Midi Pedal to remote control Band Helper

[sms380]

I have a guitar midi pedal that sends Program changes to switch patches on the amp. Is there any way to have them select the Band Helper song through remote control. By going in to setting and setting action to song number in set list it works sort of. The problem is the Program number doesn't match the song number in the setlist?

I feel like I have exhausted all options so I turning to the forum for help.

Thx Sms

[arlo]

Can you describe what you're doing and what is actually happening using specific examples from your account?

[sms380]

I have a Hughes and Kettner Grandmeister Deluxe 40 Amp head and their FSM 432 MKIII midi Footswitch.

The midi on this is not really configurable.

For Bandhelper to control it I have created midi presets for the different patch locations. The first midi preset corresponds to the first bank and patch on the amp which is 1A. The midi preset in band helper labelled 1A is programmed with program change filled in with 0 and then I have to put in some raw data. The program change controls the amp head patch and the raw data switches the pedal to the correct preset.

So for this preset in bandhelper
Midi preset 1A
MSB  LSB  Program
                   0
Raw data
f0 00 20 44 00 10 00 05 00 04 5a 00 00 5f f7

---------------------------------------------

For Midi preset 1B (The second preset location)
MSB  LSB  Program
                   1

Raw Data
f0 00 20 44 00 10 00 05 00 04 5a 00 01 5e f7


For Midi preset 2c (The 6th preset)
MSB  LSB  Program
                   6

Raw Data
f0 00 20 44 00 10 00 05 00 04 5a 00 06 59 f7


The problem comes in with midi preset 2c and the reason is the song located for 2A I will switch to preset in the amp 2B for distortion during the song in various parts. This is basically skipping a program change number per the next song. If it was 1 song 1 patch I can set the remote settings to trigger on Song Number in Set List. But because it is not 1 song per program change this will not work. If I could assign the song number in the setlist myself it could work.  So location 2C I can’t trigger the event song number in setlist (Remote settings) on program change because the program number does not match the song number.

Maybe there is a different way, but I haven’t found it yet….

Thx SMS

[arlo]

So you have an amp that receives MIDI, a foot switch that sends MIDI, and BandHelper that sends and receives MIDI. What are you trying to control with what?

[sms380]

The amp receives midi...

The Foot Switch is more like a midi controller for the amp. It sends and receives midi.

My iPhone will run Bandhelper setlist.

So I can use bandhelper on my iPhone to select songs which will change patches on the amp and foot controller. Its weird that the amp will change patches with program changes. But the foot controller does not change. The raw data attached to the bandhelper midi preset is what changes the controller to display the correct number the amp's patch is on.  However, If I step on a patch on the midi foot controller I can not get it to select the correct song on the iPhone.

I can live with out making this work by only selecting the song from bandhelper. But I thought it would be nice for it to be able to change songs when I step on a patch on the foot controller. This would mainly show the song changed on the iPhone if I make a mistake while playing a song by stepping on a patch that belongs to a different song.

Hopefully that makes sense.

[arlo]

Do you want BandHelper to control the foot switch and the amp, and the foot switch to control BandHelper and the amp? So you can change songs from either BandHelper or the foot switch, and one would update the other, and both would update the amp?

[sms380]

Yes, that is correct. The amp uses program messages and the pedal uses the raw data I showed previously.

[arlo]

Does the amp or pedal have a concept of "songs" or just individual patches that you use within a song?

[sms380]

No concept of songs. I used a midi monitor on a working app and the midi message i posted is what I see. I tried to use your song select functionality too and couldn't get it to work that way.

[arlo]

I thought the data you posted is what you were sending to the pedal and the amp?

Anyway, if the amp doesn't have a concept of songs, then your plan would depend on this question: Is the first patch used on each song unique (not used on any other song)?

Since you can't configure the data the pedal sends, you will need to select songs in BandHelper based on the first program change value for each song. If multiple songs use the same patch, BandHelper won't know which song to select.

If this setup doesn't work, then the normal approach would be to get a different pedal that you can program; attach to each song a preset for each patch used in that song; then use the pedal to select from among that song's patches. In this case there's a one-way flow of information from the pedal to BandHelper to the amp, and you could change amp patches either indirectly from the pedal or directly from BandHelper.

[sms380]

Thx for the options and help....

One more question for input related to this.

Yes... each patch is per song. No patch is used twice. However, some songs may have two patches. i.e. a clean patch and a distortion patch.

So I set it up to select the song based on the remote trigger on "Song number in setlist" on program change. The problem came in when I came across the first song with 2 different patches. It would select a song by skipping one because of the second patch.

[arlo]

You should use the MIDI Program Number instead of the Song Number In Set List remote control action. Then on the edit page for each song, scroll down to the MIDI Program Number fields and enter the values for the first patch for that song. That will handle selecting the song in BandHelper when you select the first patch for each song with the pedal.

Then you will still need the MIDI presets to configure the amp and the pedal when you select a song in BandHelper.

[sms380]

That works great till it gets to program change 10 or 11 and then it seems to start having a conflict and issues. If I have 11 in by it self that song will work when stepping on the pedal or 0 (first song and patch) by itself. But as soon as they are both there... we start having weird things happen.

[arlo]

What do you mean "as soon as they are both there"? You can only enter one incoming program number per song.

[sms380]

A song with a midi preset for program change 0 (maybe 1) and a different song with a midi preset 10 (Maybe 11).

the midi should be different hex so I was confused about why this was happening. Maybe the Raw data that gets sent with the program change is confusing something?? The raw data is a sysex message per the midi monitor.

So in the song I do not set MSB LSB I only set program change to 0 then the next song 1 and so on. The 11 song would be set for program change 10.

Thx SMS