MIDI and such: Can anyone tell me if this is possible?

BintyTwanger77

With a comp and boost between the guitar and the front of the amp, I'd be looking to 

Have 3-4 midi-friendly pedals in the amp effects loop, sitting on a board on top of the amp.

Control presets and tap tempo across all of them with a MIDI controller on the floor, connected to the pedals with a long cable.

Is this possible/easy enough?

Teetonetal

Yes, so long as midi is properly implemented on both the switcher and the pedals. If the loops peals are all midi then a Boss Es5 would do the job.

Have your comp, boost in loops infront of the amp and the ES5 controlling the midi of the fx loop pedals, but have them only connected to the amp fx loop

You might also need a midi junction box (1 in 4 outs)

Would also have the option of adding more pedals to the es 5 at a later date.

Gassage

Graeme, yes, but as @Teetonetal says, you'll need a Midi Junc box. Palmer do a cheapish one.

As an example, if you had a 2290 in there, it won't resend the MIDI CC so you need to split out.

PM me if you need some ideas.

sgosden

I did this (or similar).

Had a decibel 11 switch Dr on the floor with 2 ODs and a Mobius in the loops. Single cable into front on amp. Timeline in the FX loop of amp.  With the switch Dr midi controlling Mobius and timelline patches

what midi pedals are you thinking? you could always get some sort of midi loop pedal (d11 loop expander, rjm effects gizmo) to have anything switchable too.

BintyTwanger77

sgosden said:

I did this (or similar).

Had a decibel 11 switch Dr on the floor with 2 ODs and a Mobius in the loops. Single cable into front on amp. Timeline in the FX loop of amp.  With the switch Dr midi controlling Mobius and timelline patches

what midi pedals are you thinking? you could always get some sort of midi loop pedal (d11 loop expander, rjm effects gizmo) to have anything switchable too.

It would be what I have already (Big Sky, H9, and Timeline/the new Empress Dual Echo System delay, if it's good enough to replace the TL) in the amp's effects loop, and a Fairfield comp & boost/light OD between guitar and the front of the amp.

Teetonetal

Then just get an ES5 ( @Wazmeister has/had one for sale) and something like a http://www.midisolutions.com/prodqth.html and you will be golden

1 long midi cable from ES5 to the mid through, and 3 short ones to the pedals on the board.
Boss implemented the midi on the ES 5 really well and the pedals you have should pose no problems.

BintyTwanger77

Teetonetal said:

Yes, so long as midi is properly implemented on both the switcher and the pedals. If the loops peals are all midi then a Boss Es5 would do the job.

Have your comp, boost in loops infront of the amp and the ES5 controlling the midi of the fx loop pedals, but have them only connected to the amp fx loop

You might also need a midi junction box (1 in 4 outs)

Would also have the option of adding more pedals to the es 5 at a later date.

All pedals in the FX loop would be MIDI enabled, yes.

So with the ES5

You can have some pedals in loops in the front of the amp, and others in the effects loop;

I'd need a MIDI junction box to connect all MIDI pedals to the MIDI ports of the ES5?

BintyTwanger77

Teetonetal said:

Then just get an ES5 ( @Wazmeister has/had one for sale) and something like a http://www.midisolutions.com/prodqth.html and you will be golden

1 long midi cable from ES5 to the mid through, and 3 short ones to the pedals on the board.
Boss implemented the midi on the ES 5 really well and the pedals you have should pose no problems.

Ah, just saw this after I posted. Got it.

sgosden

BintyTwanger77 said:

Teetonetal said:

Yes, so long as midi is properly implemented on both the switcher and the pedals. If the loops peals are all midi then a Boss Es5 would do the job.

Have your comp, boost in loops infront of the amp and the ES5 controlling the midi of the fx loop pedals, but have them only connected to the amp fx loop

You might also need a midi junction box (1 in 4 outs)

Would also have the option of adding more pedals to the es 5 at a later date.

All pedals in the FX loop would be MIDI enabled, yes.

So with the ES5

You can have some pedals in loops in the front of the amp, and others in the effects loop;

I'd need a MIDI junction box to connect all MIDI pedals to the MIDI ports of the ES5?

The strymons midi thru works perfectly well, so does the H9 I believe?
Im not sure about the empress though as you need a control box for midi from memory

BintyTwanger77

Another option that would need less cable mileage and a lot more preset planning on each individual pedal could be to order each pedal's presets properly and use a MIDI controller to scroll between match-up presets on all 3 pedals. 

Teetonetal

Don't bother with the empress - the midi box required is just another thing in the chain that you don't need.

