Catalyst MIDI - meaning of 'Matches physical knob' etc

[littlespaceman]

In the catalyst MIDI implementation table, it says that MIDI CC13 controls the amp Gain control using a value/range of 0-127. It then says in the notes column 'Matches physical knob' (this is also the case for Bass, Mid, Treble etc)

 

I have a few questions;

 

1) Can anyone explain what this means? It's quite ambiguous to me;  does it mean that if the Gain knob on the amp is set to 12 o'clock, then regardless of what MIDI value you have programmed in to your MIDI controller, the maximum gain you would get is whatever the Gain at the 12 o'clock position would be? So to be able to get the full gain range using MIDI you need to have the amp knob turned to maximum?

 

2) Boost: MIDI CC# 25 controls Boost Bypass/Enable, and in the note column it says 'Controls bypass state of the Boost (matches button behavior)'. Again can anyone explain this? 

 

3) Effect: MIDI CC# 28 controls Effect Bypass/Enable. This time the notes column says 'Controls bypass state of the Effect (DOES NOT match button behavior)' Same question, can anyone translate that in to unambiguous plain English please?

 

Thanks in advance

 

 

[soundog]

It just means the MIDI control mimics the physical (amp) knob or button behavior. If your amp volume knob is set at 12 o'clock, then you turn your matching MIDI controller potentiometer knob up or down, you can remotely control the amp volume from full off to full on. Same for the other buttons. The Effect "not match" could be a typo?

[littlespaceman]

I've now had a play with a MIDI app / iPad to see what these things do, and it seems that in '1)' it would have helped to add the word behaviour, so what it really means is 'Matches physical knob behaviour'. From what I can tell, it doesn't matter where the knob is positioned on the amp, the MIDI controller will give you the full range. So even if for example the amp Channel Volume knob is at 0, the MIDI controller can give you, as you say, from full off to full on.

 

One really nice feature is that if you assign an expression pedal to a function like amp gain, in the Edit app you can set what the range of the pedal will be (so for example it doesn't have to be full off to full on, you might have the minimum at around 30% gain, and the max at 100%.

 

Re the bit where it says 'Controls bypass state of the Effect (DOES NOT match button behavior)' I think I've cracked it; the effect button on the amp can has a secondary mode if you press and hold it in; I think 'DOES NOT match button behavior' means that you can replicate the 'Effect Bypas/Enable' function of the amp button by using MIDI (CC#0-63=off; 64-127 = on) but you can't access the deeper functions of the amp button as there is no way to replicate the 'press and hold' needed to do this using MIDI? 

[littlespaceman]

ps, just below all of that in the MIDI implementation table, it also shows that CC# 29 turns the reverb on / off. To my mind the text in the 'notes' box should also say 'DOES NOT match button behavior' as you can't access the deeper functions of the reverb button on the amp by using MIDI either...