An external programmable knob(s) tweaker

N

Nsurround

Inspired
I own an FM9 turbo but do not use it currently as a floor unit. More on the level like an AXEIII. I have multiple midi footswitch units that can work on the floor but do final adjustments on the FM9 as it sits currently on top a fairly large cab with an F12-X200 speaker installed. I have tried the Fracpad as an external controller but found in my case not really my cup of tea (it is trying to replicate more or less the FM edit functionality). Others may differ on that. In any case, after looking at the Quad Cortex and now the Fender Tone Master Pro I can visualize a remote parameter knob control unit for Fractal units similar to their footswitch products but instead of footswitches there are knobs with scribble displays above each knob. They would operate similar to the way the performance page(s) system works but remotely. You could have 5-7 knobs with one that changes the 'page' to a different set of parameters for the other knobs etc. To me this would afford a more tactile way of making some basic changes to various parameters similar to the way you use a real amp or FX pedal. I am again currently looking at some midi knob controllers that might work to some extent in the same way but thought I would post this to see what others thought.
 
Programmable MIDI controller. There are so many these days doremidi morning star etc there are knob expression controllers etc
 
Tonemasterus said:
Programmable MIDI controller. There are so many these days doremidi morning star etc there are knob expression controllers etc
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The ones you mentioned are mostly the footswitch type. I have looked at a lot of midi knob controllers and find there are few to none produced now that have displays that deal with what the knob(s) are actually doing. Also there are reference issues of knob position and the current value etc. A company called Faderfox seems to have a few product midi controllers that come closest to my idea as per links below. However those products really do not seem optimal to me. I know this idea is on the fractal wishlist of sorts but wonder if anything will come about with it. Even if they just essentially ported the performance pages into an external remote device with a display of some sort would be great. You would still program the knobs with the FM Edit software as is now.


Faderfox Youtube Demo of UC4 with FM3

Faderfox UC4 Midi Controller
 
You can check out midi fighter or even stream deck, but the market for these kinds of devices has dried up. They all have the issues you mentioned and something that solves those problems would be prohibitively expensive compared to a tablet or phone app.

Calling @laxu
 
GlennO said:
You can check out midi fighter or even stream deck, but the market for these kinds of devices has dried up. They all have the issues you mentioned and something that solves those problems would be prohibitively expensive compared to a tablet or phone app.

Calling @laxu
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Yeah I have a Stream Deck Plus and honestly the functionality for the knobs on it is quite limited, especially on MacOS. If you do some streaming it might have value but otherwise I'd steer clear. It's not a bad unit, there's just not much in the way to utilize the knobs on it. There is a MIDI plugin to make it possible to send MIDI commands to the Axe-Fx.

The issue is that there are very, very stupid limitations for MIDI knob control on Fractal's current gen devices. The modifier system prevents using anything but the MIDI controller for anything attached to modifiers. Axe-Edit or Fractal front panel can no longer adjust those parameters when a modifier is attached and there's no good way to enable/disable them all, you need to detach them one by one.

There is no technical reason why it has to be this way. It is possible to use all of these together, Fractal's own MIDI mapping system just doesn't support it. MIDI -> Fractal Sysex is capable of controlling it all like you were using Axe-Edit or the front panel, but since Fractal does not publish Sysex documentation for the current gen devices, it is a lot of reverse engineering and complication. You need a middleman MIDI -> Sysex translation app, which doesn't really exist.

16 external controllers is also not a lot. You can use over half of those on basic amp block controls alone.

In short, there is no good way to expand the knob control on Fractal systems atm. The modifier system does not work well for this at all.

Performance pages are also very limited and mostly work for "I need to tweak something a bit live" usecases. If you'd like to use them more like a desktop control system, there's just not enough parameter mappings possible.
 
GlennO said:
You can check out midi fighter or even stream deck, but the market for these kinds of devices has dried up. They all have the issues you mentioned and something that solves those problems would be prohibitively expensive compared to a tablet or phone app.

Calling @laxu
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A tablet or phone app would be alright if done on a more simpler level than the FM edit functionality. The Fracpad III editor is available for multiple devices (IOS and Android). Not sure that Fracpad III has a version for the Android 6.0 and fm9 firmware 5.0? But IMO I would like a more simpler tablet interface that just basically deals with the performance pages etc. What would be cool is to have a more simple display that allows adjustment control of basic parameters in the amp and effects settings of presets similar to the what can be done on the 'performance pages'. You create a performance page with FM edit whose parameters can be controlled by the tablet in an easy to use UI.
 
laxu said:
Yeah I have a Stream Deck Plus and honestly the functionality for the knobs on it is quite limited, especially on MacOS. If you do some streaming it might have value but otherwise I'd steer clear. It's not a bad unit, there's just not much in the way to utilize the knobs on it. There is a MIDI plugin to make it possible to send MIDI commands to the Axe-Fx.

