Inc/Dec Setlist 1-10 Externally via MIDI

R

RockDebris

Member
I just got the MFC for use without an AxeFX. I've been using MIDI for a couple decades now and I try to do things that are a bit outside the box.

My immediate need is that I play gigs where I don't get the set list order until minutes before the show starts. There are about 60 songs to choose from and I'll never be able to get the set list programmed in time.

After careful thought, I've taken a hybrid approach. While a Set List would be ideal, I've programmed all of the PRESETS in such a way that I can play each song from PRESET mode if I have to. I use 5 presets in a bank and I've ordered presets into songs, also using ALT presets, to try and avoid as much duplication as possible (ALT presets make this manageable for me). I've gotten all the songs into 12 banks that way. Not bad, but I still have to know what bank and what preset is for Message In A Bottle .. I have to refer to notes. Would love to do away with that.

Now that the PRESETS are organized, I've begun putting them into the 100 Song banks (I wish they could have slightly longer titles, but that is beside the point). That's a good way to store songs and I'm glad to have that feature, but of course, I can't really go hunting through this list for 1 out of 60 songs. Again, probably have to resort to notes.

So, I was thinking, what if I could INC/DEC quickly through the Setlists and then use all 10 of them to organize songs by Alphabet? So, Set 1 would be songs A/B, Set 2 would be C/D, etc. It's a few too many foottaps right now ... Edit, Setup, Page, INC/DEC, exit .. then INC/DEC for the song. I was looking at the MIDI Implementation Chart, and it looks like the only hope is if I can send a custom System MIDI Exclusive message. I can do that. I have a MIDI Solutions Event Processor in my rig that I can use to do just about anything. And I have a small external MIDI controller for INC/DEC. Does this sound possible? I'm still formulating ideas based on what is possible, whatever that is.

BTW, this is my rig before the MFC (and an 8 i/o MIDI enabled bypass looper), just demonstrating that I've been around customizing MIDI rigs for a while. Most of these pedals now are behind my rig with only the MFC and a few controllers in front of me:

 
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Would you take a computer or an iPad to a gig for this function? I think there are some ways to do it but you'd basically need a sequencer that lives outside the axe. iPad or comp would make it quick and easy to program your set list. I don't know of a specific program right now but I'm sure something free is out there that can arrange Program changes
 
Hi Chris. I do take an iPod Touch 5. I actually mount that nearby and program the set list on it. Its quick because I can just swipe to rearrange the songs to the set a minute before the show. So then, during the show I swipe that to display the next song. It also shows me any important notes for that song (most importantly, the bank and preset buttons I need to use). It's actually a Flash Card application, but it works really good for organizing a setlist along with a few notes. I've been doing it this way even before the MFC, just wondering if I can ditch the iPod altogether, though I suppose if I could use it to actually program the MFC Setlist quickly, that'd be great too. Open to suggestions and specific programs to investigate. I assume it would start with some kind of comm bridge between the iPod and the MFC. Is MIDI the only choice there?
 
One of the most awesome things I could think of would be having an app on my iPod that I used both as my setlist (as I do now) and to send initial MIDI states out when I swipe to the next song. It doesn't really matter to me if I'm swiping on the iPod for the next song or clicking a foot controller. Ideally, I just do one thing and I'm ready for the song. I'm not very keen on getting more computing power than an iPod Touch on stage with me though. I have too much to manage, haul and setup (and too many things to go wrong) already.
 
I'm pretty sure something exists for that. You'd have to get midi going on, either wirelessly (which I wouldn't trust) or get the USB camera adaptor or some iOS midi interface going on.

I'll see if I can find something if I have free time.

Playing drums for Bill Champlin of Chicago this weekend!! (Kinda freaking out!)
 
Interesting idea. We have about the same number of songs and hitting same thing on how to organize. I've sorted my songs alphabetically and run in song mode... seems to be working for me in practice but 7 character song names is tough. Since you are already entering songs check out Fedit or MFC-Edit... I believe both editors will allow you to sort the songs but I really can only speak for Fedit. Currently sorting songs is drag/drop but will have a sort all button as soon as have time to program it because to be honest we all have better things to do with our time than manually sort stuff.

Alas, still would need your ipod for the order but easier to find on the MFC. Curious to hear your final solution.

Good luck!
 
