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Guest Macwreck
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Guest Macwreck

Jimmy (aka Ian Hurlock - the Destroyer of C64's!) and I are deploying an MB64 as a foot controller for a Line6 POD Guitar Effects Processor! It can be controlled quite extensively via MIDI but needless to say we are faced with some challenges ... they are generally to do with the need to minimise the amount of pedals and switches that would be on the foot controller but allow those pedals and switches to be 'multi personality' with a simple process ... after all I'm a guitarist!  ;D

1. The POD has 36 presets - how can we get the MB64 to go to one of these without using 36 buttons? They are arranged in 9 Banks with 4 presets (1A, 1B, 1C, 1D, 2A etc) and the POD will respond to Program Change commands for each of the presets. Is it possible to get the MB64 to utilise 2 buttons that combine to provide the total command? i.e. 9 buttons marked 1-9 and 4 buttons marked A-D with so that the selection process Button 1 then Button A would combine and generate a Program Change to the POD for 1A?????

2. When the POD is in a patch e.g. 3A we would like to provide UP and DOWN patch buttons on the MB64 - is their a generic MIDI command that can do this or is it possible to program the MB64 so that it remembers the last Program Change # that was sent and can then send the next Program Change # up when the UP button is pressed?

3. You could imagine that the foot controller could easily become HUGE with the need to be able to provide control of some of the parameters for each effect in a patch - patch 1A could have reverb, distortion, delay as well as a bunch of other things. What I'd love to do is be able to take a common group of controls (3 pedals, and 6 buttons) that could change easily the MIDI info they might send based on a group of master switches - i.e. master switches for reverb, distortion and delay - when reverb is selected the grouped controls (3 pedals, and 6 buttons) would then send MIDI commands that were tailored to the reverb, but when the distortion is selected those same controls would then send MIDI commands tailored to the distortion.

... like I said - quite challenging but definitely VERY COOL!!! We have a whole lot of other things working but these are the things that have us stumped ... we are assuming we could get around some of them with the bank stick but having to gain access to the bank stick and then accessing the saved Bank would seem a clumsy and long way to do this ... foot controllers need to have fast direct access to the control they are trying to provifde .... all help appreciated!

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Hi Macwreck,

these are all special requests where I have to say "sure, the MIDIbox64 can do it, if you modify the firmware by yourself". I can only provide programming examples or ready-made programs which I use by myself, but customizations for controllers which I never touched by myself is nothing for a sparetime project ;-)

Here are some inspirations:

to 1) see http://www.ucapps.de/floorboard.html,

to 2) registered values can be realized with meta events. I can send you a modified source code via email, which includes a up/down meta event as example.

3) groups and individual control will be provided by the "next generation" MIDIbox which is currently discussed on the german board (english summary later...). But it can take a long time until this project is ready for your requirements... ;-)

Best Regards, Thorsten.

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Guest Macwreck

An update ...

1. How to jump to specific presets - Thorsten, your flooboard design is wonderful! We'll use this alongside the MB64 (in the same physcial chassis) and add your MIDIMerger to join the signals from both subsystems!

2. Patch Up and DOWN - who cares! With the floorboard design you can get to almost anywhere with relative ease ... and to select one patch up or down is as simple as going up two ... or three ...

3. Can't wait for the "next generation" (unless it's near????) so how else can I minimise the number of switches etc? We could use the bankstick but this seems clumsy ... we can have 4 buttons to send CC's for effect selection and the POD then will respond to and "effect tweak" parameter which we can assign to a pedal - but this is untested ... ideas? When's the next-gen????

Appreciate your help so far!

Pete

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Hi Pete,

1. How to jump to specific presets - Thorsten, your flooboard design is wonderful! We'll use this alongside the MB64 (in the same physcial chassis) and add your MIDIMerger to join the signals from both subsystems!

Thats a good idea! Note: so long as you don't use the MIDI-In for other MIDI gear, you can get use of the internal MIDI merger and plug the floorboard directly into the MIDIbox64 - the program change commands will just be forwarded to the MIDI Out.

