need help choosing a midi-pedal

[micha]

hi there!
I'm finaly about to get myself a midipedal. what do I have to take care of? what are good pedals on the market for a reasonable price?
any hints or recommendations?

I'm absolutely new to midi, and I'd be happy if some of you guys could tell me a little about that stuff, so I don't buy anything stupid I don't like anymore once I got started a little...

thank you and best regards///micha

[StuTDavis]

Re: need help choosing a midi-pedal

Some information that might be helpful for people helping you...

(1) What all MIDI-controllable amps or units do you need/want to be able to control?

(2) Any possibility you might want to control routing or switching as well as MIDI, for which you might need more than just a standard MIDI pedalboard?

(3) Do you have any units in which you may want to control specific parameters, volume, wah etc in real-time with an expression pedal?

(4) How fussy are you about having something be absolutely perfect vs. being willing to do "workarounds" (as in, does cheap with less features work for you, or do you want the absolute easiest and best)?

(5) What playing situations do you have? Need something extremely tough and durable for gigs, or just something for an at-home situation?

I've been around MIDI and generally know how to work it, but I'm not the most up on the different units, especially what's the toughest to take to gigs, being I'm an at-home player myself. Those are just some questions I'd think are important to nail down, so we can get the ball rolling on what units everybody thinks would be best for your specific situation. [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

Stu

[Cleveland Metal]

Re: need help choosing a midi-pedal

MidiMate by Rocktron. It's the one.

[micha]

Re: need help choosing a midi-pedal

well, I did not understand everything you wrote, but here's my plan;

I have a TriAmp head and a rocktron intellifex to control.
I've got a crybaby, so no need for a wah wah expression, but I'd like something like a volume pedal...
is this possible with any amp together with a midipedal?

I'm thinkin of an amp change somewhere in the future... already got a preamp, but the poweramp I've got to safe a little money for...
this rick is gonna be a Lee Jackson GP1000 and a Vamp2 as preamps and hopefully an ENGL 930/60 as a poweramp.
I'm planning one of these engl-midi-switchboxes so I can control the GP1000 and other units that might come over midi.
so, it sh9ould be able to handle such a setup as well.

I'm looking for an alround use pedal. it's gonna be in use at home as well as on stage (my second home... haha). mainly in rehearsal room I think.
I need soemthing to change my amp-channels as well as the effect units.
it simply sucks running to the amp and switching effects by knobs. I search for minutes to find the right thing often...
my amp has only ot FX-on/off, so one effect-set per song is my limit on stage.

I know a little about tecs, and am about to read the owners-manual, so it is allowed to be a little complicated.
as for cash, I found out, that it's worth safing the money for a while and get something solid instead some half-hearted cheaper units I'm about to replace after a while anyway...
so, as long, as it's not a 500 bucks it's more or less ok for me. I'm accepting another delay to get it, if it's worth it.

point 2; eeerrmmmm.... what?!? [img]graemlins/scratchhead.gif[/img]
sorry, don't get it man... [img]graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

thanks for your help!!


how many presets can I save on the midimate?
it looks nice and solid...


RESPECT///micha

[StuTDavis]

Re: need help choosing a midi-pedal

Question #2 revolved around whether, say, you might want/need to change between different preamps or other units on the fly, or to switch different pedals in or out of the chain, things like that.

There are some units that allow you to do that within your setup, and it's smart to think whether you want/need something like that, so you can get the right units to begin with and not do expensive backtracking to get the right gear later.

I think it's important to identify what you will need when you go all-rack vs. what you would need with what you have now. You said something about changing amp channels...on the TriAmp? Does it have MIDI-controllable channel switching? If not, and you're ditching the head to go all-rack, do you need to worry that much about having something now to change channels on the amp, only to have that feature useless to you when you don't have/use the amp anymore?

As far as regular MIDI pedalboards, there are 2 general ways you can go...

(1) MIDI boards like the MidiMate which has no expression pedals on it, but you can ADD seperate expression pedals to it. Meaning you'll also have to lug those pedals around seperately when you take your gear somewhere. These style units with external expression pedal JACKS instead of actual expression pedals built onto them, I believe are generally more durable.

