SamIAm Posted September 12, 2022 Share Posted September 12, 2022 (edited) To help me "get my groove back" after losing my gear in the fire, the BC family was wonderfully generous in helping me out ... it's all about the bass! I've received a couple of older Zoom effects processors and they are going to form the core of my signal chain (All the elements of the Phoenix Rig were gifted to me by generous BC members ... I cannot express how grateful I am!) The Zoom units are quite powerful in the processing they can perform and can sound quite good, however there are a couple of "challanges" to the way I setup the effects and gig. Configuring patches This is done on the unit using the small display and controls. I came across a free application called Tonelib that makes the process of building and configuring patches significantly easier; it's a funky bit of software! Selecting patches when playing Sadly this is suboptimal! With one or two footswitches, it is hard to go directly to a patch, there is support for scrolling through a list of patches but it is not ideal. After some research I found that a few clever folks had figured out that the Zomm processors accept MIDI commands to select and reconfigure patches and effects. And so I am building Stompz. It will be based on the Raspberry Pi that did not get baked in the fire. Yesterday I went into my makerspace and spent several hours starting the physical assembly. The enclosure is the back of an offcast of an outdoor light a bit like this Is is almost perfect for the job. I drilled and filed a few holes for the foot switches and an expression jack socket. Stompz has 5 footswitches, an expression pedal jack input and a small OLED display panel (I've yet to figure out the best way to mount this so it's currently just sticking out the top) It will be based on a Raspberry Pi that did not get baked in the fire and, apart from the foot switches, is made up of items that I have been able to salvage from the flat or are offcasts ... super economical! The finished Phoneix Effects Chain will look like this At present the only thing in Stompz is a USB battery that is powering both Zoom processors. The foot switches are laid out so that it is easy to press two adjacent switches, so from a UX perspective it will be possible to have 5 x Switch press 5 x Long switch press 4 x Pair switch press 4 x Long pair switch press. This will allow for some quite powerful manipulation of the unit during a gig, either turning on/off individual effects, selection of preconfigured pedalboard layouts and snapshots. The OLED display (I might add another as it is quite small) will display what Stompz is up to and indicate what each switch will do. Stompz connects to each Zoom using a USB cable, which provide both power and will carry the MIDI data; The Zoom MIDI message format is not officially documented, but there are various resources on the web from which I should be able to build a full list of available commands. At present I have successfully been able to change patches on a Zoom but I believe it is possible to reconfigure patches as well as the various settings for each of the effects in a patch. I'm hoping that I can do this without killing any audio tails as it will allow me to drive some of these changes using the expression pedal. With the two Zoom processors connected in serial the rig will support a total of nine effects in a chain; I'm toying with the idea of running them in parallel which might allow for some splitting of frequencies for different processing ... not totally sure how I would wire this up yet. I'll be writing some bespoke code to allow for: Defining the action of the footswitches. Configure/manage/select "Pedalboards" (A collection of effects and their settings used in a particular song) This will let me configure which effects I want to use and their settings and (hopefully) link the expression pedal to the desired effects. Ideally I'll be able to treat Stompz as a single effects unit and it will decide itself which effect to place on which processor. Configure/manage/select "Snapshots" (A group of the settings for all of the effects in a pedal board) Access to all of this via a web interface (Or maybe also a smartphne app) over WiFi. The idea is that I can setup my pedalboards and tune the settings as I desire in advance and save them. During a gig I can use the foot switches to select a particular pedalboard for a song and switch between snapshots as I play, to load the settings for the verse/chorus/bridge/etc. All of this will be run on the Pi which will send the MIDI commands to configure the Zoom processor units. With my EffektLada project (Now put on ice) I had intended to run a MIDI synth and sequencer on the Pi which could be driven by a MIDI keyboard; this will allow for the generation of sophisticed drum tracks as well as being able to produce the occasional "special sounds" that we have used in some of our numbers (Like shakers, cow bells, xylophone ... even some horns or organ snippets). I've a couple of salvaged microcontrollers that can do button/motion sensing and send MIDI over Bluetooth to the Stompz