Wish Scene selection by MIDI Program Change

GlennO

GlennO

Axe-Master
Scenes have evolved on the AxeFX to the degree that they are almost like a bank of 8 mini-presets. The natural way to control something like that via midi is through the use of midi Program Change (PC). Unfortunately, the AxeFX controls scenes via midi CC instead of PC. That requires the use of advanced midi controllers which have specialized firmware that attempts to make CC work like PC. The better solution would be to simply use PC. That way any midi controller could be used to select scenes.


Imagine if you could reserve a range of Program Change messages exclusively for selecting scenes. Sending one of those reserved Program Change numbers would change the scene, not the preset.

For example, say you reserved Program Change numbers 1 through 8 for scene selection instead of preset selection. That way you could set up 8 buttons on your MIDI pedal board for PC 1-8 and those 8 buttons could be used to select a scene, regardless of what preset you currently have loaded into your AxeFX.

It would be difficult, if not impossible (depending on your midi controller), to set up a group of 8 buttons on a MIDI pedal board to do this using the current method of CC. Also, using PC in this way would mean you could glance at your pedal board and see which of the 8 buttons is illuminated as a clue to see what scene you currently have selected.

Again, the key here is to use PC to change the scene without changing the preset, and to be able to change the scene regardless of which preset is currently selected.
 
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I’m trying to understand the use case better. With my FCB1010 I used CC to change between 8 scenes no matter the preset. It worked for every preset. Is this a limitation with other midi controllers to where you would have to use PC instead of CC?
 
Chad Beattie said:
I’m trying to understand the use case better. With my FCB1010 I used CC to change between 8 scenes no matter the preset. It worked for every preset. Is this a limitation with other midi controllers to where you would have to use PC instead of CC?
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PC works better than CC for selection of enumerated items like presets or scenes. The goal is to step on a button once and select a scene, then press a different button once to select a different scene. In addition, the last scene button you press illuminates, and the other scene buttons de-illuminate. That's impossible to do with my Roland FC200, or most midi controllers for that matter, using CC, but it's trivial to accomplish using PC.
 
Chad Beattie said:
I’m trying to understand the use case better. With my FCB1010 I used CC to change between 8 scenes no matter the preset. It worked for every preset. Is this a limitation with other midi controllers to where you would have to use PC instead of CC?
Click to expand...
Some midi controllers cannot send user specified data values for CCs.

Some midi controllers cannot make "stomp switches" be part of a mutually exclusive group, so LED indicators won't be correct (because only 1 scene is active at a time).
 
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unix-guy said:
Some midi controllers cannot send user specified data values for CCs.
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That's true, but the problem is bigger than that. The modes that controllers offer for midi CC buttons (latch, momentary) don't allow you to set up a group of buttons to be used for one-touch scene selection...in other words the way you normally expect preset selection to work. On the other hand, when set up for PC, that's exactly what they do. So even if you can get past the problem you describe, you're still faced with this problem.

Even if you're lucky and your controller can somehow wrangle a toggle mode to do that, many midi controllers can only be in one of two modes: all the buttons send CC or all the buttons send PC. So, you'd be faced with using your controller only for preset selection or only for scene selection. However, if PC could be used for scene selection, you could have one group of buttons for preset selection, and a second group of buttons for scene selection.

And even if you somehow get past those problems, there's the LED problem you mention with using CC.

PC for scene selection the way I describe above would simply and easily solve all of these problems. It would be nice if Fractal could throw us this bone until the FC6/12 are widely available so we can easily use midi controllers for scene selection.
 
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unix-guy said:
Some midi controllers cannot make "stomp switches" be part of a mutually exclusive group, so LED indicators won't be correct (because only 1 scene is active at a time).
Click to expand...

GlennO said:
That's true, but the problem is bigger than that. The modes that controllers offer for midi CC buttons (latch, momentary) don't allow you to set up a group of buttons to be used for one-touch scene selection...in other words the way you normally expect preset selection to work. On the other hand, when set up for PC, that's exactly what they do. So even if you can get past the problem you describe, you're still faced with this problem.
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That's what I meant in the previous reply... :)
 
FWIW, in Omnisphere, we have 8 parts, which are analogous to scenes. We do not use 8 different values for a single CC to do selection like the AxeFX for all the reasons described above. We give the user to ability to use PC to select parts. From experience, I can report it works great :).
 
