Can't edit presets??? (Noob)

Hi all!

I'm a brand new GM36 owner, and I'm stumped. I do not have the footswitch, or a midi device that allows me to use my IPad to edit the presets, but am I able to edit them and save them using only the controls on the amp? For example: I up the treble, mids, and drop the bass a bit, then I turn up the channel volume to 12 O'clock. I get it to where I like it, and hold the store button until it flashes 3 times. (The channel light itself never flashes as it says it would in the manual.) I then change to crunch and back to clean to test and all of my changes are gone.

I've tried a factory reset... That worked, but same thing, I can't edit the presets. I can however add effects and tweak them and then go through the store process. They stay. Can anyone tell me what's going on? The manual is confusing. Do I have to use a midi interface to change mids, treb, etc? If so, that seems like it would make changes on the fly pretty difficult in a live performance.

Thanks!

Hiya Bazkitkaise.  Welcome to our little community and congrats on your new GM36.  It WILL take some time to get used to if you haven't used a fully MIDI controlled amp before.  I know it is a bit of a surprise to find that you now have the amp but need a controller to get the absolute best out of it, I felt that way too at first.  But if you can beg or borrow one for a trial you will see the massive step ahead you will make in terms of flexibility in your setup.  It doesn't have to be the H&K FSM-432, there are loads around which do the job.  Just have a look through the thread list here and you will find discussions on this in lots of places.

For your current setup, what you should find is that each channel saves its own setup as you switch between them.  The manual says:

GM36 User Manual section 2.1 wrote:The great advantage of this design is that the channels are truly independent and do not share Gain, Volume, or tone controls. You can even adjust Presence, Resonance and Reverb settings separately for every channel if you like!

So if you set up the Clean channel to be pure bright and light, then the Crunch channel to be dark deep and dirty, you should be able to switch between the two and find those settings stay exactly as they are for each channel as you switch back and forwards between them.  Try that first of all, but make sure you do not touch any of the controls other than the channel switch as you swap!

I think some of the confusion may be caused by the nature of the digital controls and this is common.  The way they work can be counterintuitive until you get used to it.  You are used to seeing a control that is permanently set inside to where it points outside. This isn't always the case with digital pots. Try this:  Set the Treble to 10, Middle to 5 and Bass to 1 on your Clean channel, now switch onto the Crunch channel and set Treble to 0, Middle to 5 and Bass to 9.  Now swap back to the Clean channel.  You should find that the settings of the Clean channel are restored to their T10/M5/B1 SOUND, BUT.......  you will find you have the knobs still pointing at T0/M5/B9 which is where you left them when you set up the Crunch channel.  Your eyes and ears don't match up!

Don't worry, this is normal and is a consequence of those clever digital controls the amp has.  As soon as you touch one of them and adjust it by the slightest amount the patch detects that and updates itself with the knob's new position.  So if you have the Treble sounding at 10 but pointing to 0 and you move it the slightest amount the setting now jumps immediately to 0 (+ a tiny amount) and the knob is now back in control.  Your new setting for the Clean channel should not affect anything you have for the Crunch channel so wherever you set it now for Clean, when you switch to Crunch that should still be set at 0.

The trick is to set up your four channels as you want them to sound then don't touch anything but the channel control and just use your ears not your eyes.  I do feel that that is one of the reason why the knobs H&K chose for the GM and TM amps are so bland in their positioning aspect.  That little dimple does not show up on stage in teh semidark. It would have been easy to use the channelled LED approach to put a lit spot on the knob front to make it easier to see where it is set but that is really irrelevant as you are using the MIDI/memory aspect of the amp's settings.

Give that a try and see if that is what you are experiencing.  (And in the meantime keep your eyes open for a midi controller to get to the point where you can forget all of this and just kick in any of your 128 preset patches at will.) Let us know what you find when you test this out.

bazkitkaise,

I found that with a MIDI controller this amp is the most versatile out there. I purchased the Roland UM01 MIDI to usb adapter for around $40 and connected the amp to my Microsoft surface 3, downloaded the 3rd party free app for Windows and it proved to be indispensable to me. You can find a link on Hughes and Kettner website go to the GM36 amp's page and at the bottom click on the iPad image it will redirect you to the developer's website. It's the only way I configure this amp and save them as presets along with the 68 default ones already on the amp. You can save up to 128 total. Works with any Windows pc thru usb and there's is even mac version. I decided on a windows touchscreen tablet makes it easier.