You can do exactly what you want very easily with MFC-Edit. I use my MFC-101 in a very similar way. If I have time before a gig I can program my set. If not, I have one "permanent" set that is alphabetically sorted. Then I can hold down the UP/DOWN switch and scroll fast to the one I want.

jjozwia is correct (thanks). I can confirm that MFC-Edit allows sorting of songs and sorting of songs within sets (use right-click to access those options). I personally use SETS mode. I have one set (the first one) with all 50 songs sorted alphabetically (2nd set with remainder) and then I have my per-gig sets ordered for the other sets. There are some secret "power-user" features that include sort-and-renunmber songs that are not exposed to everyone because you can really get some unexpected presets selected if you don't really, really know what you're doing. If you want power-user access let me know, but you likely don't need it.

A set holds 50 songs. Drag the songs in any order to any slots into the SET, right-click and "Sort". Done. Actually, the "Song Palette" is already sorted in alphabetical order so you can just drag them in order to the Set list. Lots of ways to do this with MFC-Edit. And even more with the imminent release of version 1.5 ;-)
 
jjozwia said:
Interesting idea. We have about the same number of songs and hitting same thing on how to organize. I've sorted my songs alphabetically and run in song mode... seems to be working for me in practice but 7 character song names is tough. Since you are already entering songs check out Fedit or MFC-Edit... I believe both editors will allow you to sort the songs but I really can only speak for Fedit. Currently sorting songs is drag/drop but will have a sort all button as soon as have time to program it because to be honest we all have better things to do with our time than manually sort stuff.

Alas, still would need your ipod for the order but easier to find on the MFC. Curious to hear your final solution.

Good luck!
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Thanks. I've taken a cursory look at the info for both programs and trying to find time to grab and demo them. I'm getting proficient at programming the MFC now, so next will be adding conveniences. One thing I'm noticing is I'll never need almost 400 presets (maybe 50-75 tops, the usual 128 would be more than enough), but I can see running out of room with the 100 songs. I'll cross that bridge when I get there, the more pressing issue is organizing the setlists efficiently minutes before a show. I really think if I could INC/DEC the Setlists quickly and make alphabetically subgroups within that I'd be good to go, but I'm not seeing that possibility in the documentation.
 
bwanagary said:
You can do exactly what you want very easily with MFC-Edit. I use my MFC-101 in a very similar way. If I have time before a gig I can program my set. If not, I have one "permanent" set that is alphabetically sorted. Then I can hold down the UP/DOWN switch and scroll fast to the one I want.
Click to expand...

That's probably what I'll need to do. My idea was a little different than that though, I wanted to make the Setlists into alphabetical subgroups so each only hold a couple letters of the alphabet .. but then it is critical that I be able to change setlists quickly. Any tips on that? I can hook up a small MIDI controller to the MFC (god, now I'm thinking about getting controllers for my controllers!). Even put an Event Processor to send custom MIDI if necessary. I'm going to drop a suggesting is the wish list for enabling the external footswitches to do setlist banking, or maybe a reveal mode for the current INC/DEC switches. Some kind of fast mode switch.

bwanagary said:
jjozwia is correct (thanks). I can confirm that MFC-Edit allows sorting of songs and sorting of songs within sets (use right-click to access those options). I personally use SETS mode. I have one set (the first one) with all 50 songs sorted alphabetically (2nd set with remainder) and then I have my per-gig sets ordered for the other sets.
Click to expand...

Yes, I'll need one of the programs to manage this. No way I'm doing that with the MFC alone. :shock Just adding a new song to the alphabetical list would be a nightmare .. must less what that would then do to your indexers in the setlist arrays. I'd basically vote not to add any songs in our band just to avoid having to do that! :D
 
Each Setlist is effectively a 50-song subset of your (in-MFC-101) library of 100 songs. Scrolling through an alphabetically sorted Setlist by holding down the UP/DOWN switches is very fast. Switching between Sets is a little more dancing - You'd have to press EDIT->SETUP->PageRT then use UP/DOWN to change Setlist. The MFC-101 always starts at the currently selected Performance Mode (the currently selected Setlist in your case).

100 songs can (or not) be a lot of songs. I play in a cover band with around 200-250 songs total in the repertoire and all the sounds are closely matched in my rig. With that said, not every song has "it's own preset". So many tunes can use the same preset. For example, if I have 4 songs by CCR, 4 by Bob Seger, 4 by John Mellencamp and 4 by Foreigner I really don't need 16 "Songs". Likely 3 out of each 4 use the same preset so I might have 1 Preset called "Long, Long Way From Home" for its special tone and another for "Foreigner" tunes in general.

The good news is that you have lots of options.
 
RockDebris said:
That's probably what I'll need to do. My idea was a little different than that though, I wanted to make the Setlists into alphabetical subgroups so each only hold a couple letters of the alphabet .. but then it is critical that I be able to change setlists quickly. Any tips on that? I can hook up a small MIDI controller to the MFC (god, now I'm thinking about getting controllers for my controllers!). Even put an Event Processor to send custom MIDI if necessary. I'm going to drop a suggesting is the wish list for enabling the external footswitches to do setlist banking, or maybe a reveal mode for the current INC/DEC switches. Some kind of fast mode switch.

