Is it possible to do this...

GreatGreen

GreatGreen

Power User
I'm really not all that great at this whole MIDI thing, but for each patch I'd like to feel like I have a 4 channel amp available with 4 dedicated channel switches on the board. Also, I'd like to accomplish this without using scenes, as I'd prefer the "channel switching" to not affect the bypass states of any other effects in the patch.

In other words, is it possible, without using scenes, to setup 4 switches on the MFC within a patch that do this:

1: Amp 1 X
2: Amp 1 Y
3: Amp 2 X
4: Amp 2 Y

And when I activate any of these four switches, all 3 of the other switches would disable?
 
I think you can.

Set up each switch to send two CC#'s--one for the amp block selection and one for x/y selection (MFC manual page 23).

Use the Link function (page 27) to ensure only one switch is on at a time.

Danny W.
 
You should just use scenes. There's nothing to stop you from only using scenese to affect the amp blocks. It would be much easier to program and give you the option to do other things down the line without have to reprogram anything on the MFC101. There's absolutely no downside.
-
Austin
 
atquinn said:
You should just use scenes. There's nothing to stop you from only using scenese to affect the amp blocks. It would be much easier to program and give you the option to do other things down the line without have to reprogram anything on the MFC101. There's absolutely no downside.
-
Austin
Click to expand...

The downside is you have to choose some effects state for each scene, which might not be what the OP wants. Compare scenes to what you'd get with real pedals and an amp channel footswitch--the amp channel selection won't force a delay on or off, etc.

You could prevent scenes from affecting effect on/off using Ext Ctrls as bypass modifiers, but that could require a lot of modifiers and you'd lose the extra features of Axe-FX mode IAs.
 
Ah right, I see what you're saying. For me scenes are more convenient because they let me do multiple things with one button; I'm not really looking to replicate the (for me) inconvenience of a pedal board setup. But I see there are tradeoffs either way. Different strokes for different folks.
-
Austin
 
As I've been thinking about this, it occurred to me that for this to be possible, you would have to program each of the four switches to send three pieces of independent data per press as such:

Switch 1, activate only Amp 1 X:

amp 1 bypass state active
amp 2 bypass state bypass
amp 1 X/Y state active (the MFC understands active as X, bypass as Y)


and so on until each of the four switches transmits its respective data set with each press.

Is that possible with the MFC-101?
 
GreatGreen said:
As I've been thinking about this, it occurred to me that for this to be possible, you would have to program each of the four switches to send three pieces of independent data per press as such:

Switch 1, activate only Amp 1 X:

amp 1 bypass state active
amp 2 bypass state bypass
amp 1 X/Y state active (the MFC understands active as X, bypass as Y)


and so on until each of the four switches transmits its respective data set with each press.

Is that possible with the MFC-101?
Click to expand...

Yes using the 2 CCs plus custom data, but it doesn't have to be done exactly like that. If you link the switches and have each "off" command be a 0 value for amp bypass, you'll always bypass one amp when switching to the other.

It's possible having everything sent by 1 "on" command would be slightly faster or glitch-free when switching X-Y of a single amp, because you're not having the Axe to respond to 3 commands (bypass amp 1, switch amp 1 from X to Y, engage amp 1). I'd try both and compare. The choice of CC1 or CC2 for each command might matter too--could be smoother/quicker with XY as CC1, bypass as CC2.
 
I did it! Thanks to Bakerman's and Danny W's suggestions, I used two custom CC changes per switch, along with Linking, to make it work. I didn't even have to use custom MIDI data.

In the Axe-Fx's I/O menu, there's a list of control changes for every patch. Here is a list of the relevant control changes you'll need to know to do what I'm trying to do:

Amp1 - CC 37
Amp2 - CC 38
Amp1 X/Y - CC 100
Amp2 X/Y - CC 101


First, you'll need to set each relevant IA's Axe-Fx functionality to NONE instead of whatever effect it was controlling beforehand. Then you have to set the switches as follows (I'm using switches 6, 7, 8, and 9 on the board for this):

IA06 c1 CC#037 Ch01
IA06 c2 CC#100 Ch01

IA07 c1 CC#037 Ch01
IA07 c2 CC#100 Ch01

IA08 c1 CC#038 Ch01
IA08 c2 CC#101 Ch01

IA09 c1 CC#038 Ch01
IA09 c2 CC#101 Ch01


Then, on the next page, where you see the CC On and Off values, set things up as follows. Most values are where they should be, the changes I made are in bold:


IA06 c1 Off000 On127
IA06 c2 Off000 On127

IA07 c1 Off000 On127
IA07 c2 Off127 On000

IA08 c1 Off000 On127
IA08 c2 Off000 On127

IA09 c1 Off000 On127
IA09 c2 Off127 On000


Finally, link them all together in the Link page of the MFC's Setup menu so it looks like this:

LinkA 06 07 08 09 --



And you're done! Now with every patch on your Axe-Fx, you can have any four amp "channels" instantly available with the switches behaving exactly like a dedicated amplifier footswitch would, and none of your other effects will be touched when you change channels, just like you're using a traditional pedalboard!
 
