Anyone use a Blackstar Live Logic for their FM3?

joshriggsFM3

Inspired
Do any of you fine people use a Blackstar Live Logic midi controller? Bonus points if you use it for scene switching, which is what I'd like to do with it. I've read mixed reviews about it, but it looks like it can send on and off values, so it should work in theory.
 
So I don't use it, but I had done a bit of research on it and actually ordered one but returned it prior to opening it.

My understanding is that it will "work" for scene changes, however the user experience will be somewhat wierd.
I exchanged an email with there tech support to confirm, but my understanding is that it works like this.

When programmed for CC changes, it can work in one of two mode. Momentary and Latching.
If it is set to momentary, it sends an On value for the CC on the footpress down, and an off value on the release. The good news is I'm pretty sure you get to program what off and on are. So you could theoretically make both off and on 127 (I think that is what you want). However, this means you would be sending two scene changes (for the same scene, so admittedly may not be an issue there), and on the release the light will go off, so looking down at the switch you will not be able to tell what the active scene is.

So then maybe use latching? You could, however the buttons are not "logically grouped". So say you click footswitch 1 for scene 1. Footswitch 1 lights and you have selected scene 1. Awesome. Now select footswitch 2. It switches to scene 2. Again great, until you see both Footswitch 1 and 2 lights are lit. The more scenes you select, the more lights light up. Until you select one that has already been selected, and now that light goes off, even though that will be your active scene (provided you have programmed the off value to match the on value)

I can't swear that is the way it works, but that is the way it read in the manual, and the way there tech support explained it to me when I asked for them to confirm.
 
Do any of you fine people use a Blackstar Live Logic midi controller? Bonus points if you use it for scene switching, which is what I'd like to do with it. I've read mixed reviews about it, but it looks like it can send on and off values, so it should work in theory.
If you can only do on/off it won't really work for scenes (technically, it will work for scenes 1 and 8).

You need to be able to send specific CC data values (on/off is usually 0/127).

I pulled up the manual and it IS possible to do:

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In this case I would probably program each Scene switch to send the same value for on/off and make the operation be Toggle.

It won't be a perfect solution as you really need a mutually exclusive switch group so your switch LEDs don't get all weird, but it will work.
 
Hmm. Thanks for the info. Yeah, this isn't a good solution. For $180, I don't want a hack or a workaround. I could midi map it with Control Changes, but then I need to do that for every preset I want to use live, which is a pain in the ass.

So maybe I'll just go with two Boss FS-7s as stand-in switches and at least have instant access to more scenes or control switch options.
 
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