MFC and Strymon

[papaflann]

I've put the Axe FX in the closet for a bit and committing to strymon for a while with a traditional amp. So far so good.

I want to use my MFC to control my strymon pedals, nothing fancy right now just changing presets via midi. I"ve accomplished this where i programmed an IA to change a patch on the mobius. I can't figure out how to bypass the preset on the mobious when i disengage the pedal though, like a traditional stompbox etc. When i switch from one preset to another, i have to tap the IA switch twice for the change to take place on the strymon.

Any thoughts on how to change presets on the strymon via MFC by pressing one button? Meaning if i engage a chorus on the strymon and I want a phaser next, i could just press the phaser IA and it would disengage the chorus etc and select the phaser at the same time. Also, if i want to bypass the chorus and have no phaser, just step on the chorus IA and it will bypass the chorus.

Thanks!

 

[unix-guy]

I've put the Axe FX in the closet for a bit and committing to strymon for a while with a traditional amp. So far so good.

I want to use my MFC to control my strymon pedals, nothing fancy right now just changing presets via midi. I"ve accomplished this where i programmed an IA to change a patch on the mobius. I can't figure out how to bypass the preset on the mobious when i disengage the pedal though, like a traditional stompbox etc. When i switch from one preset to another, i have to tap the IA switch twice for the change to take place on the strymon.

Any thoughts on how to change presets on the strymon via MFC by pressing one button? Meaning if i engage a chorus on the strymon and I want a phaser next, i could just press the phaser IA and it would disengage the chorus etc and select the phaser at the same time. Also, if i want to bypass the chorus and have no phaser, just step on the chorus IA and it will bypass the chorus.

Thanks!

I have no experience with Strymon, but a midi PC is a midi PC.

If you are truly changing presets then pressing the button once should be all you need because the MFC will send a PC (program change) to the Strymon.

You've said you configured an IA (Instant Access) button to change presets, but Instant Access buttons are NOT for sending PCs, but for sending CC (control change) messages which are typically used to turn individual effects on and off. Maybe you didn't really do that or you're just using incorrect terminology?

 

[Bakerman]

It sounds like configuring a linked IA group will be one step of what you're trying to do.

If you know the MIDI command to bypass the Strymon it should be possible to program that as the "off" command for these IAs. I don't know if you'll need the previous IA to send its "off" command when activating a new one. (This is optional with the MFC.)

You've said you configured an IA (Instant Access) button to change presets, but Instant Access buttons are NOT for sending PCs, but for sending CC (control change) messages which are typically used to turn individual effects on and off. Maybe you didn't really do that or you're just using incorrect terminology?

 

[unix-guy]

It sounds like configuring a linked IA group will be one step of what you're trying to do.

If you know the MIDI command to bypass the Strymon it should be possible to program that as the "off" command for these IAs. I don't know if you'll need the previous IA to send its "off" command when activating a new one. (This is optional with the MFC.)

I stand corrected... Although this seems somewhat counterintuitive. An IA usually is an on/off setting and program changes are not. For example, you can have 3 IAs in various combinations independently but you can only select 1 preset at a time.

I can see specific use cases, but I'd probably stick to Preset Mode if I really wanted to just change presets.

 

[papaflann]

Thanks for the replies guys, i appreciate them. If this makes a difference, i have my bank value on the MFC set to 0. Does that make all the IA buttons "non-preset" then? In response to Unix-guy's first reply, that could be the issue.

I know the strymons accept PC messages to change presets. Maybe I can use the CC to achive the same thing?

As a whole, there isn't alot of videos and stuff on the web to go by for this. Alot of people have to just figure it out, which i'm trying to do but it's a slow go.

I wonder if setting the switch type to Hardware will do it instead of toggle? Man it's just gonna be a huge amount of trial and error i believe.

The group method that bakerman was talking about may be the way to go.

Any other thoughts you guys have would be great as well.

thanks

 

[Richard Kaderabek]

Last year I composed a little peace of advice for those who use MFC in NON Axe FX mode with Strymon:
https://forum.fractalaudio.com/thre...mode-advice-for-everyone.124319/#post-1478753
I recommend using audio switcher for enabling/disabling Strymons. Of course, there are CCs emulating stepping on a physical footswitch of Strymons to bypass it but picture this situation:
IA 6 sends PC 00 to call chorus preset in Mobius's memory 0A and you KNOW the Mobius is BYPASSED, so you send CC80 of ON value 0 to enable appropriate switch (for memory of A it would be switch A...), you have in memory 0B phaser so you tell IA 7 to send PC 01 and you pretty obviously put them in LINK group since you want only chorus OR phaser to be ON (would you also programme stomp emulating CC82 for this IA 7 ??? - hard to tell).
So what happens when hitting on IA 7? LED of IA6 shuts down and along that the CC80 emulating stomp A of Mobius with OFF value would be trasmitted...and what if I change the initial condition (IA6 is OFF but Mobius's A switch is ON)...Sounds like puzzle.
O.K. - there's another CC for BYPASS, but again - the ON and OFF states of IA switches might get things pretty complicated, maybe (and that would work) there would be a solution in programing along PC for reaching desired memories in Mobius the additional CC102 val 127 for ON states and val 0 for OFF states. So when you reaching for phaser, LINK group shuts down IA 6, Mobius goes bypassed, then it goes to 0B memory and gets back from bypass to ON. Yeah that could do the job if the messages of BYPASS and ON arrive in desired order...

Live would be much more easier with audio looper switcher in place. But maybe you can make it work but I see a little struggle behind it.
Good luck and let us know.
Richard.

 

[papaflann]

Figured it out. Mobius on channel one, timeline on channel two. gotta set those in their respective menus on each pedal.

Set MFC to NONE in mode.

man then just go in Midi section and when you get to the PC page, I set the on and off portions of channel 1 and channel 2 to the program change that i wanted. So PC 1 in mobius channel one recalls a phaser...PC 1 in timeline on channel two recalls a dotted 8th etc...so yes i set the on and off portion of the PC to the same recall patch number.

I assigned half the MFC to the mobius and half of the MFC to the timeline. You just go through and set both channel one and channel two of the PC that you want to recall to the same PC. On the flip side you set the channel you don't want to any changes to, to OFF.

You may want to go in and make sure all your CC messages are off. They by default will correspond with their IA number i believe. You want to just go in and and set them to off.

I didn't use any CC commands besides #93 for the timeline which is tap tempo. There you don't want any PC changes sent from the IA, so in the CC portion of Midi within the MFC, you set it to CC 93 and 0-127. It controls the tap tempo for the timeline and is my definition my midi clock.

All my IA switches are set to Momentary. No lights stay lit at all. I named the patches on my strymon to their respective effect so i can either read them off of there or just listen to the effect.

I used MFC edit to name all the IA's.

I set my bank size to NONE. This is important. Can go into Reveal mode and that will do the same thing.

I have two bypass Patches programmed in the Mobius and Timeline. I do have a bypass switch for both of them on the board so I only have 15 IA"s to assign. I don't know how to get around this but i really dont care.

Any questions you can hit me up directly.

You gotta have a power supply for the MFC. I bought it directly from fractal.

I used the Nixie software to edit the strymons.

It is a good bit of memory but once you get it in there man, it's pretty cool.