The only thing I would add to Stargazer's advice which is spot on is that you have to decide whether you are setting this up for home/rehearsal use or live gigging.

For live work my own feeling is that there is no substitute for the FSM-432, it's a well thought out piece of kit (if pricey). You have blocks of 4 patches at your feet to access with a single stamp at any time. That way you can set up a block of 4 voices for say a particular genre, you can have separate Country, Blues, Rock and Jazz sets for example, or even a block of different patches for each single track in a set, and flick between them while playing without any effort at all. Other floor based controllers are fine too as long as you can use them easily.

I have set up a dedicated tablet to control the amp but, though the idea sounded great, I found it impossible to use for live work. The idea of manually accessing a dropdown list then selecting which patch I want with my hands as I play a number in real time with other musicians didn't fit in at all. The app is great as a management tool for creating and organising lists of patches and uploading sets of these to the amp as you need them but for live control it would have to be a good stomp setup for me.

Thank you guys for taking the time to offer up some advice. I did have some success last night. Basically, I would turn a knob where I wanted it (treble) and then hold store, and then move on the the next setting and do the same. This seemed to make it keep the setting, but it sounds like that while successful may have been too much work to accomplish a simple task. I will try what you all suggested and update you on the outcome. I don't think I mentioned that I have a TC Electronic G-system that is midi capable. Would this suffice? I doubt very seriously with the TC that I'll even use the effects on the amp for anything other than noodling as good as the onboard effects are, it seems like the g system would be a more complete solution.

A more affordable midi footcontroller is the Tech 21 NYC MIDI Mouse. I found on amazon.com for around $110. However, its a very simple scaled down version of a much more full controlled pedal like the H&K model. Its mostly practical to scroll up and down from the presets already saved to the amp. So essentially I use the software to manage the presets and save them to the amp from 69 to 128 (I left the original default 1 thru 68 untouched), I just have to recall which preset is what number, the Tech 21 MIDI Mouse has an LED display on it to show which number preset you are on. I sort of got into a way of saving preset in an alternating method so I can go from a rhythm to clean to overdrive to solo leads tones with just one click up or down on the foot, for instance:

preset #69 is my crunch channel with no effects for rock rhythm
preset #70 is my clean channel with chorus and delay for an echoeing acoustical
preset #71 has my ultra with little chorus for my metal punch
preset #72 has my clean with reverb just in case I need to go for a clean tone between rhthyms and soloing
preset #73 has my lead with flanger and little delay for soloing

Keeping the presets programmed in a sequence numbered close to each other where playing live is smooth transitions thru them all. You memorize or write them down on masking tape next to the footswitch and off you go. This method makes it easy to switch between a rock rhythm to clean echoing acoustical to overdrive punched out metal to soloing tones within just 4 stomps up or down, the four essential sounds I use. And if you need to create a special sound like a long delay repeat similar to U2 Edge's "Streets... intro, add it somewhere in between you preset sequence where it fits in with your song patterns.

I'm sure the G-System is capable of controlling the amp but I'm not sure how it would work in controlling it's own internal gizmos at the same time, others will be able to advise on that I'm sure.  One thing you can do is to set the FSM-432 to work in what it calls Stompbox mode and this would be useful to be able to do in other controllers.  This basically means the four bank patch selector switches change to take control of your individual channels, the three "up + down + tap" switches control the Modulation Fx + Delay (which you don't need) and Boost (which you may use), and everything else is left alone.  That way you can set up each of your channels manually and just plain leave everything alone, they will hold their settings as long as you don't touch the knobs without you needing to Store them.

I should stress here that you DON'T need to do anything with the Store process to hold the channel settings in manual mode as you are working.  Just set up the knobs as you want that channel to sound, do NOTHING to store them, switch to another channel, set up that one differently, change back to the first and its settings will be automatically restored, swap to the second and that is automatically loaded.  You have the settings for each voice without needing to Store them at any time.  This way, with the four channels set up manually and just left alone, the bank of 128 special patches you have already saved inside the amp is not affected in any way by the settings you are using on the fly.

Ok, so anyone have any experience of using the TC Electronic G-system to control the GM36?