Midi controllers and Mod Duo....any progress?

Hi, guys

Finally got my Mod duo and started playing with it. Keeping our discussion about midi some months ago in mind I set up a single pedalboard with a Toggleswitch with 4 outputs.

So I set up 4 different gain stages. 1 being just reverb, 2 with a little gain, 3 some more gain and the fourth is a full blown distortion. A setup similar to what I already use with my other devices.

As I got around assigning midi commands to the toggleswitch using midi learn I run into problems.
It is very simple in theory to set this up.

  1. I select channel one on the toggleswitch and press midi learn.
  2. I press the knob on my midi controller that I want to use
  3. Hit save

I do this for all 4 channels on the toggleswitch. And I can see that when I look back where the midi learn is, a midi message has appeared (MIDI Ch.1 CC#17). And on channel 2 there is the same thing but on CC#11 and channel 3 and 4 also have their message on different CC.

So far so good.

If I press the knob on my midi controller to activate channel 1 it works. If I press the other assigned knobsā€¦nothing happens. If I press channel 1 knob againā€¦nothing happens and it is stuck in the ā€œonā€ position and I cant turn it off.

What am I doing wrong?
Why canā€™t I assign midi messages and get my controller to control the mod duo?

Another thingā€¦I noticed that on the Banks display it says "Navigate pedalboards using MIDI program, channel 1-16"
Is this a good option to control the Mod duo with a midi controller?
Can I have for example one reverb pedal in one pedalboard. One tubescreamer in another and switch between pedalboards using MIDI messages?
How would I know which pedalboard to activate (what nr are they)?

There seems to still be a very long pause between pedalboards when called upon. So much that it is unusable in a live situation. With that in mind I doubt the ā€œbanksā€ option is feasable using midi messages live.

Am I missing something or has there been no progress since we last talked about using midi controllers to control the mod duo?

Is there somebody out there that plays guitar, uses a midi controller and can successfully send midi messages to control the mod duo without lag?

(I use windows and FCB8n Peak controller)

I was able to program the Toggleswitch using my Keith McMillen SoftStep in the Toggle mode.
Could it be possible that your controller isnā€™t in a toggle mode. Iā€™m still learning about controllers so Iā€™m just making suggestionsā€¦

The controller should just obey the midi learn function I imagine.I dont know exactly how this midi learn works but it should be as simple as to just press midi learn, press your desired knob on the controller and then save. This button should then do what your midi learn told it to do.

My controller is like every other controller in that it can send both regular messages and toggle.

I wish I had at least some information about how different midi messages from my controller would control what inside the mod duo. Just like every other multifx gadget that supplies that info in its manual. Then I would be able at least to send the messages blindly from my controller. But I guess this gadget is different.

With all the magic that is inside this box its a bit frustrating not being able to control it easily. Its so limiting.

but what exactly did it tell it to do? It looks like your peak controller is quite configurable. When you press the button what message does it send? Does it send something when you release the button? What does it send if you press the same button again?

Mod doesnā€™t really have any MIDI functionality hardwired, which is why its so powerful and flexible, but with that power comes some room for mistakes or misunderstandings. You now have to configure both sides.

From what I see I think you need to send CC17 to a value below 64 to turn it off again. Iā€™m guessing each time you press the button it sends the same CC17 value (which is >64) and so it doesnā€™t change anything. You need it to send 127 the first time you press it and 0 the next time you press it. Does that make sense?

I might be missing something, but help me understand if I am.

Yes I guess its like you say, some misunderstanding between the two gadgets.

I have been tweaking all day and so far I have come up with me being able to switch channels on and off with the midi learn. Somehow, I dont know, Pure luck I guess :slight_smile:

As my controller can send up to 8 messages per knob I now have to figure out how to send off messages to all other channels when sending the ā€œonā€ message to the one I want. That way when I press a button a chain of pedals goes on while all other channels go off simultaniously.

That way I can have 4 different chain of effects in one pedalboard.
If this works somehowā€¦I would love to have a toggleswitch with maybe say 8 channels.

More options within a single pedalboard.