(2) MIDI boards like the ART X-15 which have 1 or 2 expression pedals built into them. With this, the expression pedals are already onboard and handy to take along. These units can be a bit less durable than the others above, but durability is of course partly relative to how much abuse you expect your gear to actually take hehe.

Stu

[Boxcar Willie 84]

Re: need help choosing a midi-pedal

Check out the Behringer FCB1010...that controls MIDI stuff obviously, and it has two expression pedals and two jacks to switch channels on an amp with. Plus it's a good price and durable, I think it's a great deal...I have an Intellifex and a Crate combo, I have no problem controlling those two things with the Behringer.

[micha]

Re: need help choosing a midi-pedal

yep, the triamp has midi.#would be no problem.
and I'm not about to sell the triamp.
it sounds just too sweet to me, I'm just about getting a rack for rehearsal room, but that's planned somewhere later. I just wanted to make sure, the pedal will work for both.

at the moment, it's just about to put the channels on my triamp together with different effects or bypass on the intellifex.

I'm still not clear about these expression pedals... what exactly can I do with them?
they're not able to control volume on my triamp, are they?

are there differences in how many units UI can switch with one button?
I read something like that, but it often sounds like chinese to me... [img]graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]


the FCB1010 sounds fine to me. a friend of mine has the same, and he likes it pretty much.
othgerwhise he uses it with his Vamp only, so just one unit to control...
I wasn't sure how much potential was left in it.
I get good deals with behringer though... my local store got'em pretty cheap.


any other opinions?

thank you all so far///

[StuTDavis]

Re: need help choosing a midi-pedal

Yeah I use the FCB1010 myself for my effects unit, was going to suggest it if you wanted a cheap unit that's got expression pedals built into it. It's kind of limiting though, in that it's designed to control Behringer amps and gear. It goes up to I think patch 50 and starts over...so if you have patches on your unit over that limit, you have to select them by hand. No biggie in my book, I just put all the patches I actually use down in lower patches.

There are some flexiblity issues with the FCB1010 that might limit your situation with an amp head, too, you'd have to check. For instance, okay, you set up Patch 1 on the MIDI pedal to bring up Channel 1 on your amp and Patch 1 on your effects unit. What happens if you want Channel 1 on the amp, and Patch 2 on the effects unit? Set up Patch 2 on the MIDI pedal to bring them up? I could see it getting a little complicated, but again I'm not an expert on what all different MIDI controllers can do.

You might find it easiest in the long run to have a specific switcher for your amp, and a seperate one for your effects and other rack gear. That's what I do. I've got an Egnater 4-channel MIDI channel-changable preamp and other MIDI-controllable rack gear. I use a Randall 4-button MIDI channel changing controller for the preamp, and the Behringer FCB1010 for the effects unit. This way, I'm never actually sending a channel change to the preamp unless I NEED to change channels, and the effects control is kept completely seperate. Issues like this will probably be easier on your all-rack setup, but when you throw the static-channel amp in there, it kinda throws a monkey wrench in there, in some ways, to me.

The main thing I would worry about with the FCB1010 would be the durability, personally. Being I only use it at home, mine doesn't get smashed or anything. But, it's a cheap unit, which doesn't always mean anything, but I wouldn't be surprised if these things could break after a little abuse. It would be good to check Harmony Central and other reviews to see if there's anything about them breaking down.

I would expect it to change the channels on your amp with no problem. Changing its volume or other controls, I'd doubt, but it could be possible, you never know...check your manual or contact with H&K. That is a nice sounding amp BTW... [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

With expression pedals and a MIDI-controllable effects unit (and some preamp and preamp/effects units) you can usually control the effects parameters in real-time. This could include volume parameters, built-in wah effects, controlling the speed of tremelos, depth of chorus, amount of reverb, delay time etc etc. In a lot of these units, pretty much any of the parameters for effects can be assigned to be controlled in real-time. This can get you a lot of wild effects, and tons of fun if you are the kinda person who likes to goof around with different sounds just for fun sometimes.

Stu

[micha]

Re: need help choosing a midi-pedal

it wouldn't be much of a problem for me to put the intellifex down to 50 effects... it has got a 150 but most of them or nothing but toys you can't use anywhere at all.
I need some delays, a chorus, some reverbs, echos and that's it. 50 presets would be more than enough for me.

about these patches you wrote about; does the FCB1010 support different banks to store your programs on?
if so, how many are they?
even though I like effects, I'm not someone who kills it, you know? I always want my guitar to sound like a guitar and don't need my sound to change every couple of seconds...