I need this feature desperately. I have a midi foot switch that cc values are not programmable. (fixed to 127) I want to assign dedicated PC or CC numbers for each scene selection.
 
Even if you have programmable CC values on the switches, switch LED's don't follow the last selected CC switch, which makes it a pain to use. And even if you can live without that, many MIDI controllers don't have a switch mode that will allow you to use a group of CC switches (they often only have momentary and latch) for scene selection.

With the benefit of hindsight, it's easy to see PC would work better than CC for scene selection, but who would have known back then that scenes would become so prominent and successful on the AxeFX? :) Anyway, here's hoping this addition makes it into a future firmware update.
 
One of my MIDI controller has an ability to maintain its own patches and when i switch between patches, it sends an assigned MIDI signal. The LED indicator follows the current patch of its own. I'm fine with that controller, but like what you said, many other controllers (including one of mine) don't have such flexibility and simply assumes PC command for switch between patch or whatever. In general, I have no doubt that PC would be a better choice for scene selection. Providing some kind of MIDI block or option for assigning PC commands for each 8 scenes separately would be greate.
 
My MFC firmware for BJ Devices MFCs allows this (for some patch footswitches to send a CC message instead). New version due soon for the Mark II series.
 
GlennO said:
Even if you have programmable CC values on the switches, switch LED's don't follow the last selected CC switch, which makes it a pain to use. And even if you can live without that, many MIDI controllers don't have a switch mode that will allow you to use a group of CC switches (they often only have momentary and latch) for scene selection.

With the benefit of hindsight, it's easy to see PC would work better than CC for scene selection, but who would have known back then that scenes would become so prominent and successful on the AxeFX? :) Anyway, here's hoping this addition makes it into a future firmware update.
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Advanced MIDI controllers such as from RJM, Liquid-Foot, Gordius, do offer built-in support for grouped/linked CC buttons, with correct LED (mutually exclusive) indication. Or have even built-in Scenes support.
 
yek said:
Advanced MIDI controllers such as from RJM, Liquid-Foot, Gordius, do offer built-in support for grouped/linked CC buttons, with correct LED (mutually exclusive) indication. Or have even built-in Scenes support.
Click to expand...

Yes, that's exactly my point. The way scenes work currently requires the use of advanced midi controllers which have specialized firmware that attempts to make CC work like PC. The simpler solution is to just use PC. That way any midi controller could be used to select scenes.
 
PC messages already have a function in the Axe FX, selecting presets. There are only 128 possible PC messages. There are 512 presets on the Axe III MK1 and I think 1024 on the MK2. For an MK2, you'd have to switch up to the 9th bank via CC#0 in order to get to PC messages that wouldn't call up a different preset. You could remap things to use lower PC numbers if desired, but we already have MIDI Mapping available.
 
sean.e said:
Similar to the comment re: advanced MIDI controllers, this is just a tip of the hat to another workaround:
It looks like the MIDI Solutions Event Processor could be programmed to map the PCs sent by a controller into CCs for the Axe-Fx
http://midisolutions.com/prodevp.htm
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/MIDIevent--midi-solutions-event-processor
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Yes I know. That's exactly my point :). The way scenes work currently requires the use of advanced midi controllers which have specialized firmware that bends over backwards to make CC almost work like PC, when it would be much simpler to just use PC in the first place.
 
mr_fender said:
PC messages already have a function in the Axe FX, selecting presets. There are only 128 possible PC messages. There are 512 presets on the Axe III MK1 and I think 1024 on the MK2. For an MK2, you'd have to switch up to the 9th bank via CC#0 in order to get to PC messages that wouldn't call up a different preset. You could remap things to use lower PC numbers if desired, but we already have MIDI Mapping available.
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Of course. As I mentioned above, I'm suggesting reserving 8 PC's for this purpose. The current MIDI mapping isn't suitable for this purpose since it doesn't select scenes independent of the current preset.
 
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