Midi Toggle "Effect"

  • Midi Toggle “Effect” There’s been some talk for years now on how to improve midi capabilities, specifically in regards to toggling things without changing rigs. Here’s a simple way to integrate with or without the remote:


    Select an effects slot, either A, B, C, D X mod, del, or reverb. With “type” knob select “Midi Toggle” This “effect” gives you controls for the following: a midi channel, an “On” PC # and an “off” PC#. Thus On and off messages will be sent corresponding to the on and off status of the slot. Perhaps you could have option to do something similar with CC messages? Perhaps a second or third set of PC messages as well to control two devices at once? Since this “effect” is just sending a few number commands, it should take virtually no processing power. The best part is that you could then save these just like your presets for all the other effects, which you can now access with the browse knob. And of course, “Off” doesn’t have to correspond with your external device’s actual off status, so you could actually set it up so that you can toggle two different presets on this one device, say a heavy ambient reverb with a more subtle reverb. If two or more sets of messages could be sent on their own channels, you could also effectively toggle between effects from two different devices. Likewise, since it is such a simple non-processing intensive effect, there's no reason why you couldn't have several of these going in different slots, like you now can with the delay effects, so you could toggle different things with different switches.


    This benefits both Remote and third party midi controller users. Since these midi messages are saved within rigs, if you do some cleaning up in the Kemper and move some performances and rigs around, your midi controller doesn’t have to be reprogramed much, as all the messages are part of the rigs themselves. (other than making sure your midi controller toggles the correct effects slot on the Kemper of course)


    The only downside to this? You essentially lose an effects slot (depending on another feature I suggest below). However, if you are using this feature you are clearly getting at least some of your effects from external devices anyway and therefore you shouldn’t need all 8 effect slots in the rigs you are using these midi toggles anyway. Since it’s not global, but per rig, you of course still have your 8 effect slots on any rig that you don’t want to send these messages. Furthermore, you still possess the ability to send messages in the traditional way only on Rig change, which doesn’t take up an effects slot of course. Plus it doesn’t matter what slot you put the midi effect as the messages themselves aren’t a part of your signal chain.


    Further enhancements:


    1) Option to send these toggle messages as part of the KPA loop: it would also be possible to give these midi effect toggle controls as an extension of the parameters you can currently control in the effects loop. However a “loop always on” option would be useful in this case. In this scenario, you select the external loop effect to a slot, say X. You select “loop always on” and assign your midi on off messages and channel within this effect. The effect loop now stays on and just the on and off messages are toggled when you activate and deactivate the X slot. This would save a slot for those who are using external effects within the effects loop anyway. However, I could see many reasons why someone would not want the midi messages as part of the loop effect, which is why I think offering both a separate “midi toggle” effect that can be assigned to any slot and the ability to use them as part of the loop effect would be beneficial (for example someone using a midi-controlled multiple loop switcher up front for overdrive pedals, but who also has a pedal in the KPA loop wouldn’t want the midi toggle controls to be a part of the Kemper loop effect parameters)


    2) Perhaps allow these messages to morph as well? That is, a heal message and toe message. Obviously this wouldn’t allow you to get a gradual change in the in-between spots when morphing, but for those of us that use morphing only for instantaneous toggling of two sounds within one rig, this would be a welcome feature. (For that matter, why not allow morphing to reverse on off status of the effect slots at the heal and toe extremes? )


    3) "Skip first message" To make this “Midi Effect” feature even more useful, an additional choice along with channel, on, and off would be “Skip First Message.” If this option is selected, the first message that would be sent is not sent when the rig is selected. For example, say in a certain rig I send PC#5 as an On message and PC #100 as the off message, on channel 2, which controls my Eventide H9. I save the rig so that the status of this effect is in the “On” status, but I don’t want the On status message sent on rig change because my device was already sent this message. Why would this matter? PC #5 is an ambient delay/reverb that I’m using on this rig and the previous rig in the same song, I don’t want the H9 to get the same message twice. The other rig I’m coming from already told my H9 to turn on preset 5. So if the H9 gets that message again when I go to this rig, the H9 will receive the same message twice and then reset the delay trails. With “Skip first message” selected, the Kemper won’t send PC #5 to my H9 when I first select this rig, even though it’s saved in its On status. Instead it will not send a message until I press the button (or corresponding footswitch ) to turn the effect off, which I set to PC #100. However now if I press the button again to On status, it will now send PC# 5 and then continue to toggle between PC 5 and 100 as normal until I go to another rig. This would also be extremely simple to implement and could be ignored by users if its usefulness isn’t apparent to them.

  • You can toggle on/off already with CC messages. CC16 all on/off, CC17-24 are the stomps (look in the manual to see which number corresponds to which slot). As far as external effects, just depends on what they will accept.