I'd be satisfied if I had the possibility to store the sounds of one or two songs on one bank, and then change it and have another couple of sounds ready for the next songs when I'm playing live or rehearsing.

mainly, midi is for me about playing live or in rehearsal. at home, I can play around on my effect units for hours, that won't hurt anybody, but in rehearsals or on stage this would be disturbing.

could the FCB1010 give that to me?


I don't really need any expression pedals, I think, but they won't hurt me either. let's see what effects I might get in the future... maybe I need them later.

and I'm not about to abuse my stuff. I always take care of my setup. my guitar never saw anything else, but my hands, the HSC or worst case a sofa to lie on. same with my amp.
sure I won't take my shoes off to use but, but I will handle it with care.

but I think I'm gonna watch out on harmony central for this one.
thanks a lot for your help!! [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[Boxcar Willie 84]

Re: need help choosing a midi-pedal

I think the FCB would be good for you...it has 10 banks (00-09) with 10 patches in each bank. Your situation sounds like what I do...play it straight most of the time but kick in some effects now and then for color and texture...I rarely change banks, just using the 10 that I have preset in the first bank. But to me this setup is far more conveniant than having a few pedals and the amp's footswitch, because if I want a chorus/delay sound on the clean channel, all I have to do is hit the footswitch for that patch instead of hitting my chorus pedal, my delay pedal, and the footswitch for my amp too. About the durability, the main part is made of metal with heavy duty plastic footswitches. I don't see them breaking unless you stomp the hell out of them every time you use it.

[micha]

Re: need help choosing a midi-pedal

yep willie, that's what I'm about.
seems like the behringer isn't a bad choice for me at all...
usually I don't trust anything cheap, but I never had bad experiences with behringer.
I'm satisfied with my shark-mic-preamp, I like my Vamp2, and my friends are satisfied too (two playing Vamps, and one playing a bluedevil-amp).
never had any problems, nor did they yet...

I think I'm gonna visit my dealer and ask the hell out of him tomorrow... [img]graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

thank you guys!
///

[Cleveland Metal]

Re: need help choosing a midi-pedal

I've owned and played behringer stuff, and won't again.

The Midimate is the most durable cheap piece I've used and I've had quite a few. The buttons are very strong and work flawlessly unlike other bransds. But, I hadto play out once or twice a week and was hard on stuff, you may get away with cheap stuff.

It has 128 preset and is a smart controller.

Per their site: "The MIDI Mate is an intelligent controller allowing you to send up to six preset changes on six different channels and five control changes while controlling one realtime parameter via a volume pedal ALL AT ONCE."

Find one on the bay cheap.

[mm2002]

Re: need help choosing a midi-pedal

Another option if you want good quality and cheap price - Check on ebay and find an old ART X-15. They are an older model but I had one for years and it was a very nice well built controller with a lot of flexability. I've seen them sell cheap on the bay.

[Riffmeister]

Re: need help choosing a midi-pedal

I use Ground Control Pro. It's all metal and it has stomp box type switches on it. It also has a very large readable display on it to name your presets with. I use it to change channels on my amp and switch in my effects. It has the inputs for the expresion pedals or whatever and it does everything I've ever heard a midi pedal can do [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

Some of that stuff is beyoond me and I'm not really clear as to what you are trying to do, but some of the stuff this pedal can do requires a loop switcher, like a bradshaw or a GCX. Again I'm not sure what you are actually doing so you may not need one of those.

The midi pedal is 400.00 though.

[JiMoSiTY]

Re: need help choosing a midi-pedal

From my experience bro, stay away from the ART stuff, they are SLOW to switch patches.
Fastest I've been able to find are the old ADA Midi controllers, but those don't usually offer enough of the complex switching that some people are looking for.
I've got the FCB1010 and it's great, very versatile. I use it to control my Pod Pro and my G-Major and it works great. On the other hand, it does require you to do some tweaking and such that isn't always for everybody, but once you get it down and spend the time with it and give it the respect it demands, it'll do exactly what you want it to do.
I'd sure stay away from those ART's though.