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PA Diezel VH-4


cclarry

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Don t expect a review on that lol , i have too much respect for you bass and guitar guyz lol 

And will patiently wait for your reviews ... 

Edited by Zo
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I haven't been all that excited on PA's guitar amps (I have Rock Rack plus a few others) and don't really use them. Not sure what it is about PA's amps as their response, feel, tones or a combination of all weren't all that inspiring (YMMV). Hopefully VH4 is different.  Will have to demo this over the weekend.

Now their plugins are definitely off the hook!! ;)

 

  

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Ha, it is really cool amp,  I love how it sounds... :)   

But everybody should test it by oneself. I don't consider myself as expert about real amps sound as I have only one and rarely using it, living in flat with many neighbors around.

But to be honest .... what is annoying me awfully...  

Unfortunately PA with every their amp sim doing 3 very lame things:

1/ lack of input control - level of input drastically change tone so it completely hard to understand 

and workflow killers:

2/ drop-down list - it is horrible control for long list as we get control which is much higher than screen so it is so painful searching it and changing fro instance from item #34 to #47  Unfortunately their 'technology' with automatic moving to the next after bars is not sufficient in real. Nice as helper but not fixing the problem. Should be different control letting to pick what we want instantly not scrolling, and scrolling and then scrolling, and again... I know we can do presets but to do it we must suffer :(

3/ bypass IRs is the last entry on that mentioned long list - really PA?? anybody tested GUI  seriously? :( All competitors just would put button close to control with IRs just to turn off and turn on using internal cabinets/mics chain emulation.

BTW I reported to them long time ago problem with presets displaying in VST3, they suggested me using VST2, well, Anyway I checked many months when buying next PA thing and still not fixed and finally I stopped even to try install VST3, using VST2, Anybody tried lately VST3 and checked if fixed or they just ignored thing. It is not impossible to fix it as some manufacturers are providing VST3 with flawlessly working presets,

UPDATE:

ok, I was too lazy, sorry for that. just installed VST3 and checked by myself. Issue still not fixed... After two year after reported? :( Really lame.

On pictures included you can see what I mean. No presets in VST3 preset drop-down list container.

vst2.jpg.caf54bd9eb702ee9ef041a6ce0eb68ba.jpgvst3.jpg.da7473f601997bbaf0e2561e76ffaa8e.jpg

Edited by Piotr
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I think with most VST3 you have to click "Load" and then browse to the presets
as there is no "drop down".  This is most likely a VST 3 issue, as it seems
to be present in the vast majority of them.  Just more difficult to navigate,
but they are still there.  And I agree..it's lame.

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20 minutes ago, cclarry said:

I think with most VST3 you have to click "Load" and then browse to the presets
as there is no "drop down".  This is most likely a VST 3 issue, as it seems
to be present in the vast majority of them.  Just more difficult to navigate,
but they are still there.  And I agree..it's lame.

Yep, it is :)  Some manufactures care if it is working like here ;)

audified-vst3.jpg.d32e4ffc076d429753a0c397e8611272.jpg

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Just as supplement for illustration for those who would not test picture showing lame2+lame3 typical for PA amps ;)

Maybe somebody close to Dirk could say a word to convince him their great plugs would be even better with some improvements? ;) 

lame23.jpg.c3765c8c488a53e4dff6afbebffed8ee.jpg

The very last entry is for bypass IR .

It is #120. Every time you pick something from the list and want to change you must start scrolling from the beginning 😕

To be honest I have never seen any use for this control type for long lists. Especially linear ones. Even using tree organization would improve lots.

Like in Wall of Sound:

2notes-tree.jpg.bc5c0bb649d386a35e63479257fb880b.jpg

BTW Sonar unfortunately has the same problem about picking automation for plugin with many items. Very long linear list for given plugin. So if plugin has a lot of params provided for automation we got very long list bigger than screen size.

 

 

Edited by Piotr
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18 minutes ago, cclarry said:

I wish CbB would AT LEAST add Mouse Scroll Wheel capability for the long lists,
rather than the LAME "up and down" arrows used to get to the rest of the list...

make a feature request so we can click many likes for it

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31 minutes ago, cclarry said:

I wish CbB would AT LEAST add Mouse Scroll Wheel capability for the long lists,
rather than the LAME "up and down" arrows used to get to the rest of the list...

However, let's not be too shy ;) Why not create autodetect automation params just after a touch of related control? like in S1?  No matter how many automation parameters we have it is not our concern it is DAW concern ;) This why we have computers, right? ;) Do do painful work for us, not forcing us to do painful actions ;)

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11 hours ago, Piotr said:

However, let's not be too shy ;) Why not create autodetect automation params just after a touch of related control? like in S1?  No matter how many automation parameters we have it is not our concern it is DAW concern ;) This why we have computers, right? ;) Do do painful work for us, not forcing us to do painful actions ;)

why not posting this in Larry's topic in the feature requests... great ideas guys!

Edited by chris.r
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This list that you are discussing is a Windows feature, not the plugin or CbB. And Windows does not feature mouse scrolling for this menu.

IOW, the software devs can't add it, because Windows doesn't support it. I have (and many others) asked for this feature for a long time. Noel has explained it before.

