Hi,
I figured I'd give HeavierFX a spin on my (physical) guitar.
I haven't had much coffee yet, so I may be talking rubbish, but the following occurred to me:
1 VST Bypass button does nothing?
My DAW is Cubase Pro. Let's suppose we have a VST effect as an insert on the channel where the physical guitar is connected. The VST can now be in 3 states:
1.1 off (in terms of sound/processing, functionally equivalent to not being in the input chain at all)
1.2 on (guitar sound is processed by the VST, this is what we hear)
1.3 bypass (guitar sound is processed by the VST, but we hear the unprocessed sound)
--Cubase 9.5 manual, pg 395, Audio Effects
To rephrase, the difference between "off" and "bypass" is that bypass lets you toggle between processed and unprocessed sound at that point at time, whereas turning on a previously off effect will start processing at that point.
Cubase's own effects and others (e.g. Guitar Rig) behave as laid out; AmpliTube 4 interestingly doesn't offer Bypass, just on and off, so that functionality may be optional.
When using HeavierFX (and having it turned on), Cubase's bypass button is shown and can be toggled, but its setting has no effect; we always hear the processed sound. HeavierFX's own bypass-button however works fine. It also seems to adhere to the same principle (e.g. HeavierFX with its own Bypass off gives processed sound; its bypass gives unprocessed sound, but we see e.g. the Stepper continue to step; turning HeavierFX off in the DAW stops the stepper as well, and turning it back on has it continue at that exact position).
Long story short, this seems like a bug to me; HeavierFX should not display a VST bypass button that does nothing; it should either not display the button at all (like AmpliTube), or, much preferred, should display the button, and lock it to HeavierFX's own bypass button, that is, if you click on either Cubase's or HeavierFX's Bypass button, that button should change state, and the other button should change to the same state.
2 Patches surprisingly quiet?
I realize that some FX settings will naturally seem louder than others. But assuming I have a physical guitar on an input, and the dry signal meters well, I can then use an AmpliTube insert and pretty much any random distortion or OD patch, and the output level will be roughly in the same ballpark as the raw signal. Same with dropping in Guitar Rig Pro instead and select a semi-random patch in that. Then I drop in HeavierFX instead, and I can hardly hear myself, with HeavierFX's meter at roughly 1/3 when I have a patch selected. (When enabling HeavierFX's Bypass, or using an empty patch, it meters the dry signal at almost 100 %, so it's not an issue with the signal fed to HeavierFX. It's purely in the level settings of the individual devices in HeavyFX's rack, as per factory patches.)
My point isn't that I'm aiming for "100 %, all the time", it's that "oops, that's 66 % quieter across the board" was a bit unexpected. Obviously, I can adjust the level in HeavierFX's rig, but it seems a bit tedious to do that for multiple patches, plus of course I'm reluctant to mess with settings that work so well with Heavier7String! Maybe I should just see about fixing it in the DAW, or maybe, I need more coffee, but it seems it'd be nice if we could calibrate HeavierFX's output level with a global setting or something, to bring it more in line with other virtual FX racks or whatnot. (It's almost guaranteed there are much better musicians than me here, so by all means, tell me I'm Doing It Wrong!)
NB I can't seem to find info on HeavierFX specifically; H7S manual still seems at 1.1.3 -- but then it seems relatively safe to assume that HeavierFX currently has exactly the functionality laid out in H7S' Chapter 7: Effect Rack.)
thanks and regards,
-A-