The issue is that there are very, very stupid limitations for MIDI knob control on Fractal's current gen devices. The modifier system prevents using anything but the MIDI controller for anything attached to modifiers. Axe-Edit or Fractal front panel can no longer adjust those parameters when a modifier is attached and there's no good way to enable/disable them all, you need to detach them one by one.

There is no technical reason why it has to be this way. It is possible to use all of these together, Fractal's own MIDI mapping system just doesn't support it. MIDI -> Fractal Sysex is capable of controlling it all like you were using Axe-Edit or the front panel, but since Fractal does not publish Sysex documentation for the current gen devices, it is a lot of reverse engineering and complication. You need a middleman MIDI -> Sysex translation app, which doesn't really exist.

16 external controllers is also not a lot. You can use over half of those on basic amp block controls alone.

In short, there is no good way to expand the knob control on Fractal systems atm. The modifier system does not work well for this at all.

Performance pages are also very limited and mostly work for "I need to tweak something a bit live" usecases. If you'd like to use them more like a desktop control system, there's just not enough parameter mappings possible.
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Great description of the issues for going remotely to change feature parameters via midi. You and I have discussed this before on another thread I posted. But I thought I would post a new thread discussing this as have looked at many reviews of the new Fender Tone Master Pro and by extension the Quad Cortex which is similarly priced to the FM9 turbo. Almost in every case on the TMP reviews, the UI was one of its most positive features talked about. IMO Fractal units could use a more simpler interface that could be done remotely. Deep diving into the more esoteric parameters and preset building is for the FM editor(s). What would cool though is just having a simpler remote knob controller that can adjust basic parameters that can be programmed by the user similar to the current 'performance pages' functionality. You could have a button to page thru a number of parameter pages just as you do on the unit itself. You might have a few more knobs than five (maybe 10 duplicating the performance page layout). I do not know how many times I needed to adjust certain standard parameters on a preset based on a new location or setting etc.
 
In that case, it's far more likely an iphone app might appear to do what you want than a hardware controller. Someone like Al could fashion a stripped down Fracpad.

As Laxu says, the protocol is pretty complicated and that has a chilling effect on the development of 3rd party controllers. There are simpler designs. A simple echo of the CC whenever the value on the device changes would be a good protocol to support a controller like you want. Some pedal makers use that design. However, if you go to the FAS product page, you'll see why FAS doesn't have much incentive to make it easier for 3rd parties to make remote controls that work with the Axe-FX :).
 
Yes, I would really be interested in a stripped down version of the Fracpad for a tablet for both IOS and Android. Yes, FAS does have footswitch controllers of their own to purchase but not a knob hardware controller or an app for either iphone or android. To me it makes sense that they would have by now or gave some more support to someone like Al and the Fracpad development.
 
unix-guy said:
I seem to remember hearing that FracPad allowed you to create a custom "layout" but I might be wrong?

Edit:

This post and some others in the thread seem to indicate that my memory is correct:

https://forum.fractalaudio.com/thre...x8-axe-fx-iii-and-fm3-fm9.120946/post-2339718
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I kind of remember that also. However at the time I had switched from an FM3 to a FM9 and was using a android tablet. The Fracpad III version did not really work for me then as crashed and somewhat unstable. Would have to look at it again to see if there were any updates for the FM9 android version. Maybe Al can chime in here.
 
I can confirm that with the latest firmware of the FM9 and the latest Fracpad III android software that the two essentially work together. You can customize the tablet screen in fracpad in various settings and such. It also seems to load faster the presets and cabs etc. I used the USB interface with a cable. It did crash on me once but was not sure what caused this. All in all pretty good. Still not quite the same as a hardware controller but better than nothing. The developer obviously put a lot of work into this. I think a stripped down version of this would be a great idea similar to how the fender did the TMP UI but will leave that to the developer to decide.
 
GlennO said:
As Laxu says, the protocol is pretty complicated and that has a chilling effect on the development of 3rd party controllers. There are simpler designs. A simple echo of the CC whenever the value on the device changes would be a good protocol to support a controller like you want.
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This works fine on e.g a Strymon pedal that has at most about 20 or so parameters, whereas an Axe-Fx has more than that in the average single block.