Don't quote me on this, but to get it to work like the Wall OF Sound menu would be about the best that could be done. And IIRC, CbB Plugin Manager with the ability to create your own plugin menus is the result of people complaining about the issue ya'll are discussing.

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4 hours ago, Grem said:

This list that you are discussing is a Windows feature, not the plugin or CbB. And Windows does not feature mouse scrolling for this menu.

IOW, the software devs can't add it, because Windows doesn't support it. I have (and many others) asked for this feature for a long time. Noel has explained it before.

Don't quote me on this, but to get it to work like the Wall OF Sound menu would be about the best that could be done. And IIRC, CbB Plugin Manager with the ability to create your own plugin menus is the result of people complaining about the issue ya'll are discussing.

If it's a Window's feature Grem, then how do other DAW's do it?  Many less robust DAW's than CbB all
have the menu scrolling feature, so I think that Noel is just "kicking the can down the road" IMO

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Ok, Grem, I will not quote you ;) But please let me write in imho it is design flaw.

When you are deciding what control to use you should always consider how practical and friendly it is for users. You need predict how many items, what kind of items, what to do to make workflow the best. Using such control for long list is always terrible idea. It is ok for short list, but if you are aware list can be longer at other context you just put into GUI different control or do something like in 2Notes with this to make hierarchy. It is not racket science for developers. In the contrary it is basic in planning GUI.

For me it is specially annoying when it is not made in the first amp sim of PA. They have them plenty and still repeating the same issue.

And turning of IR by picking #120 item in such list is really, really lame.  Despite of I believe them did really great job with their IRs - I love them, bypass option and instantly accessible is a must have for any amp sim with its own cabs. Many of us have lots of IR bought from different providers, many favorites and we just need to be able to turn off fast to check 3party IRs we like.

 

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4 minutes ago, cclarry said:

If it's a Window's feature Grem, then how do other DAW's do it?  Many less robust DAW's than CbB all
have the menu scrolling feature, so I think that Noel is just "kicking the can down the road" IMO

I would say more, in creating program in Windows you have ready-to-use libraries but you can also design your own control. So if not available in included by MS libs (don't remember unfortunately I was dealing ages ago  with programming - but this is type of very old control, probably available in the beginning of Windows) nobody is going to stop you to enhance.

Of course it would require more effort but I believe there are also plenty of commercial libs with non-standard controls (wondering ). Or am I wrong?

Despite of my all attachment to Sonar, I believe there are so many things in unfinished state... Like during playing try to change loop, it is breaking play... Selecting params for automation if plugin has zylion of them (check Melda more advanced plugin for instance and try to get proper one) Etc...

I tried to put some list of things to improve in Sonar in the hope of improvements, but soon after it (of course it is not related just kind a superstition ;) Cakewalk abandoned support for Sonar and we got into kind of limbo. But thanks to it I got S1 and discovered how fast we can pick param for automation, just touch related control and done :)

 

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Maybe I should have said from the onset that I have zero, let me restate that, ZERO knowledge in programing, developing software, or anything close to that nature. So I can not speak from experience.

That said, I can speak from what I know. And I know what Noel has said, (and I have to admit that I also doubted this explanation too, but I believe him now). After myself and others complained about it again, they came up with the 'Most Recent Used' plugins stays at the top of that list. This was the devs response to trying to alleviate the 'Menu Issue' that we are talking about. And since they at least put some effort into trying to accommodate users, I am thinking that there is really nothing they can do about it, just as they said. If they could have put 'scroll mouse' into it, I really think they would have done that by now.

They may have other plans for a different system and have not created the hierarchy menu like TwoNotes has due to not wanting to waste effort in something that they will throw away at some point.

I just do not believe that Noel and his team are kicking it down the road! I think they are better than that.

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One of the reasons the various older versions of Cakewalk and Sonar still continue to work on more modern operating systems (e.g. I still have Cakewalk PA 9 on a Win7 32 bit boot), is that they all use standard Windows controls and API's wherever possible.

Unfortunately these controls do have their limitations, but personally believe the benefits outweigh the downsides.

 

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14 hours ago, Piotr said:

imho it is design flaw

I agree with you 100%. But you do have to remember, this was implemented when nobody had hundreds of plugins!! Ahh the old days!! : )

And I do like PA amp sims. I got the Rack and a few others also. But that IR menu is a PITFA!! I can understand Noel haveing come to Cakewalk as a new dev and this menu was already in place. He's stuck with it. Maybe something he wouldn't have used for all the reasons you stated.

But for PA to use this nightmare of a menu knowing how many IR's there was going to be, is just plain bad design, I agree.

I beta tested for a small amp sim outfit that had lots of IR's in the sim. And using that menu was not an option. They ended up creating a totally different program to accommodate all the IR options. Why did they go to that extreme? Because the beta testers complained about it enough that they saw the logic in what we were saying.

Now PA can't tell me, not one of their beta testers didn't complain about that menu. I refuse to believe that. And you are saying that you have also told them something, so I have to assume others have said something too. But still, there it is. You just gotta SMFH!!! : )

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