How does the new Glitch Delay work? Btw, Glitch is Glitched...!

[grdGo33]

Anyone knows how it works?  Never mind...  I finally stumbled on this site.  So until the manual gets updated, this site will likely have the info for the new effects!   https://dshowmusic.com/line-6-helix-effect-models/   Or yeah would also be in the Helix manual...   Should have thought about that lol 
 

Glitch Delay	Mono, Stereo	Line 6 Original Performance delay that lets you freely manipulate the repeats’ behavior in real time
Time—Sets the delay time; press the knob to toggle between ms/sec and note values Delay Div—Divides the delay time into smaller increments Mix—Controls the wet/dry mix of the delay. When set to 0%, no delay is heard; when set to 100%, no dry signal is heard Feedback—Controls the overall number of repeats heard for the entire sequence SliceFdbk—Controls the number of repeats heard for individual slices. At higher values, you could call this “Super Chaotic Feedback” Shuffle—Determines the likelihood of repeats shuffling/reordering Octaves—Determines the likelihood of repeats playing back an octave higher or lower Reverse—Determines the likelihood of repeats playing backwards Seq Drift—Determines the likelihood of the entire sequence changing every time it loops around. When set to 0%, the same sequence loops forever. TIP: Assign this parameter to a footswitch set to toggle between a higher number and 0%. If you hear a random sequence you want to maintain, press the switch to set Seq Drift to 0%, and it’ll repeat that way indefinitely Smoothing—Higher values apply smoothing between slices and can give a synth-pad type quality, lower values maintain transients. Or set it just high enough to avoid pops and clicks Trails—When on, delay repeats continue to ring out after the block is bypassed   Btw, for having tried it a bit, the Delay Div does seem to 'often' introduce a bit of 'clipping' sounds; when they're reversed or whatever, but maybe it could be smoothing...  Or, maybe I was just using too many delay divs given the time, anyway, will experiment more, as I probably experimented with some bad settings.   Very fun delay!  :D

[voxman55]

"Very fun delay!  :D "

 

But with very little practical value - there's more than enough amp, cabs, & fx already in Pod Go such that most users have option paralysis as it is, and I hope that having satisfied the masses who are mostly bedroom players and just want more toys to play with by adding some extra fx, amps, cabs, that in the next firmware upgrade Line 6 focuses on improved functionality to make Pod Go more of a gigging friendly tool. 

[grdGo33]

3 hours ago, voxman55 said:

"Very fun delay!  :D "

 

But with very little practical value - there's more than enough amp, cabs, & fx already in Pod Go such that most users have option paralysis as it is, and I hope that having satisfied the masses who are mostly bedroom players and just want more toys to play with by adding some extra fx, amps, cabs

 

Well that's kinda debatable...   Of course, it's not going to replace your traditional delay for traditional music, so if all you're doing with the Go is play covers of famous rock/blues/jazz/etc. bands, it might as well not exist.  And of course if you just turn it on and play your led zep song it's going to sound like a garbled mess.  So yeah, in that case, very little practical value.

 

But, as a creative tool, it does open up some possibilities.    Shame I didn't save the patches and riffs I had going on yesterday (was just testing out, didn't think I'd end up with anything), I'm revisting it todya and now I'm totally bugged with this setting:

 

Quote

Delay Div—Divides the delay time into smaller increments

 

What does this mean?  If I put all the params shuffling/reverse/octave, etc., zero, just have 1s time configured, with:

Delay Div value 1 to 4:  sounds exactly like a regular digital delay
Delay Div value 5:  then it gets buggy and clippy.  It's like random, it's like the first 3/5ths are normal, then it clips at 4/5th

 

But 15m later, it now bugs with values Delay Div value of 3 ...

 

So from what I understand, say you put Time 4s, and you put the Div at 4, then it's going to split your 4s time into four splits of 1s, and then it will randomly assign for each 1s split a randome reverse/octave/etc...  So basically; four 'splits' of randomness.

 

But if you assign too many divs, then it appears that the glitch delay glitches, and it will stop functioning normally.  I thought it might be a latency issue; 1s divided by 5 = 200ms, which for some reason might have been too much for the Go, but if you set 4s time and 8 div (splits of 500ms) then it glitches the same way, so it's not really time related, it's really that if the div value is too high, it just bugs out? 

 

It really does look like the delay is bugged...  As if the Go does not have the ability to handle higher Div values...!   So is this a bug with the Go?  Or is there some logical explanation I'm missing?  [edit] found some vids of helix, and it seems to do the same.  So "Divides the delay time into smaller increments" might just be wrong/inaccurate, as it does seem to add some sort of random element to it:

 

 

Yeah you can definitely hear it at 4m30 when he increases it to 8, then there is a clear octaver in there; so ...  it appears that "Delay Div: Divides the delay time into smaller increments" is inaccurate ...  A more accurate description would be something like:  "Delay Div: Divides the delay time into smaller increments and adds random elements with higher values" or something like that ...   Sigh ...

