Pitch Slide with FS or Patch

[johnlovesbeer]

Hi all!

 

Sorry for the poor title. I didn’t know how to word what I’m after in just a few words or even search in the forum, hence a new thread. 

Here goes;

 

I have a patch on my POD HD500X that I use for one song (Lonely Boy by The Black Keys) that has a pitch dive that takes low E down to Lower A. I’m currently using the onboard expression pedal but I find that I get inconsistent dive speeds by doing it this way in the cut thrust of a live gig. Also I occasionally forget to move the expression back to the zero position before the start of the song. Embarrassing!

We use backing tracks for keyboards, brass etc and my backing track player has MIDI out so I’ve inserted triggers into all our tracks to change the patches and FS switches on my POD automatically which is really cool and works really well. No more tap dancing on stage!

My question therefore is, is it possible to make a patch or FS function with Pitch Glide and set the pitch drop and time to function just once without having to use the expression pedal?

I can then set up my MIDI triggers in the track to flick back and forth between patches or FS function as many times as needed during the song.

 

I hope I’ve explained that well enough and it’s not too confusing!

 

Cheers,

 

John.

[stormstudios]

You could have a MIDI file that could be triggered on song start that has an automation track in it for the movement at the time code you need it in the song. You'd have to make that file in your DAW and send it to your drummer to trigger with the rest of the changes.

[johnlovesbeer]

Hi Storm

Thanks for the reply. No disrespect here but I think you’ve misread my post. 
I’m all across the midi side of things and I have it working exactly as you say.
My question is about trying to create a patch that utilises a pitch dive without using the expression pedal. 
Cheers anyway!

[stormstudios]

No problem. Then the answer is no. There is no time function in the Pod.

[johnlovesbeer]

Thanks for the quick reply!

That’s disappointing. Guess it’s the old fashioned way then!

[hurghanico]

If your MIDI capable backing track player is able to memorize and send also continuous MIDI control changes you could automatize (obviously not visually) at the right times of the song the expression pedal behavior which in turn would affect the specifically assigned FX..

 

EXP 1 responds to MIDI CC # 001 and EXP 2 responds to MIDI CC # 002, values 0 - 127..

 

But I don't know how much it would worth the effort to do all the necessary MIDI programming instead of actually using directly the pedal.

 

Hopefully your Audio/MIDI commands player has some control change lines (eg stright, or logarithmic curves, don't know which one would be better) easy appliable from a point A to B (so to say) to change gradually from min to max the EXP control values at the right times.

 

Or maybe you can record before the MIDI control changes to be used later during the playback automatically.

 

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All about POD HD500/X

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[johnlovesbeer]

Thanks Hurghanico,

 

Yes, that was my line of thinking.

So in your opinion it is possible to set a timed dive of the expression pedal as a patch or FS switch within the HD500X?

My track player reads from a USB drive so I set up all the midi triggers in Reaper. 

My other possible line of thinking was the possibility of an FS switch on the POD being set to momentary for this function. Then I wouldn’t have to write in another midi trigger to set the pitch dive back to zero. Is it possible to assign FS switches to momentary?

 

Cheers

[hurghanico]

8 hours ago, johnlovesbeer said:

So in your opinion it is possible to set a timed dive of the expression pedal as a patch or FS switch within the HD500X?

My track player reads from a USB drive so I set up all the midi triggers in Reaper. 

My other possible line of thinking was the possibility of an FS switch on the POD being set to momentary for this function. Then I wouldn’t have to write in another midi trigger to set the pitch dive back to zero. Is it possible to assign FS switches to momentary?

 

Footswitches are not suited for what you need to do since they can only switch between 2 states X/Y eg ON/OFF, therefore they can't be used to stream continuos data.

 

For streaming continuous MIDI data purposes you have to use one of the Expression Controls 1 or 2 which generally speaking can be controlled directly/physically by the pedal, or remotely by MIDI, the Pitch Glide must be assigned to it, and the min and max values must be set too.

 

You can do all the MIDI editings manually in Reaper and save them along with your backing tracks (but it will take time to do all the necessary programming), or as a much quicker solution, if you have a second interface with MIDI ports (POD can't be used directly since it doesn't send/receive MIDI through USB), you can record the live generated expression pedal control MIDI data (if needed you can edit them later in Reaper to make them perfect), and save them along with your backing tracks, but first the patch must be MIDI programmed accordingly to send out the MIDI data generated by the pedal movements.

 

Finally with your player you can have all the expression control jobs done automatically during the backing track playback (but you must be very careful not to touch even minimally the pedal during that playback time not to mess the programmed/saved pitch glide behavior).

 

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[johnlovesbeer]

Cheers Hurghanico,

 

That makes sense. I'll give it a crack!

  

[johnlovesbeer]

So one last question aimed at Hurghanico (although I think I already know the answer).

 

I now have that working as a test run with one flaw. The pitch dive is instantaneous but I need it to be a little slower.

I know that this would really be a Reaper question but is it at all possible to control the speed of the dive?

 

Again, Thanks for all your help.

Reaper.docx

[hurghanico]

2 hours ago, johnlovesbeer said:

So one last question aimed at Hurghanico (although I think I already know the answer).

 

I now have that working as a test run with one flaw. The pitch dive is instantaneous but I need it to be a little slower.

I know that this would really be a Reaper question but is it at all possible to control the speed of the dive?

 

Again, Thanks for all your help.

Reaper.docx 213.18 kB · 0 downloads

 

As you know the MIDI editings must be done in Reaper, there is not parameter in the POD to change the pitch glide speed response.

 

Probably all you need to do is to apply the right envelopes curves where needed by using MIDI..

The following old thread could be useful for you: How do I draw MIDI envelopes?

 

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All about POD HD500/X

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[johnlovesbeer]

Yes! That looks like a possible solution!

 

Cheers again Hurghanico, you are a legend!

[hurghanico]

 

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All about POD HD500/X

help and useful tips