scott93105 Posted March 21, 2015 Share Posted March 21, 2015 The HD500X makes a great MIDI foot controller. I use it with Ableton on the desktop - works great; I love assigining the foot pedal to some effect parameter or filter - so cool. It works great with JamUp on the iPad too. I am having trouble setting up the HD500x expression pedal to work with one of the wah pedals in Mainstage 3. I can turn stomp boxes on and off via MIDI just fine, but I'm having trouble with the expression pedal assignment; I can't figure the correct parameters. Can anybody help? Thanks! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amsdenj Posted March 22, 2015 Share Posted March 22, 2015 You should be able to add a MIDI control to the MainStage layout, then automatically assign it to the epxression pedal by selecting the POD HD500 MIDI device and moving the pedal over its range. But since the Wah in the HD500 is pretty good, why not use that directly? I use an HD500X as an audio interface and MIDI controller into MainStage using S-Gear as the digital amplifier, and a Fishman TriplePlay guitar MIDI controller for other tones. I use a number of front of the amp effects directly in the HD500 (compressor, wah, phasor, tube drive, etc.), then use S-Gear's after the amp effects (mod, delay, reverb). It sounds fantastic and works great. It wasn't an easy setup through. I'm working on a blog entry describing the details. Will have it done soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scott93105 Posted March 22, 2015 Author Share Posted March 22, 2015 Thanks, I was having issues setting it up trying to use a CC of my choice, but when I used the built in expression pedal CC of 11 in Mainstage 3 it worked perfectly. I'm not sure if that was coincidental due to other parmeter changes I made or if you must use 11. Obviously, I'm learing as I go. I have a couple reasons for not always using the HD500 amp models and effects/wah. I have amp plugins that sound better and have even more features than the HD500X... and when using one HD500X as a midi controller for multiple items (bass, guitar, keyboard, vocal) within a Mainstage concert, it seems easier to control levels, effects, and amps, from one place. Your setup sounds cool. I look forward to the blog entry! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daFrimpster Posted April 9, 2015 Share Posted April 9, 2015 I have a Variax into a POD HD500 with and H&K tubemeister 36 and a Fishman triple Play into a Macbook Pro/Mainstage3 with an Alesis audio interface. I just purchased the FTP and the Macbook. I am intrigued by your use of the POD as your audio interface. I think I am going to look into that. Are you able to use the triple play interface in Mainstage or do you use the triple play as a generic midi controller? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amsdenj Posted April 9, 2015 Share Posted April 9, 2015 I do use the TriplePlay as a MIDI input device for a channel strip, and then use any software instrument available in MainStage/Logic. You can also use the TriplePlay plugin in MainStage, but its not really necessary, and you can't send MIDI messages to plugins in MainStage. There are also a lot of 32/64 bit issues with the TriplePlay software - its a bit out of date. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daFrimpster Posted April 29, 2015 Share Posted April 29, 2015 That sounds much like my experience. I am still getting it dialed in but I LOVE the possibilities it brings. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maxdylan Posted July 12, 2021 Share Posted July 12, 2021 I've just stated using my HD500 as an interface and midi controller for Mainstage and it's working great. One thing I would love to figure out is how to get the HD500 to give feedback on certain switches I have. For instance, I'm using a pedal board in Mainstage and I'd like the pedal state to give on or off feed back on the HD500. Has anyone figured this out? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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