 

But yeah, that bit I quoted with the settings description isn't from L6 or the Helix manual it seems.  Just downloaded the Helix manual, and it has ZERO explanation on the Glitch Delay parameters...  So I think it's just a 3rd party guy that did the documentation I quoted, which would very well explain why it's not 100% accurate...

[grdGo33]

Ok yeah 100% it is bugged.  The issue is that if you change the Delay Div value, the new 'splits' are instantiated with default values instead of your current values.  So if you set everything to zero and go from 3 to 4 delay div value, it'll create a 4th 'split', and this new split will have non-zero values for shuffle/octaver/reverse/etc., which is why it goes from a digital delay to some garbled WFT sound that makes no sense.  The new instance should have been instanced with current values.  Which is not the case...  Seems to be intermittent though, reproduced after changing block to Glitch Delay, but on a saved patch, didn't seem to occur...

 

Workaround: 

- Change the value of the octave and reverse % after modifying Delay Div, seems to reinitialize all splits with current value.

- Or, save, load another patch, then go back, seems to work also.

BUGGED.

I thought maybe it could be a feature; allowing you to set each 'split' with a specific value, (ex; 1st = octaver, 2nd reverse, 3rd nothing, 4th = octaver, etc.) but it does not seem to be the case; really just an intermittent bug.

 

Btw watching Jason in the above vid completely struggle to figure out the delay and mostly fail, and honestly only getting quite poor sounds out of it, mostly because he keeps using a high Div value which screws everything up due to the above (lol), the bad positioning of seq drift in GUI making it's function unintuitive and confusing him for the other parameters apparently not working as they should, etc., is kinda validating vs those who say that "Oh Go/Edit so simple to use!".  lol

 

Anyway, btw, does anyone know of a good resource for such effects?  Which explain in details the parameters and 'special features' of different blocks?  Like this lack of documentation, coupled with some bugs and unintuitiveness, really makes things which should have been simple, really not so simple.. (Recurring issue with Go... :\ )

[silverhead]

Wait.... you’re saying the Glitch Delay has a glitch? How could one tell??? ;-) Is it a glitch, after all?

[voxman55]

There's also bugs in Pod Go Edit v1.21. Although Line 6 put Acoustic sim in the EQ section, it appears to have too much DSP to replace a fixed EQ and has to be loaded into a user block. However, Line 6 locked it as if it was a fixed EQ and there is no 'x' to delete it in Pod Go Edit. You have to replace it with something else in the block and use that 'x' to clear the block. There's also some odd intermittent connection problem with Pod Go Edit v1.21. 

[grdGo33]

@silverhead  lol

 

and btw @voxman55 I think I'll change my tune and agree with you about "But with very little practical value"...  I mean, not sure exactly what I was doing when I was first trying it, mostly interacting with the delay (wish I knew exactly what I did), but the issue with the delay is that totally random...  Even with the exact same settings; as soon as you change any of the random parameters, or every time you'll power on/off the unit you'll get totally different sounds/behaviors, so it makes it really really hard to really use it in any sort of practical way...

 

Ex; Had a 2s time with 8 divs, shuffle & octave + reverse; and just playing a chord and listening to the delay, if you're lucky, you can get a great sounding pattern; which has a beat, melody, and you can basically use it as a backing track; both with percussion (shuffle setting) and with slice feedback you can get great ambience... (try with 100% rolled back tone)   BUT..  As I said, if you touch a setting, you'll lose your existing pattern...  So if you had this genius loop/melody thing going, poof!  Gone!   And you'll never get it back...  So really like a sort of fun improv tool, but the total randomness... Yeah kills the practicality.  (unlike the other one where you set your intervals & you can save the pattern, don't recall the name..)

 

Not sure how/why, that wasn't quite my perception the 1st try...  But yeah, I changed my tune, fun, but not very...  Hmmmm...   Actually...  Well, I said they're lost... Well they're lost on the Pod Go, but you could always record in audacity or whatever, and use it as backing track... but it's still gone from Go, so couldn't redo the same with guit + go...   So yeah, could be usable.  Maybe like 40% 'practical'  LOL

[ElectroStrat]

I haven't played a lot with that delay but randomness is clearly intended.

From my understanding, it's the Seq Drift that has the most influence on randomness :

• Seq Drift—Determines the likelihood of the entire sequence changing every time it loops around. When set to 0%, the same sequence loops forever. TIP: Assign this parameter to a footswitch set to toggle between a higher number and 0%. If you hear a random sequence you want to maintain, press the switch to set Seq Drift to 0%, and it’ll repeat that way indefinitely

If you want a small amount of randomness, you should set the Seq Drift to a small value.

But if you don't want any randomness at all, this is clearly not the adequate delay.

 

[grdGo33]

@ElectroStrat  Kinda!   To give an example, if you put Time = 2s and Delay Div = 8, you'll get a 2 second delay but split in 8 parts; 8 splits.   If you put 50% octave and 50% reverse, well 50% for each split to be either/both. 

