How to deal with a latching ext. switch /w LED?

[SaschaFranck]

Hi,

 

I can't get this to work, no idea where to look or what to do anymore.

Scenario: I have a latched footswitch connected to the EXP jack of my Stomp (in fact, there's two switches connected, but the second one is just there for tap tempo and simply working). Now, that very switch has a status LED, which is excellent. LED on = contact closed, LED off = contact open. Pretty much business as usual.

I have now been setting up a patch in which this very switch controls the "route to" function of an A/B spilt. Working fine, too. Well, not really, because that's where the problems start...

When I set the properties of the switch to "latching", I need two switch operations to trigger things - which is sort of to be expected. So, I changed the switch properties to "momentary". All fine. At least for now. A single switch operation causes the routing to change, onboard LED of the switch is working fine, too, LED on representing, say, "route to B".

Ok, patch saved.

Now, whenever I select another patch and use the external switch just once (so its LED is off) and then return to the saved patch, the split is still routing to B - but the external switch's LED is off this time. The latter being expected, because after all I switched it off and it obviously can't know what the Stomp is doing.

But: The Stomp should know the setting of the switch. So once it detects a closed contact, it would route to path B, once it's opened, it'd route to path A, regardless of the saved state. Obviously however, this can't work as the switch assignment's properties have to be set to "momentary", as a result of that, the patch will always revert to the saved status.

 

Ok, long story made short: Is there any way I can assign something to an external switch so it always looks at the status of the switch and then sets the assigned parameters according to the switch status, regardless of the saved state?

In synth lingo, a function such as this would be called "active sensing", so any external controllers with clearly defined values (on, off or anything inbetween, as delivered by expression pedals) would be read out once the patch is loaded. This is the way, say, expression pedals work as volume pedals on many devices.

Is that somehow possible using an external latching switch?

 

Thanks for any hints!

[SaschaFranck]

And fwiw, I thought abusing the switch as an expression pedal might do the trick (as in heel down controlling off, toe down controlling on), hoping the Stomp would do active sensing for expression pedals, but that doesn't seem to work at all.

[SaschaFranck]

Ah! Success - forgot to set the preferences of EXP/FS tip to EXP1. Why on earth is that on yet another page than the switch/EXP functions?

Anyway, working as expected now.

[zappazapper]

I'm glad I could help XD

[SaschaFranck]

H

On 11/16/2022 at 5:54 PM, zappazapper said:

I'm glad I could help XD

 

Hrrhrr...

[SaschaFranck]

And fwiw, why doesn't that "active sensing" work with a plain latching footswitch as well? Sure, the EXP workaround is in fact working, but it's not just as easy to set up. And, possibly even more important, I do now need to remember to always switch the EXP/FS tip setting when I pull the Stomp off the pedalboard, because in standalone mode I'm using 2 momentary switches.

[SaschaFranck]

WTF is going on with all this? I've got two absolutely identical patches, with one the switching is working, with the other it isn't. Stripped them down. "Blah" is the one where it's working, in "Jaja" it's not. Simple EQ bypass is controlled by EXP 1, nothing else happening.

Blah.hlx Jaja.hlx

[SaschaFranck]

Yet some more observations: When you control "route to" via EXP 1, the "Wait" parameter is missing. Why would that be? You can even see there's a little delay. Also, even if you set "Max Route To" for B to 100%, the switch will only go to 99%.

All this is seriously bug-ridden, as it seems.

[zappazapper]

I don't know how different the Stomp is to the LT as far as this particular feature goes, but my limited experience with using an external switch in the EXP2 jack of the LT has been dead simple. When I get home I'll take a look at what you're doing and see if I can reproduce the issue. 

[SaschaFranck]

On 11/16/2022 at 10:06 PM, zappazapper said:

I don't know how different the Stomp is to the LT as far as this particular feature goes, but my limited experience with using an external switch in the EXP2 jack of the LT has been dead simple. When I get home I'll take a look at what you're doing and see if I can reproduce the issue. 

 

It is more or less dead simple but there seem to be quite some bugs - otherwise the two identical patches wouldn't show any differences.

[SaschaFranck]

All this is incredibly buggy.

I can select an empty patch (the default "factory" one), insert, say, an EQ and control the bypass status via EXP 1 (which is my latched footwitch).

Then I can select an exact copy of the same empty patch, do exactly the same and it doesn't work.

I can then copy the block from the working patch into one that doesn't work (controller assignments will be kept intact) and it doesn't work. If I copy the block from a patch where it didn't work into a patch where it did, the assignment all of a sudden is working.

Bottomline: This isn't anything I would ever rely on. Thanks for nothing, Line 6.

 

And fwiw: Yes, my footswitch is working perfectly fine. As soon as I set it to normal footswitch operation, it's working each and every time.