2. Patch Up and DOWN - who cares! With the floorboard design you can get to almost anywhere with relative ease ... and to select one patch up or down is as simple as going up two ... or three ...

Yes, and the fastest way to select patches :)

3. Can't wait for the "next generation" (unless it's near????) so how else can I minimise the number of switches etc? We could use the bankstick but this seems clumsy ... we can have 4 buttons to send CC's for effect selection and the POD then will respond to and "effect tweak" parameter which we can assign to a pedal - but this is untested ... ideas? When's the next-gen????

I plan to implement the ideas for the "next generation" step by step. Most ideas will be integrated into the MIDIbox64/MIDIbox16E/MIDIbox MF firmwares: Pot/Button-Groups with seperate banks, Button-Matrix like known from calculators, MIDIbox-Link which allows to build a network of up to 16 MIDIboxes without a MIDI chain, Display PlugIns which allow to customize the display output - and all upcoming ideas :)

It seems that the MIDIbox projects will never be finished ;-)

Best Regards, Thorsten.

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Guest Macwreck

An update on this MB64 foot controller for the Line 6 POD - have dug up all the MIDI stuff to select banks, select/switch individual control of effects, use expression pedals to control variables (volume, delay time, wah, etc). Using a Logic 5 enviro for testing this week (too bad Ian (aka PC Jimmy) has v4.8 - will have to take my PC to his place!! ;)) so we can load all the commands into his naff MB64 for final run testing ...

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Guest Macwreck

Haven't done the build as yet  :-/ - Ian Hurlock is the main brain of this foot controller project - he keeps telling me I'm a pain as I keep trying to turn it into a flight deck for guitarists!!!! Even had a 'funky' design that looked like a larger version of the POD ... but he didn't want to do the case work!  :-[

I 'believe'  ::) that it's a matter of replacing the pot inside the expression/volume pedal with one compatible with the MB components and cabling the pedal into the circuit via a jack in the side of the case.

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Guest cameronbudge

Looking at the circuit it only has provision for switches, there seems to be some spare inputs in the processor and i guess the code would need modifying as well.

my suggestion would be to have provision for at least 2 pedals which output control codes ie volume controller 7 etc or i guess the particular controller number could be changed in the source

i am an expert at building the electronics etc but i am just learning the pic programming

i would be interested in how you put the control into the circuit (if you end up doing it)

regards,

cameron

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Hey Cameron

You may be thinking that Pete is getting me to fit some pedals/pots to the flooboard circuit on the main page.

I will be using just 4 pot inputs to the MB64 to control his pod for expression etc

He has created an environment for Logic that controls the pod in the same fashion as he requires live. Which

means basically everything the pod can do.

We will be using this to teach an MB64 core to use as the basis for the pod controller.

As for the mecahnics / design......I'm an engineer not a panelbeater. He'll get the thing in a square box !!!!

There's an example of my box on the brag page.

Regards

Ian

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Guest Macwreck

But Ian - the way you drive I thought you WERE a panelbeater  ;)

If anyone is interested in the Logic LSO that I've built for controlling pretty much everything on the POD let me know and I will send it.

Pete

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Hi, I'm also building a guitar oriented project using a Midio128.  

It's a relay switching system that allows you to modify your sound chain in real time. For instance, if you use 3 different preamps in a song with different effects combinations you'd just have to send the propper program change event to it with a midi controller like Thorstens floorboard.

Now here is the trick, all the hardware is finished but i have a problem with the firmware. The pins from the output shift registers toggle whenever a midi event is received. With the alternative mode disabled this problem is half solved,  since the pin remains in it's logic state, but when you switch to a program assigned to another output pin the ones before it stay in their last logic state.

In order to fix this the output pins would have to toggle only if a midi event assigned to an output pin is received.

Setting all the other pins from the same channel to logic 0.

With my lame programming skills PIC assembler is too wicked for me...  ???  so help would be much appreciated. If anyone is interested in the schematics let me know and i'll gladly send them.

Thanks in advance,

Emanuel

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