  • You can toggle on/off already with CC messages. CC16 all on/off, CC17-24 are the stomps (look in the manual to see which number corresponds to which slot). As far as external effects, just depends on what they will accept.


    Im not sure I understand you. What I want to be able to do, is to use one of the effect buttons on the Kemper Remote to toggle external effects, beyond the one effects loop that is. Since there's only one physical loop, the only way to do this is with midi. Specifically, I want to buy a midi loop device, like the boss Es-5 or RJM effects gizmo and have each of my overdrive pedals in its own loop. Then be able to be able to assign a switch on my remote that allows me to select presets on this external device so that I could have the ability to call up different combinations of my overdrive pedals, or none at all, without changing rigs, just like I can do using the internal modeled Overdrive pedals in the Kemper. Likewise, I'd love to be able to toggle my H9 either between its own presets or on and off (since the KPA still doesn't allow spillover when turning the effects loop off.) And to do this without having to change rigs.

  • Oh, sorry I missed the part about the Kemper Remote. I use the Voodoo Labs GC and can already do this.
    Maybe edit the title to say for the Remote.


    Will do. But I think such a feature could benefit you as well. Consider: if you move a few rigs or performances around in the Kpa, you may have to also edit your Ground Control to match. Obviously I don't know your set up. But consider if you program a particular preset on your GC to toggle a couple midi CC, say on off of an eventide H9. If you wanted to use that setting with a particular rig, you have to move both. So if you arrange your Performances on the Kemper, the preset you had that CC message going on your GC would not match up now, unless this is something that you set up globally. But to be honest, I've considered possibly trying to go the third party midi controller route with an external loop switcher, such as the voodoo lab hex

  • With the Kemper you can control it with a midi program number or by using a performance slot. I tend to set my midi channels different for my gear so I can control them individually

  • I think this is a great idea.


    I'd love to be able to be able to use the remotes fx footswitches to send midi cc or pp. If each midi 'fx' block could send both an 'on' pc or cc value when the fx is activated and an 'off' pc or cc value when deactivated it would be incredible because rather than just looping in a pedal with the loop fx block we currently have we could toggle presets on a midi enabled pedal or other external gear too.

  • Drog, in this case I don't think the remote would actually send midi data (as in data sent out one of its expression pedal inserts.) But since the Kemper effect slots could trigger midi data, the remote could be used to send midi data through its effect switches, even though the actual message would ext via the midi out jack on the back of the Kemper.

  • I think this is a great idea.


    I'd love to be able to be able to use the remotes fx footswitches to send midi cc or pp. If each midi 'fx' block could send both an 'on' pc or cc value when the fx is activated and an 'off' pc or cc value when deactivated it would be incredible because rather than just looping in a pedal with the loop fx block we currently have we could toggle presets on a midi enabled pedal or other external gear too.


    The KPA's one effect loop works very well, and you can currently change up to two midi devices with PC messages on rig change. But like you said this is limiting. If you only have one external effect or two midi controlled external effects, this can work ok, as you can toggle on and off the effects loop. the major issue I keep running into is the need to leave one external thing on and toggle the other on and off. For example, I use a line 6 m5 exclusively for autoswell in the effects loop with my eventide H9. On certain stuff, I want the ability to toggle the autoswell on and off, but leaving the H9 on. The only way to do that now is to create two identical rigs, one with a message turning the h9 to the correct preset and the m5 with autoswell. The second rig triggers the m5 off. But even now there is another problem: every times I go back to the first rig, the H9 receives the same message again and resets the delay trails! In short the only "solution" to this problem is to keep the m5 on my pedalboard and controlling it manually, which it turn means keeping all my pedals at my feet. Same issue with OD pedals. I really like using external overdrive pedals in front. However, even if I buy an external multi loop system, like the boss es-5, so I can have a few drive pedals in their own midi controlled loop, I can dial them up on Rig changes. The biggest annoyance of this is that I like to have time-based effects and therefore need at least one rig for each song in a set. If I want to leave on one OD all the time and kick on or off another within a preset, I have the pedals at my feet. Now I'm back to the four cable method. What I want is to be able to use external gear with the Kemper and for the Kemper to have enough midi capability so that all I need live is the Remote at my feet, with everything else kept off stage. Of course, I could buy a third party midi controller. that could handle all the midi and controls of the Kemper. However, even here I run into all sorts of new issues. First off, if I do that, I now have to concern myself with editing presets in the Kemper and the midi controller. and reconcile the fact that if I shuffle some performances and/or rigs around, the midi boards settings will be all off and that will have to be reprogramed. Aside from that, I wouldn't have a tuner at my feet, so I'll have to keep one and there and have a way to power it.