Yes, I'll need one of the programs to manage this. No way I'm doing that with the MFC alone. :shock Just adding a new song to the alphabetical list would be a nightmare .. must less what that would then do to your indexers in the setlist arrays. I'd basically vote not to add any songs in our band just to avoid having to do that! :D
Click to expand...

lol. Dude, you're hardcore :) Controllers for your controllers indeed. As far as I know the MFC-101 responds to PC commands which means you can send a command to change the MFC-101's preset but I don't know if it will respond to sysex commands. I don't think that sysex response is built into the firmware. I'd personally *love* to have that feature because then I could make the editor realtime. You probably are a power user. Wait for MFC-Edit 1.5 - you can do lots of insert-shuffle down, delete-shuffle up, sort etc. Some of that is already available in ver. 1.4 but ver 1.5 has more power and should be out very soon. Watch this forum for an announcement.

And please let me know if you find a way to get MFC-101 to respond to sysex messages.
-G
 
bwanagary said:
The good news is that you have lots of options.
Click to expand...

HAHA, right. You're not kidding. That's can be good news and bad news!

bwanagary said:
100 songs can (or not) be a lot of songs. I play in a cover band with around 200-250 songs total in the repertoire and all the sounds are closely matched in my rig. With that said, not every song has "it's own preset". So many tunes can use the same preset. For example, if I have 4 songs by CCR, 4 by Bob Seger, 4 by John Mellencamp and 4 by Foreigner I really don't need 16 "Songs". Likely 3 out of each 4 use the same preset so I might have 1 Preset called "Long, Long Way From Home" for its special tone and another for "Foreigner" tunes in general.
Click to expand...

I do group my Presets in a logical way that I can use them to handle many songs, but that is when I am in Preset mode. The names for the presets are like "ClnCompCho" or something similar describing the sound, not the songs in which they are used. I've also grouped my first 10 presets in the unit so that I can handle a wide range of ad-hoc songs (the first 5 presets can switch to the second 5 presets in ALT mode and they have a certain kind of logical relationship to each other). In Song mode, I've also made the first Song use those same 5 presets so I know that regardless of whether I am in Song mode or Preset mode and can switch to 001 and be in familiar territory.

But grouping multiple Songs into 1 Song bank is something I want to avoid. I know it can be done, but I'd like to avoid it to keep things simple ... 1 Song Bank is 1 Song with 1 Title. Of course, I don't have over 100 songs in my band currently so I haven't had to make the hard choice yet. Also, in Preset Mode, I make use of ALT presets so that I can cram as much utility and song options into a single Preset Bank (while avoiding as much duplication as possible), but in Song Mode I stretch the presets out and dedicate all sounds to their own switch in the order that they will be used in the song.
 
Yeah, I can totally see how you've organized your rig. I wonder, if we actually took a poll, would we find a different configuration for every MFC-101 sold? :) You're obviously a seasoned veteran at this stuff but I can totally see how newbies can get quickly overwhelmed by the options a flexibility. Ah well, when I was a full time software engineer in a previous life we used to say "if it was hard to write, it should be hard to understand and use" :). Fractal's gear isn't for the faint of heart. Well, at least not the Axe-Fx and MFC-101. New product lines will hopefully require less mental and economic stamina and therefore appeal to a much broader audience. I'm continually impressed with FAS the company and the products they create. I expect more of that in the future.
 
bwanagary said:
Yeah, I can totally see how you've organized your rig. I wonder, if we actually took a poll, would we find a different configuration for every MFC-101 sold? :) You're obviously a seasoned veteran at this stuff but I can totally see how newbies can get quickly overwhelmed by the options a flexibility. Ah well, when I was a full time software engineer in a previous life we used to say "if it was hard to write, it should be hard to understand and use" :). Fractal's gear isn't for the faint of heart. Well, at least not the Axe-Fx and MFC-101. New product lines will hopefully require less mental and economic stamina and therefore appeal to a much broader audience. I'm continually impressed with FAS the company and the products they create. I expect more of that in the future.
Click to expand...

Through the years I've used several kinds of controllers, beginning with the simple 1 channel bank/preset "dumb" MIDI controllers (Rockman, ART, ADA). Those were actually MORE challenging than what we have now. Everything responding on OMNI and Preset management handled on the various devices (and preset duplication) was a nightmare and I couldn't afford Bob Bradshaw back then. At some point, I got fed up with racks of MIDI gear, all the preset programming, organization and mapping required. It got to the point where my creativity was being hampered simply because I didn't want to make and organize presets anymore. I went back to the stomp pedals of my youth and a few sounds. Yeah, you have to bend down and turn a knob sometimes at a gig, but as much as it was a curse for gigging, it was a blessing for tweaking and just having fun. Using effects had become fun again.

