Midi mapping with Mobile Keys 49

[hpate]

Hi - I know this is going to irk the professionals and those who've invested a lot of time in MIDI, but please bear with me, as I am just getting started.  I will study and get to know MIDI as I get the chance, but I also learn by example, and this will help.

 

Specifically, I want to use a keyboard sustain pedal as a kick drum trigger.  Maybe I am thinking of this the wrong way, but I was thinking that I could connect the pedal to the Expression input on my MK49, which is connected to my iPad running MusicStudio (with its Drum Kit set selected), and somehow map the pedal's "note" to trigger the bass drum note, which is the lowest C key.

 

I just don't understand enough of the MIDI terminology, I guess, to figure out what the Controller, Channel, Program and any other settings should be.

 

I have watched some videos on MIDI - including some guy who is doing what I want to do with another keyboard (YouTube video WQereUXWGvc), but he is so high, I just can't get through it.  Plus, I can't translate the actions listed in his text into what I am reading in the MK49 manual.  I am sure that's because I don't grasp MIDI yet.

 

I've also started a couple of MIDI tutorials, but just haven't had the time to really put into it to this point.  Anyway, the point is, I've given some effort to understand it, and I think if someone can just explain how I'd accomplish this particular task, it would probably connect some dots for me in overall understanding.  I want to try and make this happen for an event that is coming up, so it can't wait until I get through a set of MIDI courses.

 

Anyone willing to help me out?  I'd appreciate it.

 

HP

[phil_m]

Looking at the manual for the Mobile Keys 49, it looks like you can assign the expression pedal to any continuous controller number you want (in MIDI terminology - CC#), but to trigger your bass drum note you'd need an actual note value. So you could pretty easily, for instance, trigger the kick drum from the keyboard, but in order to do it from the expression input, you'd need to map that CC message to a note value. There might be some way to do that with software, but other than that, you'd need something like the MIDI Solutions Event Processor to map one MIDI command to something else.

 

The other thing that I see as a problem is getting the expression pedal jack to work with a sustain type pedal (really, to trigger a kick, you'd probably want a momentary pedal which generally you don't use as a sustain pedal). If this jack is like the expression pedal input on other Line 6 devices, it will only work with an variable impedance expression pedal.

[hpate]

Thanks.  Unfortunately, that is still way beyond my ability to understand at this point, although I do get what you are saying about the sustain pedal maybe not being the right device.  I really wasn't stuck on using the expression jack, but I guess from what you're saying that the sustain jack would have the same issues.

 

I'll keep studying and trying to understand.  The instructions the link I shared may be specific to his keyboard/controller, but they sort of gave me hope I could do something similar with the MK49.  I just didn't see the correlation.  Here's what he describes for his keyboard:

 

"Press the pedal to select it for editing.  Press Ctrl Assign and enter 147 (this is the CC for note on/off) on the numeric keypad.  Press Data 1 to enter the MIDI note number.  Press Data 2 and make sure it's set for 0, then press Data 3 and set it to 127, or whatever velocity value you want to send."

 

Again, thanks.  I'll keep working on it.