Well, got to keep on keeping on. Trying to work this thing out :slight_smile:

All input highly appreciated

Thank you guys

After 12 hours of eliminating and trying everythingā€¦I finally got it to work.

This is the message going from my controller to the mod duo

Channel 1
p1.ch=OFF
cc.ch=1
c1.cc=0
c1.dt=127
c2.cc=Go.A2 (global message telling channesl 2 to go OFF)
c2.dt=0
c3.cc=Go.A3 (global message telling channesl 3 to go OFF)
c3.dt=0
c4.cc=Go.A4 (global message telling channesl 4 to go OFF)
c4.dt=0

This was for channel 1. The other channels same rules apply

Now Iā€™ve got the toggleswitch under my command and have an option of 4 different sounds during one song. Then I would need to change pedalboards to access my next 4 sounds. From what I understand you really have to kneel down, hold left button down, go into settings, banks and choose the next pedalboard. Seems waaaayyyy too much trouble in between songs in a live setting.

So my needs now are either:

  1. Have a toggleswitch with more channels and hope the cpu behaves (as I would want acces to many more sounds)

  2. Have the option of sending cc message to mod duo telling it to open a certain pedalboard

About option 2
Is it not possible yet to send maybe lets sayā€¦prev/next messages to load a pedalboard in the banks?

MIDI program messages can load any pedalboard within a bank.
By default itā€™s program messages in channel 16, but this can be changed per bank.
You can also use the mod footswitches for this.

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Yup. That seems to work fine.

P1.ch=16
p1.pc=0 (for the first pedalboard, 1 for your next one etc)

So as I have a 12 button controller I can use 8 of them to summon 8 different pedalboards. As each pedalboard can have only 4 channels I use 4 buttons on the controller to switch between channels within a given pedalboard.

This is actually becoming gig ready :slight_smile:

Now to dive in and set up those 8 pedalboardsā€¦let the games begin!

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you can use several toggle switch pedals too so you can have as many channels as you have midi CC messages.

Hey everyone,

i seem to be missing one step to configure my midi controller to change through the pedalboards within a bank.

i can set switches in my controller to Program Change. But which value and wich switch mode (increment, decrement, fixed) do i need to select?

thanks for you help!

depends on what you want it to do. Increment will go to the next program number (which may or may not be assigned to a pedalboard at all, you have to set up your MOD properly). Absolute will be set to a specific program number (so it will be mapped to a single pedalboard). So either the switch will always pull up the same pedalboard or always pull up a new one. IMO it will be most useful to have 1 increment and 1 decrement button and just know where your pedalboards are within the bank. This is because of the time it takes the MOD to switch boards so you canā€™t really get a fast response even if you have it mapped to a single button.

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The way I did it was to assign a button on my controller to send p1.ch=16 and then a message of 0

That brought up the first pedalboard. For the next pedalboard I did the same but with the message of 1

etcā€¦

All you have to do is name your pedalboards in the order you want.

So the board I want to be first in line (nr 0) I name A1. Next pedalboard is called A2 etc

Because they are placed in order alphabetically.

I wish I could actually drag and drop them in the order I would want. So I wouldnt have to name them all alphabetically. @falkTXā€¦maybe in the some future update :slight_smile:

Hope that helps

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You can create your own banks, with pedalboards in any order and even repeated.
The ā€˜Allā€™ bank is a fall back in case you forgot to setup banks before.

Youā€™ll need to manually load a pedalboard via the controller/display first, but after you are inside a bank the MIDI program messages will load pedalboards from that selected bank.

Note that MOD will load the last bank and pedalboard you used.
So after a power off and power on, youā€™ll still be on the same bank.

thanks for the pointers!
i think i missed the step loading the first board via the controller. will try it later. many thanks!

EDIT: it worked! Thanks!

Quick question:
When using my midi expression pedal with, letā€™s say gain via midi-learn, i canā€™t set the range (standard is -40 to 40).
Is this normal and if not, what am i doing wrong?

Thanks!

Itā€™s normal, it was not implemented yet.
Itā€™s coming in 1.2 though, very very soon.

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