MIDI switching & effects states

[benevans1986]

Apologies if these have been answered in any other topics and I've missed it.

 

1)

 

I'm trying to set up channel switching with an EVH 5153 50 watt head and the Helix. I previously used a TC Nova System, which was a breeze to set up channel changes (put the EVH in 'learn' mode, select the amp channel you want, then simply press the footswitch you want to assign it to on the Nova).

 

Should I be doing it in a similar way with the Helix? Or do I need to do something within Command Centre to get then to cooperate?

 

2)

 

Within a preset, can I assign footswitches to turn on different effect states and amp channels? For example:

 

FS1 - Clean channel, no effects

FS2 - Clean channel with chorus

FS3 - Crunch channel with reverb

FS4 - Lead channel with delay and boost

Etc

 

So when I switch from 2 to 4, the channel will change, the chorus will turn off and the delay and boost will turn on. Is that possible at all? Or would I have to use presets to do this?

 

It's mainly so I can maintain spillover/trails between sounds, which is a bit of a bugbear.

[JC-Tonequest]

This is totally possible. You will assign the fx blocks to the switches in the state (bypassed or active) you desire and then you'll go to the control center and assign those same switches to do a Midi PC change. You will have to set it to the midi channel that your EVH is set to then just call the PC# 1 and 2 (for example). You'll then learn which channel you want activated with the appropriate footswitch. You'll probably want to customize the footswitch name and colors to make sense to you. Hope that makes sense and isn't too confusing.

[DarrellM5]

I took a look at the manual for your amp online and it looks to me like it should be fairly easy to accomplish.  Give this a shot and let us know.

 

I think this would work:

• Set up 3, or however many you want, footswitches to send MIDI commands in the Command Center
  • FS8 ->  Command=MIDI CC, MIDI Ch=1, CC#=1, Value=1
  • FS9 ->  Command=MIDI CC, MIDI Ch=1, CC#=2, Value=1
  • FS10 -> Command=MIDI CC, MIDI Ch=1, CC#=3, Value=1
• Push both Channel Select buttons on your amp to put it into MIDI Learning Mode
• Press FS8 on Helix, the Amp Channel 1 LED should start to blink
• Select the target amp channel using the channel select buttons on your amp 
• Repeat for the other footswitches
• Push both Channel Select buttons on your amp to exit Learning Mode

I believe that once you go through this procedure once, you can use the same MIDI values in any preset without having to set up your amp again.

 

 

O

[benevans1986]

I took a look at the manual for your amp online and it looks to me like it should be fairly easy to accomplish.  Give this a shot and let us know.

 

I think this would work:

• Set up 3, or however many you want, footswitches to send MIDI commands in the Command Center
  • FS8 ->  Command=MIDI CC, MIDI Ch=1, CC#=1, Value=1
  • FS9 ->  Command=MIDI CC, MIDI Ch=1, CC#=2, Value=1
  • FS10 -> Command=MIDI CC, MIDI Ch=1, CC#=3, Value=1
• Push both Channel Select buttons on your amp to put it into MIDI Learning Mode
• Press FS8 on Helix, the Amp Channel 1 LED should start to blink
• Select the target amp channel using the channel select buttons on your amp 
• Repeat for the other footswitches
• Push both Channel Select buttons on your amp to exit Learning Mode

I believe that once you go through this procedure once, you can use the same MIDI values in any preset without having to set up your amp again.

 

 

O

 

Thanks dude, I will give that a go!

 

On the question of effects states - I take it this isn't possible? From what I've recently read, 'scenes' within presets aren't available in the Helix are they?

[mdmayfield]

On the question of effects states - I take it this isn't possible? From what I've recently read, 'scenes' within presets aren't available in the Helix are they?

 

Not in the way you're probably thinking. You can kind of simulate them, in a limited way, by assigning several things (bypass toggle + min/max paramters) to one pedal, but it takes a lot of creative problem solving, because:

 

- You can only assign up to 8 tasks per switch

- The switches can only *toggle* things (there's no "turn it off whether it's on or off")

 

There's no "save state" for all effects, like would be most convenient. That's probably not there because it would be very hard to implement without greatly complicating the UI, and they don't want to put it in until/unless they can find a simple way to do it.

 

One simple thing I think Line 6 could do, as a useful workaround, would be to watch for when two presets have identical effect blocks, just in different states, and not bother reloading them, thus eliminating the short mute between presets. So you get the "scenes" functionality simulated by using two different presets.