Midi... HELP!!!!!!!

[Steo42]

Hi guys,

First post here so forgive me if I'm not following certain rules, please feel free to call me out if I am!

So, basically the switching system I use died on me last night and is now completely useless. I've checked everything it could possibly be twice over and it doesn't seem to be fixable, not without sending it back and that could take god knows how long. But, there is a slight silver lining as always with this. For a long time now I've been wanting to try out Midi set ups but have never actually got round to it- I haven't needed to in the past as I HAD a working switching system. My plan is to purchase a Liquid Foot+ Pro+ and a Sound Sculpture Switchblade GL. As I have it in my head, I would connect my bass' and pedals into the inputs of the Switchblade, use one of the 4 outputs to send to my amp and then use the Liquid Foot to control the Switchblade via Midi and what pedals are running etc etc.. My question is, in its simplest form, is that correct? Is that how it would actually work? Or is that completely wrong? Have I missed just one thing out? Don't be afraid to tell me if I'm being a complete idiot as I have no idea how Midi works really, yet I am determined to enter that area! I play in an originals band with music that draws influences from Muse, Radiohead, Pink Floyd, Rage Against The Machine... You get the idea! So obviously as the bassist it's sort of essential that I use pedals, which I do and personally I find that having one single foot controller on stage is better and more stress free than having an actual pedal board on stage. I'm hoping you guys can help me out!

Thanks,
Stephen.

[The Badderer]

I found this article useful when starting out learning MIDI. [url="https://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1995_articles/aug95/midibasics1.html"]https://www.soundons...idibasics1.html[/url]

In theory yes you are correct. The benefit of using a MIDI control system is that you can control multiple effects going on or off and the click of 1 foot switch. You can also control your amp with it.

The downside is that it will take more programming than a standard switching system, but will come with added flexibility.

If you are using pedals that do not accept MIDI messages then you can control them from the switchblade GL in simply an on/off loop.

If you are using pedals that do accept MIDI messages, then you can have them in a loop just like a pedal that doesn't, but through a MIDI cable you can then send multiple messages to the pedal to do different things that you can program in. For example, if you were using a Strymon pedal you can have up to 200 presets saved on the pedal (depending on the pedal). When you program settings to one of the presets on the switchblade, it would include using the Strymon pedal, but through the MIDI cable can then tell the pedal which preset to switch itself to. So you have 1 strymon pedal, but up to 200 sounds that you can use thanks to MIDI.

You can also program in specific control of parameters on a pedal through sending MIDI Control Change messages to the specific channel that controls a particular function of the pedal. For example if you have a delay pedal you could control how long the decay is, or a drive pedal you could control the level of drive.

And you can also control time based effects through the use of either Tap Tempo, or if you're running a click, you can sync your switchblade to that tempo assuming who ever is running the click track can send the clock to your system.

My advice would be to read up on MIDI before making any firm decisions, but it opens up multiple possibilities you just need to know how to think through pedals based on how MIDI works.

I am still learning myself but just wanted to offer my thoughts as best I can. Apologies if i have got anything wrong (don't think i have)

Edited May 11, 2015 by The Badderer

[elephantgrey]

I use midi to temosync some things together, my midi chain goes: Drum machine (Korg ESX1) > Phrase Looper (Boss RC50) > Delay (Eventide TimeFactor). Using this i can also change the patch on the ESX, and change the patches (a saved set of parameters) on the RC50 and TF. I am also currently looking at incorporating a Sonuus B2M into my board to change my bass signal into mini note data, and then using a program and a special box to get midi to control a gameboy like a synth.
I havent looked into a switching system for my pedals, as most are always on or in a blend/feedback loop already. Also, im a tweaker, i like playing about with pedals mid set.
Its soon getting to the point where im goign to have to get some kind of 'hub', so i can minimise latency between pedals, and sort out what part of what midi signal is going where. Like maybe being able to switch between/have different channels go into the gameboy.

Edit: Your doing fine. This is the right forum for this discussion, seams to be where most of the other midi discussions are.

Edited May 11, 2015 by elephantgrey