Simple Inexpensive MIDI Pedal Board?

monquixote

I thought I'd share something I've been idly musing about today.

I have a pretty nice pedalboard, but I don't like all the tap dancing. 

I've tried multifx and never got on with them and though I could go to a switching system that's going to require a massive board, loads of cables and you still only get one variant of each pedal.

So I was thinking would it be possible to setup a simple board using all MIDI capable FX so they all stayed in the loop, but you got a simple MIDI pedal and switched them all. 

I'm looking for stuff that is not insanely massive, or expensive which rules out the big Strymons and possibly Eventide (though I could be convinced about the H9). 

So what products could you have on a board like that?

I can think of

Line6 - M5, M9

TC - Flashback x4 and Nova Drive

Soundblox - Orbital Mod, Multiwave Distortion, etc (though you need a MIDI adapter at £75 unless you go to the pro models)

Zoom G3 (+£80 for a USB MIDI host adapter)

TC - Spin Doctor (Insanely expensive!)

I think the distortion would be the biggest challenge as I can only really think of the Nova Drive as the only example of a MIDI enabled analog distortion pedal unless you used a combination MIDI/Looper pedal.

What other interesting MIDI enabled pedals are there?

Anyone doing it and got it working.?

monquixote

Looks like Decibel 11 are about to release something: http://www.decibel11.com/Dirt-Clod-Overdrive-Distortion-Pedal.html

ThePrettyDamned

The spin doctor is a neat, analogue, distortion pedal (well, preampy type of thing).

Does it need to be midi? Having a looper set up with a few loops means you can tap dance before each song to prepare the effects you need, then hit one button to get them in and out - for me, this would mean a loop for rhythm (which would have distortion, chorus, compression and fuzz in it, not in that order) and solo (overdrive, delay, reverb).

Obviously, if you needed both loops on its just two clicks. If the song has no distortion on at all, just switch it off - you'll still be able to hit comp, chorus and fuzz on and off at once.

Obviously, this might not be a useful solution at all for you... But it's simple and used pedals you love.

digitalscream

TC Nova System is another obvious one...

monquixote

digitalscream said:

TC Nova System is another obvious one...

It is, but trying to use one is not unlike having root canal work. 

The more I think about it the more I think the simplest board I can imagine would be a Nove Drive + M5. Really simple and really flexible.

digitalscream

monquixote said:

It is, but trying to use one is not unlike having root canal work. 

To be honest, they're useless to me because of the lack of a loop for 4CM so I hadn't bothered looking into it further. Frustrating.

Is it worth mentioning that if you have a MIDI -> relay box, you can also use stuff like the Bogner Ecstasy pedals with their remote function?

What about the Joyo loop controllers which have MIDI and relay outputs?

Drew_TNBD

monquixote said:

digitalscream said:

TC Nova System is another obvious one...

It is, but trying to use one is not unlike having root canal work. 

Well... to be fair, it is quite unlike having root canal work.

monquixote

Drew_fx said:

monquixote said:

digitalscream said:

TC Nova System is another obvious one...

It is, but trying to use one is not unlike having root canal work. 

Well... to be fair, it is quite unlike having root canal work.

If you are going to be a pedant it's most like one of the most woeful user interfaces you could experience.

monquixote

digitalscream said:

monquixote said:

It is, but trying to use one is not unlike having root canal work. 

To be honest, they're useless to me because of the lack of a loop for 4CM so I hadn't bothered looking into it further. Frustrating.

Is it worth mentioning that if you have a MIDI -> relay box, you can also use stuff like the Bogner Ecstasy pedals with their remote function?

What about the Joyo loop controllers which have MIDI and relay outputs?

The Nova is really designed to go in front of an amp which is no problem for me I just found it completely unusable because of how slow and unintuitive it was to program and some of the weird switching behaviours.

A combination of MIDI and switching is one option, but at that point you are getting back into a lot of wires and complexity. If they did a box with MIDI and a few amp relays there are quite a few pedals you could get into like Bogner and Strymon (and I think Suhr), but the only one I've seen had one relay and was £100

Drew_TNBD

monquixote said:

Drew_fx said:

monquixote said:

digitalscream said:

TC Nova System is another obvious one...

It is, but trying to use one is not unlike having root canal work. 

Well... to be fair, it is quite unlike having root canal work.

If you are going to be a pedant it's most like one of the most woeful user interfaces you could experience.

It was a joke! Lordy you're so uptight. Not unlike someone awaiting root canal work.

monquixote

Drew_fx said:

monquixote said:

Drew_fx said:

monquixote said:

digitalscream said:

TC Nova System is another obvious one...

It is, but trying to use one is not unlike having root canal work. 

Well... to be fair, it is quite unlike having root canal work.

If you are going to be a pedant it's most like one of the most woeful user interfaces you could experience.

It was a joke! Lordy you're so uptight. Not unlike someone awaiting root canal work.

No offense taken. I sometimes forget that tone of voice doesn't work online.

paulnb57

I know its not midi, but couldn't you use a programmable looper, use current effects in many combinations without tap dancing.........

monquixote

paulnb57 said:

I know its not midi, but couldn't you use a programmable looper, use current effects in many combinations without tap dancing.........

Indeed, but if I'm going to all the trouble of lots of cabling it seems daft that I should get only one sound out of each pedal.

