload… sounds like an old direct box with the input gain set way too high. Usually clsoing/reopening the song fixes it, but occasionally I’ve had to restart Cantabile. Go back to my old songs with one instance of S-Gear, and I can’t replicate the problem… it’s fine. So it’s definitely related to the two instances, as far as I can tell.
Any thoughts on what’s causing this? I’m almost embarrassed to say I’m still on C2 Solo. S-Gear is V 2.71 IIRC. Thanks!
Don’t know why you would have 2 instances of the same plug when all you would need to do is A and B switch within one instance. Some plugs don’t play nice with two instances. Also, you are in C2, I am many years beyond that so not familiar with it anymore.
Thanks Corky. There are some songs with up to 4-5 tones. Sure I could just go with 2 tones per song, but it’s better this way. Have you ever heard of issues with 2 instances of S-Gear?
BTW I’m using an FCB 1010 for all this. I also tested an alternative method, with jsut one instance… where I arrange the SGear presets in sequential order for each song, and just advance to the next preset, using one switch. Really simple, no more trying to remember which switch for which tone on which song. But, given the limits of S-Gear’s preset management, it’s a laborious process to make a change later, such as adding another preset (my current workaround for this is to simply have a blank preset after each song. If it was drag and drop like Cantabile’s Set List editor that would solve the problem. Hopefully Mike is going to do that in v2.9. Thanks!
I’ve not tried 2 instances of S-Gear until you posted this thread. I still use S-Gear in a few songs, but I’ve had some problems with it in the past, and while it is not a resource hog, it still occasionally gives me a few small problems. Again, I’m not in C2, but in C3. In C3 I would use one physical switch to select states. In each state would be a different instance of S-Gear in whatever order I wanted. States are most times easier to make a change in amp Sims than assigning a switch to certain parameters within the sim.
In one of my bands, I use guitar in 90% of the songs, so quick switching to leads, fx, parameter changes, and even amp changes are all controlled with state changes. Those changes are all done with the same physical switch.
I am slowly, but surely, migrating to TH3. I really feel (as of today ) TH3 has a closer “real” amp feel and response. That may change next week, but I am able to get closer to the sound I want without spending several hrs tweaking.
Glad to hear Mike is going to go to a drag and drop. That will be helpful.
Thanks for the info, Corky. Yeah, I’m in 2 bands myself, which is why I’m going down this path… need to make it easier.
Just curious, you say “so quick switching to leads, fx, parameter changes, and even amp changes are all controlled with state changes. Those changes are all done with the same physical switch.” How do you do that with one switch… are you just advancing to the next state? If so, that’s similar to what I’m doing.
Thanks and all the best,
Tom
FWIW Mike at Scuffham has offered to look into this, I’m going to send him my file and see if he can replicate it.
He said S-Gear was actually designed from the bottom up to play nice with multiple instances, so I shouldn’t be seeing this issue. So now I’m thinking it’s probably something in my configuration, optimization, or some software conflict. If I learn anything helpful I’ll post here.
That would probably be the best approach. I have not been able to create the problem you are having. However, I somewhat remember having some weird distorted things going on with S-Gear a couple of years back. Reloading C3 helped, but later discovered the newest audio interface driver fixed it. You might want to check for updates.
Yeah, I thought about the driver but it’s up to date. Reloading… do you mean re-installing? I have thought about doing that for both C2 and S-Gear… and the driver, too. But yeah, I’ll see what Mike says first. I have to say, both Brad and Mike are excellent at support… we wouldn’t get this kind of support from a large company.
I’m running S-Gear in various Cubase projects - multiple instances without any problems so far.
In Cantabile, I use one instance only, combined with multiple effects plugins outside (pedals before, reverb, delay after). With separate reverb and delay, the effects tails get to ring out even when I change the S-Gear patch during the song.
And that brings me to my key question about your setup: why do you use two sepearate instance just to play two different sounds? Using Cantabile’s plugin presets, it is easy to switch between two/three/four/whatever completely different configurations of S-Gear with a simple state change.
I do this regularly: a clean sound for the verse, a crunch sound for chorus, then a high-gain-sound for the solo, then back to clean - all within one instance of S-Gear by changing (Cantabile) plugin presets / rack states. Works perfectly. Except: it does cut off all tails of the S-Gear reverb / delay when changing configurations - that’s why I’ve put the reverb outside S-Gear.
Like @Corky, I’m using Cantabile 3, so don’t know if there are any specifics of Cantabile 2 that require two instances - anyways’ I’d heartily recommend upgrading to C3 - it’s worth every penny!
Thanks Torsten. I don’t think I can do State changes on C2. Yeah, I know I should move to C3… I’ve been hesitant since I have about 150 songs now, and I’ve read that it can be time consuming to make the change. But it sounds like that may solve my issue, too. Thanks!
) TH3 has a closer “real” amp feel and response. That may change next week, but I am able to get closer to the sound I want without spending several hrs tweaking.