I bought an mc8 about a month ago and I like it so much that I’m now waiting on delivery of my mc8 pro. My setup consists mainly of an RC 600 Looper, a gr55 guitar synth and a ve500 vocal processor. The mc8 is doing everything I want it to with the ve500 and the gr55. I’m not using it with the looper. There is one other thing it would be really nice to have but I don’t know if it can be done. I’ve searched, but I’m not finding a specific answer.
I use songbook Pro in my sets. It can be configured to send one midi command on song load, either a controller change or a program change but not both. I currently have it set to send a program change to the Looper to load the correct memory I have set up for that song. There are some songs where I have set up a specific bank in the mc8 for the particular patches that I will be using on the gr55. It would be really nice if this could come up automatically when I select that song in songbook. So my newbie question: can the mc8 be configured to receive an incoming MIDI message which triggers a bank change on the mc8? For example, when I select song number 15 in songbook pro, it sends a program change of 15 on the midi channel of the Looper which pulls up phrase memory 15. Is there a way to have the mc8 also receive that program change and in response retrieve Bank five on the mc8?
I’m wondering if any one knows if this is possible before I go down that rabbit hole trying to make it work. This forum has been great in learning to do what I have done with mine so far. Thanks a lot!
Hi,
usually one would simply send a PC message on the MC’s MIDI channel to change banks on the MC.
You can edit the bank messages to send any messages ‘on enter’ to control devices downstream. Would this be feasible for you?
Alternatively you could use the ‘MIDI message converter’ to change any incoming MIDI message. If you choose to convert the message ‘at input’ it is possible to convert the incoming PC message to a PC message that changes the bank of the MC. In this scenario the MC has to be placed after the looper in the MIDI chain. Because the original message wouldn’t be passed on.
Thanks for the quick reply. My iPad sends the program change via Bluetooth MIDI, and I don’t have Bluetooth on this mc8. However, if you can believe fedex, my MCA Pro will be here tomorrow. So what happens is I select a song in songbook Pro, which are numbered from 1 to 99 to correspond to the phrase memories in my RC600 and songbook Pro sends the program change on song load. These program change numbers do not correspond to the banks on the mc8. So the mc8 would have to receive the program change but then change it to a different PC number for the correct bank.
It just occurred to me, but if the mc8 pro has 128 Banks I could make the numbers correspond, and use 101 through 128 for my generic banks. I only have 12 or 15 songs that I have set up with specific Banks. And I can always put a preset for a bank return to my generic Bank on each one.
If that would work, then the question becomes can I set the receive to Omni and receive two different channels? I have two Loopers on two different channels because the song numbers in the sets for the two overlap. And can I exclude some program numbers from causing a bank change? This may be something that just doesn’t work.
Not sure if I got your issue correctly, but if it is possible to change songs via midi or keystrokes, you should probably change the route and control everything from the MC. That would be a much more flexible approach.
Unfortunately, I can’t change songs in songbook Pro with midi. It only sends not receives. I think what I’m trying to do is just overly complicated. When I change to any one of the 200 songs in my set list songbook Pro automatically changes my RC 600. That keeps me from having to bend over and spin the knob every time I switch songs. That was the main goal. I do still need to remember to change my gr55 to the appropriate patches, but that can be a little clunky if they are several Banks apart. What I’m going to do is just create a bank in the mc8 for each of the songs where I have a special group of presets I need in the synth, and let the mc8 pull up those presets so I don’t have to manually click around through the banks with the GK 2 switch on the guitar. I only have about 12 or 15 songs like that and I can set up One Bank, I’ll call it song list, on the mc8 where each preset does a bank jump to the bank where the song is set up. That will accomplish pretty much the same thing. Thanks for the suggestions. Just got my MCA Pro today so I’ve got a long weekend ahead. Lol.