Community: Message List

Re: Question on how to set advanced midi control of wah, pitch and looper?

support@line6.com — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 21:44:24 GMT

Ok, for the record, I did some extensive testing recently. I have both a Roland FC300 and a Novation Remote SL 37 which can send all sorts of midi messages, CCs, sysex, etc.

So to answer my question and to perhaps help other people in similar situation, here are my findings. I will also post some feature requests as suggested by Hugo above to improve the MIDI support on the Spider Valve. With a bit of luck maybe it'll work, who knows. Anyway, here goes:

- Wah on/off: can be controlled by a midi sysex (no CC): the following worked for me:

ON: F0 00 01 0C 12 06 63 00 00 09 00 00 01 F7

OFF: F0 00 01 0C 12 06 63 00 00 09 00 00 00 F7

- Wah position: CC4 seems to be it, as suggested by the manual, but it does not practically work as the wah effect turns itself off as soon as the value is changed. But if I turn it back on (using the on/off switch above), I can hear that the wah position changed (as the wah tone changes, it either has more treble or less depending on what I did...). So it works but there's a bug I suspect. I don't know how the FBV manages to do it then, would be interesting to hear from Line6 (must be something else than a MIDI message).

- Volume pedal (CC7): The same thing happens with the CC who's supposed to control the volume pedal (as mentioned by the MIDI implementation manual). Whenever I change CC7's value, it seems like the volume changes for a second but instantly resets itself, as if something else was overriding it. So that also does not work, and seems to be having the same behavior than the CC4 somehow (another bug I suspect). I tried using this to control the pitch pedal position, because there's a setting somewhere to control the pitch with either the volume or wah pedal.

- Pitch glide (aka whammy): can be somewhat controlled via midi CC27, which is the "stomp FX swoosh position" as mentioned in the manual. But unfortunately that is not the same as controlling the pitch pedal position, but rather it is changing the "heel" setting of the pitch effect. So when you play with that CC, you hear something like a whammy, but the control is not as precise as with the actual position (pos) parameter of the pitch effect. In particular, the heel parameter only changes in "rough" increments of +3 / +5 semitones and avoids the 0 position (neutral or the same tone as the original) which prevents one from making something like a real whammy. Hence why I said you can emulate a whammy but only to a small extent, which is a big bummer.

- One funny thing I noticed, the pitch effect's position CAN be controlled with the midi Pitch Bend message. That's perhaps how the FBV does it, I dunno. But anyway, I don't know of a midi foot controller which sends pitch bend messages (found that by accident with my Remote SL midi keyboard) so this is useless to me, other than being anecdotal...

- Looper: there's apparently no midi messages to control this, sadly.

Hence it seems like these are all small issues / bugs (aside from the looper) which could easily be fixed and/or patched by Line6 to provide better midi control of the amp. I will also send this as a feature suggestion to Line6 support.

Re: Mkii 112 as a 50W head?

support@line6.com — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 18:29:33 GMT

I can't answer in technical terms, but I got the 112 that I use with my band at rehearsals, we have a loud drummer, and this amp is LOUD! I never have trouble fitting in the mix in that live setting, and I rarely dial the master volume at more than say 9 o'clock (don't know the actual number, probably like 2-3 on a scale of 10). I'm actually scared to push the volume louder as it seems like it might break something on the amp!! But with a 4x12 speaker cab I dunno how that works out, and definitely for home level you'll have to put the amp at like 0.5 on a scale of 10, but you should be able to get a decent tone at "home" level too. All IMHO...

Spider Valve MKii - how to control looper via midi ?

support@line6.com — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 18:04:05 GMT

Hi, I would like to know what specific midi messages (CC / sysex, etc) can control the looper effect on the spider valve MK2? I looked at the midi implementation manual already, read it thoroughly, but found nothing on this, but I'm assuming this is possible since the FBV boards can control it.

Thanks!

Re: Question on how to set advanced midi control of wah, pitch and looper?

support@line6.com — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 00:51:27 GMT

Can anyone from Line6 support please answer this?

The question which is left to answer is, what midi messages can control the looper effect on the SV MK2 (CC / Sysex) ?

Thanks!

Re: Question on how to set advanced midi control of wah, pitch and looper?

support@line6.com — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 05:51:38 GMT

Ok it seems, according to this post, that CC #102 might control the Wah On/Off. I haven't tried yet so this is unconfirmed.

As for CC #27, I'll try that out when I get a chance, thanks!

Anyone has info for the looper control then?

Re: Question on how to set advanced midi control of wah, pitch and looper?

support@line6.com — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 16:01:28 GMT

Hi, I've checked this already (should've mentioned). Basically there are some stuff which isn't clear from the manual, and then some things which are just not mentioned.

I see a few mentions about the wah in the Spider Valve midi implementation guide (that's the one you are referring to), but there is not mention about how to control the pitch glide (to make a "whammy" effect). There's a CC (#72) to turn on the pitch glide, but then nothing about how to control its position (pitch). There's a mention on pitch bend, but that is not really practical as most foot controllers I know don't send pitch bend messages.

Then there's absolutely nothing about the looper. I know that this feature can be controlled via the FBV controllers, and I'm assuming these use MIDI as well, so this is just a "hidden" feature (or it was just forgotten to add in that midi manual) and there must be some midi message(s) to control this. Anyway I'd like to know what messages (sysex and other) can control the looper and midi pitch glide position mostly).

Question on how to set advanced midi control of wah, pitch and looper?

support@line6.com — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 20:36:40 GMT

Hello, I have a Spider Valve MKII with a Roland FC300 midi foot board. I got a lot of the controls working to remote control the FX and other parameters of the amp, but I am not able to get either the wah, pitch glide and looper to work correclty.

Can someone point me what midi / sysex messages I need to control:

- wah on / off

- wah position

- pitch glide position

- looper on / off and playback

Also, just to make sure I got this right, pitch glide is supposed to be a like a whammy right? Anyway that's what I want to emulate, a whammy pedal, where the pedal movement controls the pitch between a preset low and max.

Thanks!

How to turn on the wah effect using midi CC?

support@line6.com — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 01:07:02 GMT

Is there any way to turn the Wah effect on / off via a midi CC ?? Also same thing for the looper, I didn't see any midi CC's to control it?

I've looked everywhere in the documentation about midi capabilities of the Spider Valve MKii but I've seen nowhere a mention of a CC to turn the Wah effect on or off, same thing for the looper. It seems the ONLY way to do this is with a sysex message, or by using a FBV foot pedal (which I assume sends that same sysex message internally).

Re: Spider Valve MKII HD100-Getting a pop sound when switching presets

support@line6.com — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 18:30:17 GMT

What flash version you guys have? I think on mine it's 1.50, I think I remember reading that the newer flash update (2+) is supposed to fix this.

Anyway I'll try this and will see... Though I have to admit this is not very impressive, there should be some "crossfade" between patch switching (put a super quick fade out on old patch and fade in on new patch), that's what I'd think...Or put an option to do this somewhere...

Pod HD on bass?

support@line6.com — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 06:02:29 GMT

I've seen that the X3 had amp models for bass and even for vocals, but I didn't see this advertised on the HD500 I'm looking at... Does anyone use it on bass or vocals and can they assess how much difference there is compared to the X3 ?

Are there any plans from Line 6 to include other amp models to fit this need in the near future ?

Thanks !