Auto import of device MIDI presets?

[AcoustiCafe]

Hi folks, and Happy New Year!

So, no voice for 2 weeks so working on some Bandhelper integrations I've been wanting to get to. And I'm having a brain fart here with this one...

I've been using my Bandhelper iPad to auto-recall presets on my acoustic guitar processor via MIDI for a couple years now (TC Electronics G-Natural). My iPad's connected to my G-Natural via a Lighting/USB Adapter and a Roland UM-One USB/MIDI adapter, and it's flawless. Saves me a LOT of time between songs by not having to do a bunch of foot button pushing to find my desired patch.

So now I have a newish Behringer XR18 digital mixer, and am working on adding MIDI recalling of mixer presets to the process as well. My G-Natural has a MIDI through port so I connected it to my XR18 MIDI In.

Now, as far as I remember, when I first connected my Bandhelper iPad to my G-Natural via MIDI, all the presets on my G-Natural just appeared as choices when I clicked "Add MIDI preset" in a given song file. However, now when I click "Add MIDI preset" in a given song file, the XR18 presets list in Bandhelper is outdated and doesn't show recent preset changes I've made on the XR18 this week.

My initial thought is that likely it's because I don't have the MIDI out from the XR18 returning to Bandhelper, and the only reason I have any XR18 presets in Bandhelper at all is because I must have connected both MIDI in/out cables from my iPad to the XR18 when I first got it. And now that I have both my G-Natural and XR18 connected, I'm only connected to the MIDI IN on the XR18 so I no longer get preset change updates.

Does that sound like a valid assumption? If so, is it just a matter of connecting my iPad MIDI in/out directly to my XR18 MIDI out/in again to update the presets list? If that's the case, will it auto update or do I have to do anything to trigger the import? I don't recall doing anything special with my G-Natural to get the MIDI preset list to appear but it's been awhile.

Lastly, if it is indeed a matter of not having a MIDI return from the XR18 to the iPad, is there a way I can accomplish this without having to get a bunch of midi splitters? My G-Natural has MIDI in/out/through and the XR18 has MIDI in/out, so as mentioned I have the iPad MIDI in/out going to the G-Natural out/in, and the G-Natural Through going to the XR18 in. Is there a better way to connect these two devices so that both the G-Natural and XR18 have both MIDI in/out connected to the iPad, or do I need some sort of MIDI splitter?

Thanks for any advices. Having lots of fun with this powerful program, but, I'm finding that not only does great power come with great responsibility, it can come with great number of questions, too! Especially if you're me

Thanks,
Jeff

[Ahiru]

If I understand your description properly, I don't think there's any facility in BandHelper to automatically populate MIDI presets by connecting a device.  For our Behringer mixer we had to manually enter definitions of the Behringer MIDI presets we wanted to use in BandHelper screens (and same for all other other connected devices).  But, maybe there is some capability I missed??

[AcoustiCafe]

Yeah, I'm racking my brain trying to remember how I initially input the G-Natural guitar processor presets. Maybe I did enter them manually...I'll have to see if I maybe exported a list of presets from the device and then imported it into Bandhelper (there is a batch import function). I really should write stuff down more when I initially configure things. I do the same thing with my tech systems at church. I replace a computer and have to try to remember all the initial config setup I did with all the connected equipment and software 

[arlo]

Ahiru is right that the MIDI presets displayed in the app aren't affected by whatever equipment is connected to your device. My guess is you set up the MIDI presets in one project and are now using another project and you need to assign the presets to this project. Other potential issues are the MIDI presets are not assigned to your user, or you entered a search filter in the picker window that is hiding some presets. If you still need help, please submit a help ticket.

[AcoustiCafe]

Yeah I suspect I did it manually at some point earlier playing around with it.
(Edited): I recorded all of my new MIDI presets from the XR18 (and for my guitar processor after modifying them), entered them into a spreadsheet, and imported them into BH.

