Control of effects via midi

[Wolverinebass]

With the expansion of my rig recently I'm toying with a bit of revision. However, I've noticed that if doing so I'd have 4 seperate foot controllers and that's just getting insane.

I don't know if anyone has ever done this on this forum, but this is a hypothetical question which I've been pondering about my rig. Say for example you have a preamp which is midi compatable and your effects are midi compatable. Assume that all have midi in/out/through and I'm talking about at least or 4 seperate units of gear.

My point being is you'd have a foot controller for each under normal circumstances and obviously that's getting into Fred Astaire territory. Is it possible to simplify it down to one? My point being can you connect the preamp and effects up via midi so that you can just press one button on a foot controller and you'd say change the sound from a dub sound with octave effects to a trebly tone with chorus and distortion. Just an example.

In other words, with one button press [i]absolutely everything[/i] changes (if you want it to).

Has anyone ever done this? Or even, [u]can [/u][i][/i]it be done?

Opinions and technical advice gratefully received.

[velvetkevorkian]

The short answer is yes, it can be done. If everything sends and receives MIDI messages you can set them up so they respond to the correct signal. You can also get devices like the Switchblade which are basically MIDI controlled patchbays, which allow you to connect non MIDI capable gear in whatever order (although obviously you wouldn't be able to change parameters on the individual pedals this way).

[thisnameistaken]

Incidentally there are also purely mechanical switching systems which offer similar flexibility. Probably quite expensive though.

[crez5150]

It's fairly straight forward with MIDI. You just need to assign a dedicated MIDI channel to the patch you want within each device.

[Dood]

Yes, I have certainly done it - though instead of assigning dedicated channels etc - I cheated a bit.

Daisy chain the MIDI connections as sugested in the manuals. In my case I set my receiving devices to the same channel (or Omni - which is like, auto)

And then set up each patch as per the pedal board. What I mean is - decide how you want to lay out your MIDI board. Typically, I set up each bank of ten (I have ten pedals on my controller) for either specific songs or indeed banks of sounds you are likely to use together. Then I break that down so that I ALWAYS have certain types of sounds in the same place. For example the '1' pedal will always be a dry clean bass tone - and 3 will always be a boost, 4 chorus and reverb, 5 timebased effect etc etc.

Then it's just a case of hitting the pedal then tweaking all your units so pedal one has the sound you want, then on to pedal two, pedal three etc. You might find that on certain patches, you are not using effects at all - well - no problem, the effects unit patch could just be set to bypass.

This may lead to duplications in your patches as you copy them from say patch 1, to 5 to 13 etc etc - but most effects units and preamps give you more than you'll ever likely to use anyway.

I hope this makes sense!! - The idea came from watching videos by John Petrucci and Jordan Rudess as to how they set up their kit for songs - given they have SOOO many patches per song!

If all else fails - you could just buy a line6 X3 Pro / Live or if you pockets are deep enough there is the delicious AXE Effects by Fractal. Yes, I saw the one in the for sale forum and nearly wet myself - allof your amps and effects in one box - and thus one controller and no messing about.

I'm have an X3 Pro, which I use now and again - but I also have a TC Electronics G Major 2 that I have control some outboard 'stuff' coupled to a Roland FC200 - a brilliant MIDI controller.

[Wolverinebass]

Thanks Dood. I understand what you mean perfectly and thanks chaps for your advice.

The idea came about from realising that EQ settings and fx settings don't work for my different basses. That's not to say I want an 8 string to sound like a buzzard and that's not what I wanted to do. But I realised that I'd be piling through settings for ages setting patches when I could just control them centrally. I ended up getting the idea from an old Trace MP11.

Very grateful for the advice and knowledge as this is something I've never done before.

[Dood]

[quote name='Wolverinebass' post='888816' date='Jul 7 2010, 06:49 PM']Thanks Dood. I understand what you mean perfectly and thanks chaps for your advice.

The idea came about from realising that EQ settings and fx settings don't work for my different basses. That's not to say I want an 8 string to sound like a buzzard and that's not what I wanted to do. But I realised that I'd be piling through settings for ages setting patches when I could just control them centrally. I ended up getting the idea from an old Trace MP11.

Very grateful for the advice and knowledge as this is something I've never done before.[/quote]


That's not a problem, I'm more than happy to talk tech!

I have been plagued by the same problems myself - especially live. Certain basses would just swallow up any chances of hearing effects and replace them with deep bottom end in comparison to others. Poor soundman!!

It doesn't totally help you at the moment - but the way I over came the problems and managed to get some kind of control was to settle upon one dry bass sound (or a couple) that covered as many bases (pun) as possible and then replicated it across the instruments I was likely to use in any given situation. What I mean is - my two Shukers both have the same pickups, electronics and switching. If I then swap between instruments, the bass level, gain and EQ settings on my amp always stay the same. BIG, articulate and tight.

After that, I manipulate the tone with additional EQ and effects to get the desired sounds via my outboard units.

Funny you should mention the MP11 - as I had been using a programmeable graphic EQ to do my tone controlling as well!