The better way would be just having support for MIDI CC -> parameter mapping, completely going around the modifier system and its limitations. This results in a fairly simple behavior:
  • "If MIDI CC x received, convert MIDI value (0-127) -> param value (e.g 0-10) and set param to that value." This is MIDI controller setting a param.
  • "If param is changed and has MIDI CC attached, convert param value -> MIDI CC value (0-127), send MIDI CC on MIDI out." This is e.g front panel or Axe-Edit setting the MIDI controller value, if the controller can track its internal value this way.
This system has several drawbacks:
  • Values with a very large scale cannot be precise adjusted. Delay/reverb times for example range from something like a few ms to several seconds.
    • Workaround for this is supporting relative MIDI values. MIDI CC value <64 = value down, >64 = value up. Axe-Fx needs to track how quickly these changes occur to figure out if the user is trying to adjust the value slowly or quickly and apply an acceleration curve to make it feel good to use.
  • 128 values is not quite as precise as the front panel encoders, but good enough for majority of usecases.
  • If controller value does not match Axe-Fx value, then param can jump to a very different value when adjusted. E.g your MIDI controller knob is at the equivalent of 7.0 but your preset's param value is 5.0. Relative CC values make Axe-Fx the source of truth instead of the controller.
  • The number of params quickly grows to quite large if you want to cover a reasonable amount of common controls.
    • One way to solve this is if your MIDI controller supports presets so you can alter for example which MIDI CC messages it sends from its knobs. Let's say you have basic Amp controls mapped to MIDI CC values 10-15, and MIDI CC values 20-22 to Drive controls. If your controller can be set to send 10-15 on its preset A, and 20-22 on preset B, then you can toggle between which effect you are adjusting.
      • The drawback is of course not being able to see what you are adjusting, but going by sound alone can be good enough as long as you know what you are working with. A "mapped values view" could be introduced to show a simple table of "CC, block, param, param value" with all mapped values as a scrollable list.
But overall it's still better than "16 external controllers that block every other control method" that is the current situation.
 
laxu said:
This works fine on e.g a Strymon pedal that has at most about 20 or so parameters, whereas an Axe-Fx has more than that in the average single block.
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It wouldn't echo CC's for all parameters. It would only echo the midi-learned parameters. Those are the only parameters with a known CC to send anyway.

A good way to solve the "number of parameters to be mapped" problem is to have a set of meta parameters for each preset that the preset author deemed as important (with defaults). You midilearn those meta parameters instead of the underlying parameters. That way you only have to midilearn a small number of parameters, but they're always assigned to something important. It would sort of be like midilearnable performance controls. See custom controls in Omnisphere as an example of this concept. This also solves the problem of not being able to see the parameters because there is a dedicated page of these parameters. However, presets of midi learn maps is also a good idea. Again, see Omnisphere for an example of this.
 
GlennO said:
It wouldn't echo CC's for all parameters. It would only echo the midi-learned parameters. Those are the only parameters with a known CC to send anyway.

A good way to solve the "number of parameters to be mapped" problem is to have a set of meta parameters for each preset that the preset author deemed as important (with defaults). You midilearn those meta parameters instead of the underlying parameters. That way you only have to midilearn a small number of parameters, but they're always assigned to something important. It would sort of be like midilearnable performance controls. See custom controls in Omnisphere as an example of this concept. This also solves the problem of not being able to see the parameters because there is a dedicated page of these parameters. However, presets of midi learn maps is also a good idea. Again, see Omnisphere for an example of this.
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Yeah that's a good approach as well. I suppose this would be basically like MIDI controllable per preset Performance view?

To me the main things that a MIDI knob controller could solve is that dragging virtual knobs around on screen with a mouse sucks. So does spinning a scroll wheel. I always have to hold my pick in some weird position to grab my mouse, whereas grabbing a knob or two does not have that problem. There's a good reason why e.g many studios have physical fader controls even though they are editing in a DAW.

I would be also all for context based mapping where X number of MIDI CCs just directly map to X params in whatever block/page you have open at the time either on the onboard UI or Axe-Edit. Best of both worlds if you will.

EDIT: Looked through Omnisphere custom control videos and yeah, that's exactly how I would love to see it work, where the parameter mapping also brings on screen the control being edited.
 
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I think both laux and GlennO have good concepts for a hardware midi type controller. As far as the type and number of parameters to control that should be left up to the user albeit dealing with whatever the limitations of the controller are. However, we are not trying to rebuild the FM editor but just give the user a rather simple external interface where they can adjust some parameters like they would on a real pedal or amp especially for live situations and such (at least that was my orig idea). However, a much better way would be for Fractal (or work with a 3rd party) to produce such a device using the USB interface. That way, one could have scribble strip displays for each knob and or possibly a screen similar to the size of the Morningstar MC6 or MC8 that would work similar to how the 'performance page' system now works on the FM modelers. You deep dive with the FM editor all of the possibilities to build a preset and fX blocks and use the external controller to tweak only some chosen parameters when needed.
 
Are there midi potentiometers able to expand the number of expression controllers inputs?
I need more than the 3 pedal inputs available on FM9.
 
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