Then I started looking at a new wave of controllers that took the preset management (and horrible inconsistent mapping features) away from the individual fx units and kept them in the controller. First for me was the Rocktron MIDI Mate. I didn't use it at gigs, but I kept it around for a couple years in the studio and used it to manage a few studio only devices.

What really got me back in the game were the Strymon big box pedals with MIDI interfaces. I got a "Simple" pedal to control those ... and it turned out the "simple" pedal was way more powerful and logical than any of the pedals I had before. Then I started really taking a close look ... eventually I integrated my ABY, Channel Footswitch, EVH and Bypass looper into MIDI. At that point, the "simple" pedal (which was really quite powerful for its size and cost, shown in the video above) started to burst at the seems and I got into integrating the Event Processor. Let me say, I absolutely love the Event Processor. Its like a little swiss army knive, programmable MIDI filter that I use for solving all sorts of MIDI needs between devices. However, with the MFC, it has become less of a necessity, but I keep it because I am familiar with the programs I wrote that are stored inside (and it's convenient).

So, that's a little back story. I went on the hunt for the perfect MIDI controller, read tons of documentation, and it was going to be the MFC, a Liquid Foot or a Mastermind. Actually, it was going to be one of the later because I thought the MFC was just bound to the AxeFX until I stumbled upon something that opened my eyes. It is a really great stand-alone MIDI controller. The Liquid Foot was top of my list, sky seemed to be the limit with that one, but even I was getting intimidated by the documentation on that thing.
 
Wow! And you're not in a padded cell yet? :) Holy smoke, sounds like you've really paid your dues. I'm not familiar with the Event Processor but it sounds awesome. I just love stuff that's well thought out and implemented. Yeah, making music is supposed to be fun but the gear is so sophisticated nowdays that you can get lost in dilaing and tweaking paramaters and pretty soon its not as much fun any more. And just when you have it all figured out and dialed in you get a new firmware release :). It's good to be a superstar - you have a full-time tech to handle the gear. At least, so I'm told :lol

Oh well ... back to my "day job" ...

RockDebris said:
Through the years I've used several kinds of controllers, beginning with the simple 1 channel bank/preset "dumb" MIDI controllers (Rockman, ART, ADA). Those were actually MORE challenging than what we have now. Everything responding on OMNI and Preset management handled on the various devices (and preset duplication) was a nightmare and I couldn't afford Bob Bradshaw back then. At some point, I got fed up with racks of MIDI gear, all the preset programming, organization and mapping required. It got to the point where my creativity was being hampered simply because I didn't want to make and organize presets anymore. I went back to the stomp pedals of my youth and a few sounds. Yeah, you have to bend down and turn a knob sometimes at a gig, but as much as it was a curse for gigging, it was a blessing for tweaking and just having fun. Using effects had become fun again.

Then I started looking at a new wave of controllers that took the preset management (and horrible inconsistent mapping features) away from the individual fx units and kept them in the controller. First for me was the Rocktron MIDI Mate. I didn't use it at gigs, but I kept it around for a couple years in the studio and used it to manage a few studio only devices.

What really got me back in the game were the Strymon big box pedals with MIDI interfaces. I got a "Simple" pedal to control those ... and it turned out the "simple" pedal was way more powerful and logical than any of the pedals I had before. Then I started really taking a close look ... eventually I integrated my ABY, Channel Footswitch, EVH and Bypass looper into MIDI. At that point, the "simple" pedal (which was really quite powerful for its size and cost, shown in the video above) started to burst at the seems and I got into integrating the Event Processor. Let me say, I absolutely love the Event Processor. Its like a little swiss army knive, programmable MIDI filter that I use for solving all sorts of MIDI needs between devices. However, with the MFC, it has become less of a necessity, but I keep it because I am familiar with the programs I wrote that are stored inside (and it's convenient).

So, that's a little back story. I went on the hunt for the perfect MIDI controller, read tons of documentation, and it was going to be the MFC, a Liquid Foot or a Mastermind. Actually, it was going to be one of the later because I thought the MFC was just bound to the AxeFX until I stumbled upon something that opened my eyes. It is a really great stand-alone MIDI controller. The Liquid Foot was top of my list, sky seemed to be the limit with that one, but even I was getting intimidated by the documentation on that thing.
Click to expand...
 
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