Last edited:
Great that you've documented it here. Will add it to the wiki.
There's certainly use for this as an alternative to scenes.
 
In the past this type of setup could result in short audio hickups, because of switch polling.
I'm curious if this is still noticeable.
 
I understand this method will work but why not just use the scenes mode? I am just curious what you would be losing using the scenes mode. I love being able to use scenes they work fantastic. I purchased some labels I use for my scenes. Crunch, lead 1 , lead 2 , clean, Rhythm. I use the x/y states on the amp which really helps the cpu usage.
 
What's great about this approach is that you can switch between 4 amps, while the effects stay the same.
With scenes, you switch to pre-configured effect states.
 
I think you don't grasp the concept.

You can assign different Amp states to different scenes. When you switch to another scene, the amp changes, and other effects are engaged or bypassed, based on their saved states. In other words, the last scene does not "inherit" the state of effects in the previous scene.

With the approach above this is different. Example: in scene 1, you have your clean amp (Amp 1, X). Also, you've engaged a Delay and Compressor on the fly (there were bypassed initially). You can now press switch #4 to change to Amp 2 Y, maintaining the current state of Delay and Compressor (engaged).
This can not be done using scenes, unless you preprogrammed a scene to contain Amp 2 Y plus Compressor plus Delay.
 
I used to do something similar in a previous version of the MFC firmware, but had set the AXE-FX functionality to "Volume" so that I would get the red/green lights to work (I set up each Volume block in the preset to not connect to anything), and use the CC's as above. This used to work great as I could choose essentially had 4 drives available at any time as a virtual pedalboard AND have each effect show a red or green state. I updated to the latest firmware and can't do this anymore. It looks like now you can't choose and Axe-fx block AND use both CC's per switch?

Any way to get this functionality back or do something similar to get the lights to work with this?
 
Last edited:
aughrimfurey said:
I used to do something similar in a previous version of the MFC firmware, but had set the AXE-FX functionality to "Volume" so that I would get the red/green lights to work (I set up each Volume block in the preset to not connect to anything), and use the CC's as above. This used to work great as I could choose essentially had 4 drives available at any time as a virtual pedalboard AND have each effect show a red or green state. I updated to the latest firmware and can't do this anymore. It looks like now you can't choose and Axe-fx block AND use both CC's per switch?

Any way to get this functionality back or do something similar to get the lights to work with this?
Click to expand...

I've never heard of the MFC working that way. The manual's always stated that general use commands are only sent when Axe-FX function = none.

Are you sure you didn't skip a step you took before, like matching drive bypass & XY to the same CCs as the volume block bypasses? I think there's a way to do that. You used 4 switches and 4 vol/pan blocks for this, correct?

edit: The idea I had wouldn't work. Maybe an earlier firmware did what you described. Since it's not intended according to the manual, it would have probably been considered a bug & disabled once noticed.
 
Last edited:
I'll have to check, but I think the red lights only work when linked to an Axe block, not a cc (that's why I had it set to "Volume").

I tried setting up the Volume blocks (1-4) to link to the 4 switches and use the same CC #s as the drives, but still only get green lights when the drive instance is chosen, no red lights. Maybe I am off my rocker, but I swore the red lights used to work and why I had to use the "Volume" blocks as dummies to get the red/green light functionality.
 
Last edited:
yek said:
In the past this type of setup could result in short audio hickups, because of switch polling.
I'm curious if this is still noticeable.
Click to expand...

I played around with it a bit today and didn't notice any hickups. "Channel changing" was perfectly seamless, no signal drop on changes, and there were no periodic glitches or anomalies I heard over 10 minutes or so of playing. So no weirdness in my experience.
 
  • Like
Reactions: yek
yek said:
You can assign different Amp states to different scenes. When you switch to another scene, the amp changes, and other effects are engaged or bypassed, based on their saved states. In other words, the last scene does not "inherit" the state of effects in the previous scene.
Click to expand...

Actually it could be a way to improve the scene feature : have a possibility to say that an Effect "inherit" its state from the last selected scene.
Could be used for the AMP/CAB. They would have an "initial state" when a PRESET-SCENE is selected, like it works now. But then as one move from one scene from another it would "Inherit" its state from the last select scene.
The point would be to have a just the state of Effects (no AMP and CAB) change from one scene to another. Currently each scene has to say which x/y and On/bypass states the AMPs and CABs block are(potentially 2 of each in a preset).
 
  • Like
Reactions: yek
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom