Kemper midi automation thread

  • Well, I think I got it ! Oh my.


    In my MIDI sequence in Sonar, when displaying the event monitor, I create as much events as there are preset changes, and I map them with canals.


    Canals are in fact equal to the (in Perform mode /!\) MIDI banks you'll have to pre-program.


    The fact that each Channel is named "Bright acoustic piano" (Channel 0, first bank, first preset), or "French horn"... is beyond me and led me astray...


    I'm going to try to program a bunch of presets...

  • Some DAWs present the Program Changes in the form of the old General Midi sounds list -- Acoustic Grand Piano, Bright Acoustic Piano etc. Just pick the number you need and don't worry about these "instruments", they're just names.


    I don't know how things are called in Sonar X3 but generally, "Channel" means something else in midi language than "Program Change".

    • A program change is a message you send to an device telling it to switch to a different sound (hence the old instruments list, which used to be the standard in synthesizers). This is what you need for basic Kemper performance switching (the General Midi instruments list is a sign you're on the right track).
    • Each of these messages (and other messages, like notes or parameter changes) is associated with a channel, as a way to determine where they end up and to target individual devices. There are 16 different channels, so you can control 16 different devices independently -- you just have to make sure each device is set to a different channel. If you're just controlling one device (your Kemper), you can set it to "Omni", which means it listens to incoming messages on all channels.

    In your case, I assume that when you go through the program change list in Sonar (i.e., the General Midi instruments list) you see "Channel 0, first bank, first preset", "Channel 0, first bank, second preset" etc., which means the channel remains the same (0). It's just the "preset" (program change) that changes. This should work to switch performances if your Kemper is set to channel 0 or "Omni".


    If I read your first post correctly, it seems like you've connected both the IN and OUT ports of your Kemper to your audio interface. You only need to connect the IN port (Steinberg UR 22 midi OUT to Kemper midi IN) since you're sinding messages to your Kemper, not receiving anything from it. Actually, this may be what causes it to crash. I've had a few weird things happening when I had both IN and OUT ports connected and I accidentally routed the midi signal coming from the Kemper back into it. No idea what signals it sends out when switching performances, but sending them back in caused some kind of feedback loop where it kept switching performances constantly. It looked like a christmas tree with all the leds going crazy.

  • HI
    I am a little stuck as have got my floor board which is a Zoom GT9.2tt to control performance slots up to slot 20 ( same with my standard FCB1010 ) but past this point I do not know how to program the slots from 20 up to slot 125 which has a midi reference midi program # 105 & bank # 5
    I s there a way of programing this to work with a midi floor board such as the zoom or FCB1010 non modified. At the moment I am using direct mode, should I be using mapping mode.
    thanks so much for the advice so far




  • I see ! It worked ! Many thanks Rob !


    It was indeed the OUT port, the Kemper sound was lagging big time, and yeah, christmas tree time.


    So now, let's MIDI-map 10 songs :)


    Again, many thanks.

  • Hello,
    walked thru You tips, as we are going to set up our 2 Kempers with FCB1010 with uno for kemper.
    I just wonder if Anyone already checked if the issue with Midi Channel is already solved - to program 2 kempers on one midi track?
    One more question - did anyone tried to simply record midi map of the songs just while playing them thru and capture the dance on pedalboard, and than just edit the track to refine the changes to the tempo bars?

  • Hello,
    walked thru You tips, as we are going to set up our 2 Kempers with FCB1010 with uno for kemper.
    I just wonder if Anyone already checked if the issue with Midi Channel is already solved - to program 2 kempers on one midi track?
    One more question - did anyone tried to simply record midi map of the songs just while playing them thru and capture the dance on pedalboard, and than just edit the track to refine the changes to the tempo bars?


    What issue with the midi channel? You can run 2 KPA's from one set of midi program changes, but obviously they will both be identical, you can't program one KPA to change at different times/to different patchs etc.


    What you're saying about recording the midi sounds possible but much more work than its worth unless your songs contain hundreds of changes.

  • Hello,
    walked thru You tips, as we are going to set up our 2 Kempers with FCB1010 with uno for kemper.
    I just wonder if Anyone already checked if the issue with Midi Channel is already solved - to program 2 kempers on one midi track?
    One more question - did anyone tried to simply record midi map of the songs just while playing them thru and capture the dance on pedalboard, and than just edit the track to refine the changes to the tempo bars?


    I took the Uno4Kemper chip out and put the original back in after I got the Kemper Remote (using the FCB1010 as a studio controller now to trigger play, record, metronome on/off etc. in Ableton Live), so unfortunately I can't test it for you. According to what I've read (a forum post from Xavier, who makes the chip, and a release note for one of the recent Kemper firmware updates) it should work now, in theory.


    "It" means: being able to use the FCB1010+Uno4Kemper on other midi channels than channel 1, so you can control two or more Kempers independently from a single midi controller (using midi thru and different channels) while still keeping FCB1010s connected to each Kemper as a backup. If I recall correctly, @chamelious, you guys circumvented this problem by using two separate midi controllers.


    I've thought about recording the midi output of my foot controller actions and refining/cleaning it up afterwards but never actually done it. It should be possible, and if setting it up doesn't take too much effort I guess it could provide a good starting point. Mapping out an entire song from scratch can be a little disorienting at first.

  • Hi,


    cool stuff going on here. Maybe someone can help me.
    I'm controlling the KPA with Cubase for almot a year now.
    Im using cc# and the perfomance mode. #47 for changing the performance and #50-#54 for changing the slots. Im editing the Midi-Tracks in the Cubase's List-Editor.
    Everything is working. So far so good.


    BUT: From time to time the sound from the kmeper is suddenly off, At first I thought the Kemper crashes. I newstart always fixes the problem. But every now and then it occurs again.
    After a while i took a look in the system menue of the Kemper when the problem happens. I noticed that the volume (cc#7) is at a very low value, though I didn't work with this cc# in Cubase at all.
    Then I put Cubases "Midi Monitor" as an Inster-FX in the Midi Track.
    Sometimes cubase sends a #cc50 with value 0 which I havn't programmed. Every time this message is send, the KPA decreases the Volume (cc#7) to about 5%.


    Does anyone have a similar problem?
    Does anyone know, why Cubase could sends this cc?
    Does anyone know, how a cc#50 with the value 0 can effect the Volume of the Kemper?


    The solutiuon for now is that I've set the Range Value in the Volume-Pedal Settings in the KPA's Rig-Menue to 0, which seem to let the KPA have now effect on Volume changes.
    I hope this works for now.

  • What about Midi channels? Is the KPA set to omni? If yes, maybe Cubase is sending the CC via a channel of which you don't know that it's activated.

    I could have farted and it would have sounded good! (Brian Johnson)

  • Had the ultimate test of faith tonight: on our second gig of the day, the stage was so small that there was simply no room for my Remote. No kidding. No room whatsoever. I had to stand right at the front edge of the stage, wedged between our singer and the PA speakers, with our bass player right behind me.


    When playing live, I only use my pedalboard as a backup in the event that something would go wrong with the automation. Until now, nothing ever has, so I decided to just go for it. It was scary, and I missed having the Remote around just as a visual reassurance that all is as it should be (and for tuning, and to see the name of the next song when the next Performance is triggered automatically) but... all went well. :)


    Hurray for my Kemper and for midi.

  • Hi everyone!


    I have a few questions, I recently acquired a kemper and it's a real beast, but I have difficulties programming the Midi tracks. I play in a band without footswitch, so the patch changes are made via a computer who also plays backing track.
    I tried to program the changes with Sonar X3 but I have two problems :
    -It seems that my Midi map is not the same as in the kemper, when I write "program change channel 49", it goes to the 50
    -Several rigs have the same Midi Channel on the kemper, so it never goes to the right sound...


    Could someone help me? Sorry for my english


    Thanks

  • Hm, quick answer (but others should feel free to chime in):


    - The difference between Midi maps is probably because Sonar X3 starts counting at zero, while the Kemper starts at one. So "PC0" in Sonar = "PC1" in the Kemper, and so on. It's simply something to keep in mind, not a sign that something is wrong.
    - I'm not sure how several rigs can have the same Midi PC#. My advice would be to use Performance Mode, where each Performance slot automatically has its own PC# and switching between the five slots within a Performance is very fast.


    Check my second post, under "Programming the Kemper", for tips. In short, you can address each slot of every Performance directly using Program Change messages, but you can also switch between slots of a given Performance using Control Change 50-54.

  • Does changing performances via PC switch rigs, or does that need to be followed by the CC to select the slot?


    Theres a system menu setting for performance loading.


    Pending should wait for the slot selection before changing rigs.


    Slot 1 should load the rig in the 1st slot of the selected performance as soon as the performance is selected.


    Same slot should load the same slot currently selected in the new performance as soon as the new performance is selected.


    Maybe thats part of the issue above?