Re: midi pedals

[Kim Flint <kflint@loopers-delight.com>]

At 07:35 AM 9/3/2001, Jason Fink wrote:
>John Tidwell wrote:
>
> > I think Electrix may come to regret listing some of
> > those midi controllers on their web-site. I already
> > own an ART X-15 & it provides limited control at best.
> > I have a Peavey PC-1600x on order. I'm hoping it will
> > solve a lot of my midi control problems.
> >
>
>Akkk!   I just bought an X-15 on ebay  ($60) hoping it will
>really open things up!  Have not even received it yet.

That is one of many pedals that was only created for simply selecting a 
preset on a multi-effect in a guitar rack, and giving a little bit of 
continuous controller functionality to adjust the reverb amount or 
something. They hardly support any midi commands and have very limited 
programmability. If I remember right, the x-15 is even limited to a single 
midi channel.

You can hardly expect these limited-function pedals to be very useful for 
controlling a more sophisticated device like a looper. They won't be able 
to control all the functions. Even if you can get it to control some of 
the 
functions, sooner or later you will find it won't do what you want. And 
certainly if you are starting to play with something like the Repeater, 
you 
will be looking at more midi devices in the future, like sequencers, 
synths, samplers, etc. So why waste time with it?

Get a full featured pedal that supports all of the midi commands, and can 
be programmed to work in a variety of ways. You will be much happier in 
the 
long run. There are plenty of good ones that don't even cost more and are 
not any harder to use. Something like the digitech PMC-10, lake-butler 
midigator, roland fc-200, yamaha mfc-10, rocktron all-access, etc.

I heard that digital music corp is finally making a new version of the 
Ground Control. Does anybody know anything about that? Hopefully they will 
do it right this time and include the full midi spec and more options for 
how the buttons operate. (i.e., hopefully they make something like the 
PMC-10.) The old ground control was so frustrating because it had the 
potential to be a good pedal, but they completely crippled it by only 
supporting program change and a some limited cc control. Not to mention 
lack of midi-in so you couldn't even save patches and restore them.

kim


______________________________________________________________________
Kim Flint                     | Looper's Delight
kflint@loopers-delight.com    | http://www.loopers-delight.com