allowing for small handheld battery powered units to produce effects. This will require the addition of an audio output from the Pi so is definately a Version 2 or 3 feature. Other possibilities are to use Pi based effect plugins in the signal chain and even record on the Pi. Now the basic physical assembly is complete I need to wire up the innards and start designing/writing/testing the software to achieve all of this. Hopefully I can make a start on this later today ... I am starting back at work tomorrow and I need to sort out some shoes that will help me survive the 12.5h shift on my feet (I am so looking forward to being back bedside nursing, it feeds my soul) so my time will be constrained. Stompz may not look as elegant as the all in one systems from the likes of Line6, Moddevices or the current gen Zoom units ... but it will get the job done and then some and I will be able to craft it to behave exactly the way I wish, which cannot be said of an off the shel unit which are generally very configurable, but only in the way the manafacturer determines. And the things that makes it all possible is that the cost is mostly effort, the various elements have been donated by the amazing BC family, have been salvaged from the fire or scavanged from castoffs ... no significant financial burden and the time I spend to bring it all together is free! More to come ... S'manth x Edited September 15, 2022 by Smanth Typo correction 18 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Velarian Posted September 12, 2022 Share Posted September 12, 2022 Awesome! My mind is truly boggled. 🤯 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stewblack Posted September 12, 2022 Share Posted September 12, 2022 The recycled case is just brilliant! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rushbo Posted September 15, 2022 Share Posted September 15, 2022 This looks brilliant. I have no idea what you've done, or how you did it, but I'm delighted it works. I thought I was being super-technical when I hotwired an external patch selector switch to my Zoom B3, but this is next level. Or even the level above that. My FX needs run as far as "a bit of chorus" on a song or two and that's about it, but I love seeing stuff like this and I'm a bit in awe of anyone who can bend their brain to configure a selection of bits from Maplins [citation needed] to make it work so well for them. Shouldn't you be working for NASA? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SamIAm Posted September 15, 2022 Author Share Posted September 15, 2022 Just now, rushbo said: This looks brilliant. I have no idea what you've done, or how you did it, but I'm delighted it works. I thought I was being super-technical when I hotwired an external patch selector switch to my Zoom B3, but this is next level. Or even the level above that. My FX needs run as far as "a bit of chorus" on a song or two and that's about it, but I love seeing stuff like this and I'm a bit in awe of anyone who can bend their brain to configure a selection of bits from Maplins [citation needed] to make it work so well for them. Shouldn't you be working for NASA? It is not working ... yet. I am able to identify the pedals plugged into the Pi from my software. I'm currently navigating the various online resources to collate the different MIDI commands that the Zoom pedals use (They seem to have slight variations ... and are not officially documented!) I am working on the best approach to represent each Zoom pedal in a similar fashion to the user (As much as they are capable) and have started work on the web UI. I suspect it will be many hours of work to get it to a polished place to be usable ... but it is progressing in the right direction! NASA ... lol, this ain't rocket science Before I retrained as a nurse in 2015, I'd worked nearly 30 years in the IT industry ranging from developer thru to architect thru to CTO ... so I have a fair bit of experience to fall back on. IT was interesting, it paid very well ... but it did not feed my heart; nursing (Especially working in intensive care) is interesting, the pay is criminal ... but my heart is full! And this sort of project helps satisfy the geekette in me S'manth x 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tauzero Posted September 16, 2022 Share Posted September 16, 2022 If it helps, the switcher that I breadboarded but never got round to casing up for the MS-60B or B3/G3 uses the program change message 0xC0 + 1 byte patch number, which must be 0-49 for the MS-60B and 0-99 for the B3/G3. Somebody else on here built something similar but a little more sophisticated than mine. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tauzero Posted September 16, 2022 Share Posted September 16, 2022 Aha. I think there was another thread on the same subject. