zooey Posted October 24, 2017 Share Posted October 24, 2017 I'm working on an app to help with IR management. I've been using my own backups as sample data, but it appears the oldest ones I have that I can put my hands on are firmware 2.0.1, and it'd make sense to look at some from older firmware too, to at least know if my code handles them correctly.. If anyone has a couple they don't mind sharing, please do. I guess the best way to do that might be to post them here, instead of PM-ing them, so I don't get 8 million of them. Please add a note about what IR slots are being used, and how -- directly set in the IR block, brought in by a footswitch, whatever. Is there any technical reason we can't post presets here? Thanks. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
willjrock Posted October 24, 2017 Share Posted October 24, 2017 You should have gotten a flash drive with your helix (if you bought it brand new) that has 1.04 stamped on it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zooey Posted October 24, 2017 Author Share Posted October 24, 2017 Hmmm, think I do have that. Not interested in downgrading my actual firmware, but if it has sample presets using IRs, that'd be what I'm looking for. I'll check it out, thanks for the idea. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silverhead Posted October 24, 2017 Share Posted October 24, 2017 No Helix firmware has included IRs in its installation. All IRs are post-installation user additions. This has been the case from the beginning. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zooey Posted October 24, 2017 Author Share Posted October 24, 2017 Right, I knew that, which makes the odds of the original USB stick including any patches that use them really really low. So, does anyone have any ancient firmware patches with IRs they'd be ok sending to me? If you don't want to make them public here, I take back my concern about getting too many PMd to me, have at it! I don't need the actual IRs either, just the patch, and ideally info about what IR indexes were used, and how that were connected to the IR block. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
willjrock Posted October 26, 2017 Share Posted October 26, 2017 I really doubt you would find anybody in this scenario. The only way I could figure is for you to do it yourself but we both know that is out of the question so you may just be spinning your wheels on this one. I can’t see how you would find any more than one and I don’t suppose that tells much of a story. However, I’m sure I speak for more than myself when saying that I am really thankful for your experiment. do you expect it to be free? Do you have an idea what you would charge if not? Are you hoping for Beta help? Without rushing you is there anything I or anyone can do to help speed the process up? I’m glad youre taking the initiative. It seems like line 6 has no interest in pursuing an IR manager and I am of the opinion that we are in need of one desperately. As are you thankfully Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HonestOpinion Posted October 26, 2017 Share Posted October 26, 2017 I think this is a great project zooey. Thanks for undertaking it. I think that Line6 may provide its own solution to improving IR management at some point but until then an "Open Source" solution would be a welcome addition. I appreciate how comprehensive your effort seems to be but I don't know if it is worth spending too much time trying to get presets from older firmware versions to cooperate with the IR manager you are coding unless you are finding that those presets fail to work with your utility when backed up with the current firmware. I don't think it would be a tragedy if the people who want to use your utility have to upgrade to at least the 2.01 firmware version (the oldest version you have presets for). I'm sure you have also considered the fact that future firmware or Editor revisions could impact the format for preset backups so you may want to invest your time in keeping your utility working with newer versions rather than investing too much effort in backward compatibility. Just my two cents worth. People who are dead set on remaining on older firmware versions may feel differently. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zooey Posted October 26, 2017 Author Share Posted October 26, 2017 Thanks for the support guys, appreciate it. Hope this turns out to be useful. I agree that compatibility with older fortunate isn't a huge priority, but I at least wanted to say what versions it works with. My suspicion based on the current format is that older version will be fine with the way I've coded, just want to check. More details to come... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zooey Posted October 26, 2017 Author Share Posted October 26, 2017 But just to say it, the initial release of it probably won't actually DO anything, it'll just tell you what IRs are used by what presets, and how they're hooked into them. That info lets you decide what to toss. Ability to reorder your IRs and have it update your presets (really, export new presets using the new slot numbers) probably won't be in v1. Among other reasons, that's to get some feedback on how the whole thing is put together, and how this platform works out for making cross-platform Mac and Windows apps, since I don't have a Mac to even try it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HonestOpinion Posted October 26, 2017 Share Posted October 26, 2017 Btw, here are a couple thoughts on how I might go about writing an app like this. You have probably already considered them but here goes. IR application reads the presets on the Helix and determines which IRs are in which position in the IR list and which presets point to which slot. IR application provides a method for user to resolve which IR goes into a specific IR slot if there is a conflict wherein the user is trying to load new preset that are intended to point to a different IR but they have selected a slot already in use. This would not matter the first time you read the users presets but might make a difference in later reads of the IR allocation when a user tries to load either an older preset backup or a downloaded preset that uses a different IR but has the same slot designated as an existing one. At no point would I try to manipulate the preset backups or write a backup procedure for the presets as I think the backup format is likely to be a moving target and I think you would be hard pressed to get users to have confidence in any alternative to the Helix Editor when it comes to restoring backups. I think users might however embrace an app that restores IRs to the correct location however. UPDATE: Just saw your new post and that sounds like a great way to go about a first cut at this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zooey Posted October 26, 2017 Author Share Posted October 26, 2017 I'm pretty leery of writing preset files out from scratch, thought I'd just do string replacements in the existing JSON data. That's simple enough that it might make it into v1. The bigger question to me is what the part of the app where you build a new set of IRs looks like. I haven't tried seeing what Helix does with JSON created by the standard tools in this environment. It might be fine, if it reads generic JSON, rather than being tied to the specific (non-standard) version the app writes. In the mean time, replacing text seems way less risky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
willjrock Posted October 26, 2017 Share Posted October 26, 2017 it'll just tell you what IRs are used by what presets, and how they're hooked into them. That info let's you decide what to toss. Ummmmm....That'd be huge. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
willjrock Posted November 5, 2017 Share Posted November 5, 2017 Just wondering where you were at with this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zooey Posted November 5, 2017 Author Share Posted November 5, 2017 Coming along pretty well, thanks for your interest. Will post some questions for people separately, shortly... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.