MIDI program - could you add BPM control to MIDI CC set?

[davetherrien]

Tap Tempo is MIDI CC 64 - not very useful...   I'd like to see something where I set the tempo value in BPM as a MIDI value. That would be super useful. Hotone Ampero offers that  and it really helps with setting the tempo for beat sync'd delays. 

 

Dave

[phil_m]

You mean MIDI clock sync? Or something else?

[davetherrien]

I have no idea how to use the  Catealyst "MIDI CC#64 - Tap Tempo - Each press simulates a Tape Tempo button press". Do I need to send out successive MIDI messages that are timed to a BPM? That's a lousy implementation.

I have a Hotone Ampero and I can program it via MIDI to correlate to a BPM value - that's what I'm asking Line6 to implement... 

 

[phil_m]

On 5/9/2022 at 6:42 AM, davetherrien said:

I have no idea how to use the  Catealyst "MIDI CC#64 - Tap Tempo - Each press simulates a Tape Tempo button press". Do I need to send out successive MIDI messages that are timed to a BPM? That's a lousy implementation.

I have a Hotone Ampero and I can program it via MIDI to correlate to a BPM value - that's what I'm asking Line6 to implement... 

 

The CC64 tap tempo is basically for creating a MIDI tap tempo switch. It’s a pretty common implementation for devices that use tap tempo. I’ve actually never seen an implementation like Hotone is using here. I suspect that MIDI clock might be added to the Catalyst at some point. I don’t think Line 6 would ever do anything like the Hotone implementation, though. That seems kind of confusing to me.

[davetherrien]

hey @phil_m thanks for the response. PM value and then simulates a series of three tap tempo commands with the appropriate millisecond delay between them to get to a BPM value. This is valuable because I do a lot of songs that are delay sync'd to a BPM value. I use an ipad to send out the BPM value for the song and I know that the delay will be dead on to the rhythm.  Hotone Ampero also has a basic drum machine which is driven from this BPM message. Does that make sense? 

 

 

[davetherrien]

I'd still like to see this functionality within the Catalyst MIDI implementation, but I just found out that, in the ipad ForScore application that send MIDI out to devices like the Catalyst,  I can create a collection of MIDI presets at various popular BPMs that will issue two MIDI tape tempo commands separated by a delay time in milliseconds! 

 

So for 120 BPM, I'd send a Catalyst CC Tap tempo message, then a delay 500ms, then another Catalyst CC Tap Tempo message. I get my amp tomorrow, so I will test this out. 

[davetherrien]

I tried to program a sequence of MIDI tap tempos separated by millisecondS of delay, but this produced very variable and unpredictable BPM values - the range of BPM was too great for this to be a good solution. I'm running this on an ipad and the MIDI Delay latency must be too variable. 

 

So I ask again if this is BPM setting code that can live inside the Catalyst and be executed more accurately by me sending two CC messages that are encoded as a BPM value as Hotone has done in their Ampero. (see previous diagram)

 

I do a lot of rhythmic delay playing to 1/8 and DOTTED 1/8 notes, so this is a feature request that I'd really like to see implemented. For now, I guess I'll have to use the tap tempo button on the LFS2 footswitch. Not great since I have the Hotone stuff completely automated and this would be a manual step during a performance. 

 

 

Edited May 12, 2022 by davetherrien
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[soundog]

The best thing would be to request support for MIDI clock, or Ableton Link. I think the original MIDI spec dropped the ball a bit with the lack of a CC for setting a tempo (hence workarounds like Ampero), but that's water under the bridge. If you have a clever app (like Set List Maker) you can set it up so that a tap tempo CC command is sent on quarter note downbeats in sync with MIDI clock. I use that feature with an HX Stomp all the time; I send the first four beats to set tempo for time-based effects.