Current issue is I can't seem to get BH to change the snapshots on the mixer. I've got it on MIDI channel 1, 0-127, only the Bank (3rd) field of the Bank MSB, Bank LSB, Program fields populated, but it's not taking. I bypassed my guitar processor to rule that out and have the lighting USB adapter with the Roland UM-ONE USB/MIDI adapter connected straight to the XR18 but still no joy. Not sure what I'm missing yet but still researching.

If anyone has a Behringer X-Air mixer and can share their BH setup, that'd be great.

Thx,
Jeff

[Ahiru]

I've got it on MIDI channel 1, 0-127, only the Bank (3rd) field of the Bank MSB, Bank LSB, Program fields populated, but it's not taking.

I don't have an X18 (using an X32, which works well with BH control), but from the X18 manual maybe setting MIDI channel 1 to use 1-128 might better match the convention used by the X18.  I also presume you meant 'only the Program (3rd) field...' is populated, right?  You might want to set up a handful of different snapshots for Programs 1, 2, 3, etc. to more easily check if it's just an off-by-one issue.

[AcoustiCafe]

I do have it on MIDI Ch 1, but on 0-127 so I'll try 1-128.
Odd thing is when I had my guitar processor on MIDI Ch1, recalling patches on it from BH used to trigger the XR18 before I even had it set up (just had the MIDI through from my G-Natural processor connected to the XR18's MIDI In in prep for playing around with it).

Jeff

[AcoustiCafe]

So no joy yet...I've attached part of the MIDI implementation chart for the XR18 says (just gonna show the Snapshot Program Change and Mute Control Change rows here).
It does show the CC values as 0-127, but nothing for the program changes, but the CC No. listed is 1-64, so that COULD mean it should be set to 1-128. However, as mentioned, that would just throw off WHICH snapshot was recalled (i.e. one above or below intended if that setting is wrong). I'm not getting ANY response from the XR18 when trying to recall a snapshop.

I have the MIDI Device set up for All ports and Channel 1, as required, and have only the third field of the Program Changes filled in with a Program # (see pics attached, also includes the XR18 MIDI config via the X-Air Edit PC app). And I've tried the Bandhelper iPad connected directly to the XR18 as well as through the G-Natural acoustic processor (iPad to G-Natural MIDI in/out, with MIDI Through port to XR18 input). Neither works.

Am I missing something simple here? The G-Natural MIDI control works perfectly fine.

Thanks,
Jeff

[arlo]

How are you sending your X18 presets? Do you see their data being sent in the MIDI activity log?

[AcoustiCafe]

How are you sending your X18 presets? Do you see their data being sent in the MIDI activity log?

I have the MIDI Presets attached to the song, so that when I select the song, it automatically fires off the MIDI cues to my guitar processor and the XR18.
Currently the G-Natural MIDI preset is sending 0, 0, 30 (which corresponds to my first User Preset), and the XR MIDI preset is sending (blank), (blank), 6, which corresponds to the 6th XR18 saved snapshot. Both are set to 0-127, but I've also tried the XR18 with 1-128, and also tried putting 0's in the MSB and LSB fields like the G-Natural preset has, which no change.

The G-Natural is connected to the iPad (Roland UM-ONE USB/MIDI adapter w/a Lighting/USB adapter), and the XR18 is daisy chained off of the G-Natural.
With that setup, when I select the song (which should trigger the two MIDI presets), the Guitar Processor changes and the XR mixer does not.

The Remote Control msg log says:
-Triggered action Send MIDI
-Received MIDI input [C1, E1] from UM-ONE
-Discarded data [C1, E1] from port UM-ONE at port filter.

The MIDI Status says:
-Sending data [B1, 00, 00, B1, 20, 00, C1, 1E] to all ports
-Received data [C1, 1E] from UM-One.


When I bypassed the G-Natural acoustic processor and went straight to the XR18 MIDI In/Out from the iPad, etc, the XR18 Mixer still doesn't change.