Drew_TNBD

To my mind, the best solution for this is either a Pod HD, M9, or Boss GT-100.

monquixote

Drew_fx said:

To my mind, the best solution for this is either a Pod HD, M9, or Boss GT-100.

You might be right. 

Do they all respond well to either acting as a MIDI switcher or being controlled by one?

Some of this thinking was kicked off by hearing a demo of the OD-1X and being quite excited that it was the first digital distortion I'd really liked the sound of. I've bought an OD-1X from ebay to try it. They've issued a firmware update to the GT-100 to add the DA-2 algorithm to it and if they did the same with the OD-1X and DS-1X I'd be quite tempted to go all digital and just use a GT-100. The main thing that's stopped we thus far is that I really like distortion pedals and I've never come across a digital one that I liked and the only programmable analog one I've had sounded a bit bland.

frankus

Not all midi implementations are created equal, some of those pedals might only implement the system clock on midi..

equally some might be constrained to work on a particular (or worse) all midi channels..

Using midi is an interesting process from a programmers point of view - the protocols: note on, note off, preset change, control change, system controls may all be interpreted differently by different devices and most pedals implement a subset of the protocols, if you get something like the FCB1010 and the UNO chip you can programme for 5 seperate midi channels (so 5 devices most likely) simultaneously.

I've paired an M5, EHX2880 and Linn to an FCB1010 and I had to generate a spreadsheet as a reference to the midi commands each used - annoyingly none were discrete so that's 3 seperate channels and the M5 getting one expression pedal and the EHX the other.. and I'm still trying to figure out how to sync the time on them all...

It's well worth doing but don't expect it to simplify anything

monquixote

Yuck that sounds fairly horrible. 

I was expecting that I might have to do something along the lines of outputting a 1 and having to have that patch set as patch 1 on all my devices. I won't be doing anything complex enough that it should be a problem.

The other thing that worries me is that I do quite a bit of stuff where I'll play a clean chord hit a drive and play a riff and then switch back to clean and if something has any delay in switching (especially if different fx have delays relative to each other) it could ruin the whole thing.

vasselmeyer

Would something like the Joyo PXL Live which does switcher/looper and midi not do it?

monquixote

Yes I think it probably would. but might be overkill if I switched to using 2 or 3 pedals.

monquixote

Having thought about this and looked at the options I think Drew is probably right about this in that a Boss GT-100 would be the best solution for this kind of thing. 

It would provide the pedal interface and MIDI and also one loop and a relay closure. The delays, mods and reverbs would be fine (if I get over my Strymon snobbery )

I've just had a look at the GT-100 manual and it looks like it's a single relay closure so you couldn't use it with a bogner Blue or Red which is a shame, but you could use it with a Suhr Riot via the remote input.

I could put another drive in the loop and that would give me two analogue distortion options plus the A-Dist on the GT-100 and I could add a Nova drive as well if I really wanted to.

If one comes up on the classifieds I might be tempted.

Drew_TNBD

Sorry, had my head in some stuff this morning so haven't had chance to be much of a forum whore. So basically, I've been around this block loads of times. So...

Line 6 M9/M13

Pros:

Great sounding effects
Scenes work well
the tap tempo behaviour and the note-syncing is the industry standard as far as I'm concerned
Will respond to incoming CC and PC messages instantly

Cons:

Even though the effects sound great, they're getting a bit long in the tooth. Not much control; certainly nowhere near what you get with Strymon et al.
The footswitches do break quite often. They need upgrading eventually.
Can't change the scene folders without bending down to do it.
Small display; tuner is a bit annoying to use in this respect.
The units do *not* work well when acting as a midi source - the internal logic is "change DSP settings, then transmit midi messages" and this results in delays. So your amp changes (for instance) come slightly too late.

Line 6 Pod HD500

Pros:

A bit better midi implementation than the M series; you can decide which switches send CC's or PC's
Sending PC's from the bottom row will be instantaneous
More effects at once - up to 8 I believe
Better switches
Works well as a master controller for your setup - front row midi switching, back row effects
Tap tempo is excellent
Bigger screen, tuner display is good
No cocking about with scenes - just use your presets!
You can dedicate the expression pedal to be a volume control, which means getting rid of your tone sucky Ernie Ball.

Cons:

Sending PC's from preset changes *will* introduce a small gap of silence.
4 cable method uses up two of your fx blocks in order to get the best signal to noise ratio
4 cable method isn't 100% transparent

Boss GT-100

Pros:

Two screens mean the programming workflow is really very easy
Effects are good quality, as good as the single stomps
4 cable method seems more transparent than the Pod HD
Has manual mode as well as preset mode
Big tuner display - better than the Pod imho
Again you can dedicate the expression pedal to be a volume control, which means getting rid of your tone sucky Ernie Ball.
Plenty of external switches and assignable actions
Preset changing is instantaneous, even when doing 4 cable mode

Cons:

Tap tempo behaviour is good, but the delays don't respond to it very well - clicks, glitches, pitch artifacts, and general nastiness
Only 6 switches across the bottom, which means entering manual mode a lot to activate certain effects without changing amp channel (if switching real amp via midi)
A fair bit more in depth than the Line 6 stuff, takes a while to get your head around