Possible MIDI mapping issue for Channels in III

LOVING THE NEW III and have spent a lot of time reprogramming my MFC in MIDI mode to control it with all of the same functionality I had before until the new FCs become available. Outside of missing the benefits of bidirectional communication for synchronized on/off states, tap tempo light, etc., the MFC is now doing everything I could do before with one exception:

I previously used two different IA switches to manipulate a single Pitch block across X/Y states - one switch would turn on the X state for a half-step drop tuning, and the other would turn on the Y state for a whole-step drop tuning. I'm now trying to do the same thing using Channels A and B on the III. I currently have two different IA switches mapped to CC# 121 and have 121 mapped within the III on both the Bypass page and the Channel mapping pages in the MIDI setup section. I'm then trying to send CC Values to both engage the block and dictate the channel. It seems that when I send values 0 - 3, the III works as designed and sets the channels to A-D respectively. However, values less than 64 won't engage the block, only 64 - 127 will engage the block (based upon trial and error, I'm assuming 0-63 Bypass and 64-127 Engage. Unfortunately, all values between 4 and 127 consistently and only set the channel to D, not ABCD repetitively as described in the documentation on pages 45 and 139 of the manual. Therefore, if I want to engage the block by using a value between 64 and 127, I'm currently limited to only channel D, which won't work for my use case (I could use channel D in stead of A/B, but I'd still be limited to only doing either a half-step or whole-step drop, not both at the single tap of a switch.

I could probably use an additional pitch block to figure out a workaround, but I'd prefer to use just one and use the III as I think it is designed per the documentation. Is this just user error and my lack of MIDI knowledge, or could someone please confirm that the III is incorrectly interpreting values above 3 as only Channel D? If this is a bug, I'm guessing it might impact others as well with different use cases.

Thanks!!

P.S. The III is bad ass!!
 
you don't want the same CC# set for Bypass and Channels. use different CC#s.

for the channel CC#:

0=A
1=B
2=C
3=D
4=A
5=B
etc.
 
Chris,

Thanks for the quick response. For clarification, if I want to engage Channel A, what value do I put in the CC#? 0 doesn't seem to be an option, and as mentioned in the OP, any value from 4 to 127 has the effect of consistently setting the Channel to D.

Thanks for the help!
 
There is a CC#. Along with a CC# you send a value on that CC#. Values run from 0-127. I don’t know what “0 doesn’t seem to be an option” means.

On the Axe3, you choose the CC# you want to use. On your MIDI device, you set that CC# and with it set a value from 0-127 to send.

As an example, on the Axe3 Bypass page set CC#20 for Pitch1. On your MIDI controller, CC#20, value 127 will turn it on, and CC#20, value 0 will turn it off.

On the Channel page set CC#21 for Pitch1 - a different CC#. On your MIDI controller, CC#21, value 0 will set Channel A, and CC#21, value 1 will set Channel B.

Substitute the CC#’s for what you want to use. But the values need to be as mentioned.
 
Let me make sure I understand what you are trying to do.

Press IA #1, select Channel A and engage block (un-bypass)
Press IA #2, select Channel B and engage block (un-bypass)

You are using the same CC for both Channel and Bypass to save on used CC numbers.

By selecting a data value from 0-63, the Bypass should be off and 64-127, the Bypass should be on. Concurrently, by choosing a data value of modulo 4 between 64 and 127 should also select the correct Channel.

I my math is correct, you should be able to use 64 for engage + channel A and 65 for engage + channel B.

I would suggest starting simple to confirm that data values beyond 3 are not correctly functioning for Channel selection.

Try changing the CC for Bypass to something else for the moment and verify whether you can indeed select Channels by data values other than 0-3.

Report back what the results are.

My suspicion is that this is an internal conflict resulting from using the same CC for multiple functions. Creative use of midi!

Edit: I am not in front of my Axe Fx... I may have the Bypass behavior backwards. Is Bypass "on" the same as effect "off" (bypassed) or effect "on" (engaged)?
 
Sorry I missed the desire to turn on the block and change channels at the same time. How do you turn the block off?

I’ll investigate if values over 3 aren’t working correctly.
 
could someone please confirm that the III is incorrectly interpreting values above 3 as only Channel D?
just loaded the gear in my room after the gig last night.

i can confirm after a quick test what you've reported: values above 3 for Channel switching only set to Channel D, at least for the Delay1 and Pitch1 block.

will report. thanks!
 
Thanks so much for looking into this, greatly appreciated! I'm confident I can get my use case to work once fixed, but certainly a low priority.
 
If the channel CC isn't behaving as it should, can we take this opportunity to redefine the behavior so we don't need two CCs to handle block bypass and channel? Something along the lines of
  • 0: bypass (retain current channel)
  • 1: switch to channel A
  • 2: switch to channel B
  • 3: switch to channel C
  • 4: switch to channel D
  • 127: active (retain current channel)
Bypass CC behavior can stay the same to retain backward compatibility, and for those who just need to toggle blocks on/off. But for those doing more advanced MIDI control, this would cut the number of CCs needed in half, which is a good thing considering the block options outnumber the CCs available.
 
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