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Footswitch Behavior


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Hey guys,

I own an Amplifi 150 and an FBV Shortboard. My problem is that, although the manual clearly states that the footswitches should toggle when "pressed", they do not actually toggle until released (and only if I release them within like 2 seconds). Note that this behavior can be observed for all that footswitches on my unit.

This is especially annoying when using the "tap" footswitch to set the BPM of a delay since I naturally emphasize the press action instead of the release action to define a tempo (this just makes sense in my head, as the down motion is what ususally creates the acoustic feedback and it is kinda hard for me to adapt). However, the "tap" function does not react to the press but the release as well.

I have already done some research in forums etc. but I could not find anything helpful.

Is this the intended behavior? If so, does anyone know of a way to invert the response behavior of the buttons on the Shortboard (i.e. send on the rising edge instead of the falling edge)? I really like both of the products but this nonconformity with the manuals is kind of ruining my experience with the controller :/

Looking forward to your answers. I am grateful for every bit of information on this topic.

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It is not a change from 1 to 0 or 0 to 1 - that would be the case if it was a simple analogue switch. The FBV is a midi controller/sends control messages, and that consists of a series of bytes, not just a single state change, so it would be easy to already switch when the FBV sends "button down" message, and not wait until "button released" message.

 

But alas it would have to be changed in the Firmware of the Amp you have it connected to, as the board just sends those control messages.

 

What would be harder to do of course is to have the tap-and-hold behaviour, but I'd happily not have that if in exchange it would act on button press, not release (or hold could only work on the currently active preset)

 

In any case: While it could be easily changed, it cannot be changed by the user/Line 6 would have to provide updated Firmware for the Amps.

 

I'm thinking about building a little controller box that would act as a middleman between the two (and when FBV sends button press, my box would immediately send the button release event as well) - already ordered some RJ45 breakout sockets.. Hope my cheap logic analyzer will be capable enough to reverese-engineer the protocol...

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@cloph:

Yeah thats what I thought...

I also was thinking about reverse-engineering the protocol but a quick google search has shown that this has already been done.

 

Either way, I was really hoping that I just overlooked something in the documentation since it also clearly states that this is not the intended behavior. It's a pitty that it is exactly inverted when compared to conventional stompboxes and there have not been any patches addressing this issue, especially given that this is probably a trivial feature to implement (I dont know the codebase and am sick of people thinking that they know how to fix bugs in my codebases when they really dont so I tend to be careful with those assumptions. However, in this case I dont see how it could be more complicated than implementing a mode in which the first MIDI-sequence triggers the switch).

 

Nevertheless, if you make any advances in this regard I would be grateful if you could keep me up to date :)

 

Thanx for your responses, cya around.

 

PS @cloph: BTW, I PM'd you.

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leading edge trailing edge has nothing to do with when the switch happens. it sends multiple *bytes* of data on each event (press, release,...) and in addition to that parity/checking bytes and keep-alive messages - so whether it decodes the individual bits on leading or trailing doesn't matter at all/is not the point. So on every time there is an event there are tons of 1 to 0 (and back) transitions.

More over not the point that changing the behavior would be hard because of that. It is a design decision, not a technical necessity. Line6 apparently choose to add a timer to watch for "press-and-hold" style input instead of switching immediately. 

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