Toggling Pedals on and Off: Doing it Right?

MIDI Control
1

Hi everyone, have had my MC6 for a while and I have been wondering if I am doing this correctly,

I have a switch (F) dedicated to turning everything off at once: drives, delays, and a reverb. I have been using the “off” midi message for each individual pedal to do this. I also use a similar method for turning things on and off when I hit a switch to go to a different sound. So for instance,

Switch A:Turns on a big reverb, a delay, and a light drive
Switch B: Turns all of that off, and then turns on a different heavier drive and a light reverb

I have two Jackson Audio pedals each with two drives that can be turned on at once, meaning that switch F (the one that turns everything off) needs a total of 7 messages to get to clean. Ok not too crazy, but this gets complicated fast when I want Switch A to only turn on those 3 things I mentioned above. To do that, I have to also add multiple off messages, making things inside the editor a little cumbersome and lengthy. The way I have figured around this is to utilize the “engage preset” where every switch first calls the F preset (the one that turns everything off) then starts to activate what is needed.

TDLR; each switch needs to turn off everything not being used, then turn on what is needed for that preset, but creating multiple off messages for every preset is cumbersome.

My question: is there a better way to accomplish what I’m doing?

2

Because the MC6 has 3 pages per bank but only 2 viewable on the pedal (page 3 is often for an aux switch), an approach could be to set one of the switches on that 3rd page to be ‘clean’ and one ‘dirty’ for instance with the corresponding 7 messages you have today then use the normal switch to reference that other 3rd page switch to ‘engage’ it. That way it’s only one line but triggers 7 further messages from the other setting.

3

I didn’t even realize the MC8 has more presets for the aux switches until now, yall got it nice!! lol
Unfortunately the MC6 only has the 2 pages but it seems @jacobmatthewt, you might not be using or needing the second page? Without knowing your whole setup it sounds like you might be doing it best.
What kind of message turns off each pedal? I use an ML5 with only a couple midi pedals outside so my “off” is way simpler but if not I’d be using an engage preset same as you.

4

I hadn’t thought of using the additional pages, although I think it would be accomplishing the same thing as what I’m currently doing which is using an extra bank. Thanks though, gave me something to think about for other applications RE those additional pages.

5

I have a Jackson Optimist, Jackson Asabi, Walrus R1, and a Strymon Dig. The messages to turn them on/off are usually simple; a single CC message. What I am actually starting to do is use extra banks as a storage area for common stuff,

Bank 25
A

  • Turn the Klon side of the Optimist on
  • Turn the Tubescreamer side of the Asabi on

B

  • Turn the R1 on
  • Turn the Dig on

Ect…

And like I mentioned above I have a switch set to turn everything off like Bank 25 preset F. So that preset looks like this

  • CC: Turn off the Optimist left
  • CC: Turn off the Optimist right
  • CC: Turn off the Optimist EQ
  • CC: Turn off the Asabi left
  • CC: Turn off the Asabi right
  • CC: Turn off the R1
  • CC: Turn off the Dig

So if I’m working in Bank 2 and I am creating something for switch B, I just do an engage preset Bank 25-F as my first action, that way it cleans the slate of whatever might be on, and then activates what I want.

6

Yeah then it sounds like you’ve got a pretty straight forward approach. If you aren’t already using a 3 button aux switch it’s a game changer for the MC6! By default it controls 3 of the Page 2 presets but can be set for certain specific things like page turning and tap tempos. Wouldn’t change this particular use but really opened my mind up to more ways to organize and control everything.

7

I’m intrigued, which aux switch do you use?

1 Like
8

I use one of these but if you order from them make sure you get the AE version (the other one is for Strymon pedals only). There’s plenty of others that would work but I’m really happy with mine. I got a sparkle black one on the used market