The Remote Control msg log says:
-Triggered action Send MIDI
(nothing else)

The MIDI Status says:
-Sending data [B1, 00, 00, B1, 20, 00, C1, 1E] to all ports
(nothing else)



Jeff

[arlo]

It looks like you're only sending the G-Natural MIDI messages, not the XR18 MIDI messages. If these are entered into separate presets both attached to the song, do you have Settings > Audio & MIDI > Send MIDI Presets Together turned on? Otherwise only the first preset attached to the song will be sent.

[AcoustiCafe]

It looks like you're only sending the G-Natural MIDI messages, not the XR18 MIDI messages. If these are entered into separate presets both attached to the song, do you have Settings > Audio & MIDI > Send MIDI Presets Together turned on? Otherwise only the first preset attached to the song will be sent.

That's it!

Jeff

[Ahiru]

Nice, problem solved!

Furthermore if you only want the two MIDI presets (G-Natural preset and X18 snapshot) to be sent at the start of the song, but no other song presets (that you might instead want to use during the song), you can create a new BH MIDI preset defined as containing the two you want sent, then keep Settings > Audio & MIDI > Send MIDI Presets Together turned on.

We do this as a convention for every song... one main MIDI preset for each song launches a volley of presets appropriate for that song start.  Then many other song-attached presets get sent at various times during the song as part of BH automation.

[AcoustiCafe]

We do this as a convention for every song... one main MIDI preset for each song launches a volley of presets appropriate for that song start.  Then many other song-attached presets get sent at various times during the song as part of BH automation.

Nice. I'd read some about that but have not gotten that far yet. I've been doing the BH pedalboard MIDI presets for a few years now, but just got the digital mixer (with the intent of incorporating presets for it as well), so am just getting started with calling for multiple presets with the song selections. All are just from my iPad, don't want to confuse the rest of them, which are all Family used to me being "the tech guy". Even got the T-shirt to prove it, "Do you really want to know what's wrong, or do you just want me to fix it?" lol

To date I've been using "types" of presets rather than per-song presets on my pedalboard, unless it's a partularly specific song setting (like a specific chorus and or delay effect, so I do also have a few patches by "song name"). Probably will do the same on the XR18, i.e. I made short/med/long reverb presets with appropriate EQ/volume/reverb level settings for each singer (we all trade off on lead) and then I have some presets for specific songs that generally just change the effects type only, i.e. slapback or specifically timed delay settings. 

I'll likely keep the MIDI presets separately called out per song so I can verify at a glance what MIDI patches I have set up for a given song and which have an additional specific fx change as a 3rd MIDI preset within the specific song. I still have to set up some CC vice PC MIDI presets as on/off patches to fire off with a foot pedal (like FX mute for between songs, vocal doubling for choruses, delay, and tap tempo). Probably need to get another BlueBoard footpedal now, though...my current Blueboard is set for page up, page down, next song and start tempo/scroll so I'm out of buttons. But, I'm also running out of room on my pedalboard (G-Natural, Blueboard, Boss Octave pedal, the awesome TC Ditto X4, and a volume pedal) and it's just for one acoustic guitarist lol.

Although I'd started setting up a Bitfocus Companion* rig for some additional items, but it seems that BH will handle pretty much everything I would have used it for (and more in some cases, BH is a wonderful musician product, Arlo!). I use Companion widely in my TD role at church for AV and Broadcast control, and plan to prototype it at my day job soon (AV Tech Lead), so I've been looking for other ways to utilize it, but it's really more of an AV control system product so a bit overkill for the band (but still fun to play with).

(*Bitfocus Companion is open source PC/Mac/Linux/Pi SW that turns a StreamDeck and similar into a very nice Shotbox)

Thanks, you guys have been a GREAT help
Jeff

[arlo]

"Do you really want to know what's wrong, or do you just want me to fix it?"