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard R Posted September 16, 2022 Share Posted September 16, 2022 On 15/09/2022 at 12:34, Smanth said: I'd worked nearly 30 years in the IT industry ranging from developer thru to architect thru to CTO ... ... but it did not feed my heart ^^^^ THIS is so important ^^^^^ I have very senior IT positions in multinationals on my CV, but am applying for much lower level roles in SMEs, because I can get stuck in more (and ideally bike to work). Trying to explain this to recruiters is very hard. Rocket science is fun too, but a lot more maths than IT 😎 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SamIAm Posted October 1, 2022 Author Share Posted October 1, 2022 (edited) Progress on Stompz is not stopped, but is slow! I'm trying to select the "brain" for it, something that will be small and low drain on a battery. I hoped that a Pi Zero W (As I have one) would be ideal ... but then I realised that it does not have an ADC (Analogue to Digital) capability. This means that whilst it would be fine for detecting the pressing of the foot switches, it is not able to "read" the position of an expression pedal I still think it it a good way to go, but I now need to either: Buy an ADC for it, an easy path but requires more spend ... which I can ill afford at present. Transmogrify a Pi Pico (Which I already have) into and ADC. S'manth x Edited October 1, 2022 by Smanth 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tauzero Posted October 1, 2022 Share Posted October 1, 2022 Arduino? ESP32? They'll do analogue reads. The ESP32 is ridiculously comprehensive (includes wireless and bluetooth) and well under a tenner. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SamIAm Posted October 1, 2022 Author Share Posted October 1, 2022 (edited) Good shout on both @itu, and I've already got one of each. The ESP32 (Which I used in Trampa) does not do USB OTG. I've also got a Arduino Leonardo, I must revisit it , tho I recall a challenge with MIDI over USB, which I need. S'manth x Edited October 1, 2022 by Smanth Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tauzero Posted October 1, 2022 Share Posted October 1, 2022 Arduino Pro Micro does USB OTG. There's a hack for ESP32 too - https://hackaday.io/project/178213-esp32-usb-software-host 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SamIAm Posted October 1, 2022 Author Share Posted October 1, 2022 53 minutes ago, tauzero said: Arduino Pro Micro does USB OTG. There's a hack for ESP32 too - https://hackaday.io/project/178213-esp32-usb-software-host Pro Micro for sure but I’m trying to avoid having to buy something, cash flow post fire and all that. ESP32 hack, cool but not sure if it supports midi profile. S’manth x Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nekomatic Posted October 4, 2022 Share Posted October 4, 2022 There are tricks for using a digital PIO pin to measure an analogue resistance value by charging and discharging a capacitor through the resistance and measuring how long that takes. Or if you have something like a 555 (preferably a CMOS version) or an op-amp lying around and can knock up a little analogue circuit, you could make an oscillator whose frequency varies with the resistance, and measure the frequency. If you have a Pico you don’t need for anything else right now though, I’d just use that for speed. You could always substitute a proper ADC in later… or just get another Pico when you need one, which will probably be cheaper! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SamIAm Posted October 5, 2022 Author Share Posted October 5, 2022 13 hours ago, nekomatic said: If you have a Pico you don’t need for anything else right now though, I’d just use that for speed. You could always substitute a proper ADC in later… or just get another Pico when you need one, which will probably be cheaper! A couple of Picos survived the fire; I think I will use one of them. S'manth x Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nail Soup Posted October 6, 2022 Share Posted October 6, 2022 Looks good! My pressing of the 'like' button on your original post does not imply any understanding on my part! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeftyJ Posted October 7, 2022 Share Posted October 7, 2022 Very cool project! A friend of mine (former guitarist of my band) has recently finished something similar which he also built around a Raspberry Pi, with 8 footswitches, a display for each switch, and programmable multicolour LEDs around each footswitch. He had the casing custom made with lasercut logo, and 3D-printed the sides. Turned out really cool! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SamIAm Posted October 7, 2022 Author Share Posted October 7, 2022 (edited) That looks amazing ... thank you for sharing! I'd planned to use a Rock PI SE, partly as it is more powerful than a Pi 4b but mostly because it is available for a not insane price. I am fortunate to have access to a maker-space with CNC and lasercutter so I could achieve something in the same space. But a very generous BCer @Frank Blank has allowed me to obtain his HX Stomp XL on terms I can afford. And so my multi-fx pedal needs are sorted! As such I am putting this project on hold so I can focus on Phoenix, my next bass build. S'manth x Edited October 13, 2022 by Smanth Status update 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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