 

So with 0% Seq Drift, you might get: (N = normal, R = Reverse, O1 = Octave Up, O2 = Octave Down)

N, R, N, O1, R, R, O2, N

 

And this pattern will repeat infinitely: 

N, R, N, O1, R, R, O2, N,

N, R, N, O1, R, R, O2, N,

N, R, N, O1, R, R, O2, N, etc...

 

With Seq Drift, at 100%, it will change after each loop, ex:

N, R, N, O1, R, R, O2, N,

O2, R, N, N, O1, R, N, O2

N, N, R, R, R, O2, O1, O2, etc..

 

With 50% Seq Drift, there's a 50% chance the pattern changes after each loop.  So yeah, you get more randomness with Seq Drift, but the pattern you get each time is still random.  Power on/off the Go, and the pattern will change each time.

 

Shuffle, is the order of the splits, so without shuffle, the splits will play in order:  1, 2, 3 .. 7, 8.   But with shuffle, the order will change; so you might get:  2, 7, 8, 3, 4, 1, 6, 5.  Not sure if it's affected by Seq Drift, probably.  But it makes very little difference given the absolute randomness of the delay.

 

And yeah my point is that if you get the 'magic' pattern "N, R, N, O1, R, R, O2, N" and play with it for 2h, well, if you turn off the Go, or change patches, or whatever, when you come back, you'll get a totally different pattern.  So if you had built some song and techniques with this pattern, well you lost it, each time, it's a different pattern.

 

To be practical or usable, we would have needed a seed # (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_seed).  Instead of being pure randomness, give a specific number, ex; 2343243 and use this number to generate 'randomness'...  That way, we could have saved the exact behavior of the delay; so even if we turned off the go; it would have always played the exact same patterns every time.  But that was not to be...  :\

[ElectroStrat]

3 hours ago, grdGo33 said:

And yeah my point is that if you get the 'magic' pattern "N, R, N, O1, R, R, O2, N" and play with it for 2h, well, if you turn off the Go, or change patches, or whatever, when you come back, you'll get a totally different pattern.  So if you had built some song and techniques with this pattern, well you lost it, each time, it's a different pattern.

To be practical or usable, we would have needed a seed # (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_seed).

 

Agreed. Setting the Seq Drift to 0 freezes the current sequence but this sequence is lost when you turn off the POD Go or change patches.

 

However, having a seed for generating random numbers predictably would not be sufficient. The current sequence needs to be saved as well to serve a a starting point.

 

So basically, the current "magic" sequence just needs to be saved. This could be done each time the Seq Drift is set to 0.

Maybe we can request an enhancement to Line 6 ...

[grdGo33]

36 minutes ago, ElectroStrat said:

However, having a seed for generating random numbers predictably would not be sufficient. The current sequence needs to be saved as well to serve a a starting point.

nonono ..  That's what a seed is number is.  If you start with seed X, then generate 1000 random numbers using the seed, you will always get the exact same numbers.  Even if you reset the system and generate 1000 random numbers given a seed number, you will get the same 1000 random numbers.   So if you had a seed #, you would get the same pattern and series of patterns every time.   

 

A different seed # would generate also a completely different set of 1000 or 1000000 numbers (and patterns using the sequence of random numbers), but again, anyone generating 1000000 random numbers with the same seed number would get exactly the same million numbers.  :)

 

Well.. In actuality, I used the term 'random', but when you're using a seed, it's in reality pseudo random numbers; as they're not really random; they follow a specific sequence, but appear to be random.

[ElectroStrat]

1 hour ago, grdGo33 said:

nonono ..  That's what a seed is number is.  If you start with seed X, then generate 1000 random numbers using the seed, you will always get the exact same numbers.

 

I fully understand what is a seed number for generating pseudo random numbers.
Indeed, I've worked on Monte Carlo simulations. And when you want to have the same result on each simulation, you need to use the same seed number but also the same initial value for all parameters.

If you don't have the initial value of parameters (i.e for the glitch delay : the number of slices, the order of slices, reverse / octave for each slice), generating the same sequence of pseudo random numbers to affect the delay is useless.

[phil_m]

There is a lot of randomness built into the model. If you leave the Delay Div set low, though, you can use the randomness in more musical ways. This is a piece I recorded with this model in the Helix a few months ago.

 

 

[ElectroStrat]

10 hours ago, phil_m said:

There is a lot of randomness built into the model. If you leave the Delay Div set low, though, you can use the randomness in more musical ways. This is a piece I recorded with this model in the Helix a few months ago.

 

Nice ! The end is less musical and more chaotic ;-) !

[ElectroStrat]

Found also this :

 

 

 

[phil_m]

1 hour ago, ElectroStrat said:

 

Nice ! The end is less musical and more chaotic ;-) !

Yeah, well that was intentional... I believe I just increased the Feedback parameter so it went into self-oscillation.