Boss RV-200 Reverb

[madtom]

Greetings. This is my first post on this forum.

I am waiting on a new MC6 PRO and, in preparation for that, I thought I’d deep dive into trying to learn more about controlling an RV-200 Reverb pedal.

Since I don’t have the MC6 PRO in hand yet, I’m trying out the online editor in DEMO mode. What I’ve not found is an entry for the RV-200 in the MIDI Dictionary. RV-500 is there though, so perhaps it will be a rosetta stone for the RV-200. However, the RV-500 seems to include delay as well as reverb control, so the CC codes for it control both voices (I guess).

The RV-200 is a cryptic sort of device, from the stand-point of MIDI control because the documentation is so sparse. The RV-200 manual has some information, but it isn’t set up in clear tables like most pedal makers seem to provide. I gather this is a well known complaint about Boss and MIDI.

I’ve looked at two posts here that seem to have the most relevant information:

• RV-200 and MC8 - multiple presets
• Boss 200 series pedals - #2 by Pearlgiver

The first post deals with combining multiple presets on the RV-200, where the OP wanted to try to stack several reverbs in series in the same pedal (short answer: you can’t) and in the second, the OP does a handy live journal account of exploring MIDI control with several other Boss 200 series pedals, but not the the reverb, which came out since that post.

There’s really nothing else that I found here. I’ll keep looking though.,

The Boss support page for the RV-200 has a link for the RV-200 MIDI Implementation manual, but it is more of an engineering spec than a listing of MIDI PC and CC codes for the pedal. I’m sort of daunted, but I will try to decode it. If I figure things out, I’ll report in this thread.

In the interim, has anyone found or created a proper resource for the RV-200 that details how one might control it? This doesn’t have to be specific to the MC6 PRO; I’m just looking for a decent set of CC codes.

[madtom]

Being a new member of the forum, I could only post two links

Here’s the link to the The Boss support page for the RV-200, which has the RV-200 User Manual and the MIDI Implementation Manual that I mentioned in the original post.

[Asteroid]

I don’t own the RV-200, but it seems that you can set CC numbers manually for a limited amount of functions by going into the menu. This is found in the user manual on page 13:

[madtom]

Thank you @Asteroid, I have been looking that page over. It’s a good start.

[GuitarWolf]

Hi,
The way Midi works on the 200 Series is a bit unusual, but quite straight forward once you understood the principle.

Here is the list of parameters you can control via CC

You’ll notice that all parameters except effect on/off correspond to the physical switches,knobs or optional peripheral devices (expression/ctl switch).

What you need to do is to set up the physical switches, knobs or peripherals, e.g. assign ‘effect level’ to an expression pedal (you don’t have to connect an actual pedal).

Then you have to specify a CC that corresponds to that switch or knob.

Sending this CC will simulate an actual press of that switch or twist of that knob etc.