As you are controlling the loop pedals with midi, you do not need them in the ES5 at all - unless you want to make use of Parallel mixing and order swapping - in which case go for an ES8 as it has a dedicated insert point.

ES5 is great id you want 5 loops upfront then the pedals in the FX loop not routed through the switcher at all - just controlled by it. If I was building my board again, this is exactly what I'd do.

ES5 with Soul food - Wah - DOD 201 - Boss Fz2 - an other
FX loop DD500 - Big Sky / Space controlled by ES5 midi

I've been seriously considering it for a while now.

normula1

And if you do need any MIDI utility boxes, these guys are UK based
http://www.kentonuk.com/products/select/midi-utilsel.shtml

Teetonetal

My PT2 board would look this this:



Would hope with an ES5 to fit it on something smaller - dd500 and Bigsky would then sit on the amp.

Trouble is by the time I've gone to that amount of effort I might as well have sold the lot and bought a helix or FX8 anyway.

TheBigDipper

If you want independent control of your pedals, hopefully they can listen in to specific MIDI channels for PC and CC commands (ignoring the others) and your controller will be able to send more than one command for every foot switch press. You don't want to send a command that's only meant for one pedal and have another one change patches on you! 

BintyTwanger77

Teetonetal said:

Don't bother with the empress - the midi box required is just another thing in the chain that you don't need.

As you are controlling the loop pedals with midi, you do not need them in the ES5 at all - unless you want to make use of Parallel mixing and order swapping - in which case go for an ES8 as it has a dedicated insert point.

ES5 is great id you want 5 loops upfront then the pedals in the FX loop not routed through the switcher at all - just controlled by it. If I was building my board again, this is exactly what I'd do.

ES5 with Soul food - Wah - DOD 201 - Boss Fz2 - an other
FX loop DD500 - Big Sky / Space controlled by ES5 midi

I've been seriously considering it for a while now.

It does sound like a very good idea, though with the 2 Strymons and H9 all connected to the midi ports, that would leave 5 loops but I only have 2 other pedals (comp and boost/OD). This will only encourage me to buy more pedals...dangerous!

On the ES5, do you designate numbered switches to scroll between presets on the MIDI pedals?

vasselmeyer

Having  pedals outside of the ES-8 and ES-5 is quite common; you can  control as many pedals as you want through midi. The only thing you won't be able to do is change the pedal order which is something the ES series is really good at. For example,  my midi-controlled Mobius is in loop 7 of my ES-8, but sometimes I want a  phaser before my drives so I just change the loop order on the ES-8 for that particular patch. If I have it controlled by midi, but  not in a loop, it can only be in the order I connect them. It's really not a big deal if you are happy with your pedal order.

If I read your original post, it sounds like you want the pedals in to loop to actually  sit on top of the amp. Again, not really a problem as long as you have a long enough midi lead to go from the  ES-5/8 to the pedals.  I suppose it means that you don't have  a lot of cables  going from your board to the amp and that you have a shorter cable run for the  effects in the  loop so you don't lose any treble, but it seems a little fiddly to me. A four-core cable snake  will do the job.

For reference, here's the way I have my  ES-8 board configured:

Guitar >
Smoothound wireless >
Wah >
Xotic SP Compressor (loop 1) >
BOSS PS-5 (loop 2) >
TC Spark Boost  (loop 3) >
Marshall Guv'nor (loop 4) >
Magnetic Effects White Atom (loop 5) >
Xotic EP Booster (loop 6) >
Strymon Mobius (loop 7) >
Source Audio Nemesis (loop 8) 

I use a Custom pedal Boards patch bay and 4CM and the ES-8 can put the effects loop wherever it wants in that chain. I use the ES-8 to switch the amp channel when I need it. As well as being in the loops, the Mobius and Nemesis are linked to the ES-8 via midi so I can set up a patch to send the appropriate PC# to change preset. One additional pedal is an expression pedal linked into the ES-8 which cant is linked to the PS-5 via a  TRS CTRL link for pitch shifting/whammy effects. The ES-8 can also translate the analogue expression signal into midi CC# so, for example, I can speed up or slow down the Mobius rotary effect or increase the delay feedback on the Nemesis.

Essentially, if you  have something like the ES-5 or ES-8 or the Gigrig G2, you have pretty much complete control over your rig. Obviously it's cheaper to go for a Helix or an AX-8 or FX-8, but the flexibility is  there if you already have the pedals and just need a switcher.

hotpickups

This is why I chose the DA units. Look at how much space it leaves for the actual pedals etc.

http://i1111.photobucket.com/albums/h471/gibby12345/My Images/Screen Shot 2017-03-02 at 14.30.17_zpsunghjity.png