Midi communication with boss sy1000

  • hi

    I’ve had a kemper since day 1. I’ve recently bought a boss sy1000 and the idea is to run the boss unit ‘in front’ of the kemper to use the guitar modelling and the synths, and maybe even some boss fx!
    im having a problem though and I think I’ve narrowed it down to the kemper.

    I would like to control both units via the kemper remote. I have connected the kemper midi out to the boss midi in but any patch change either from the kemper remote or the kemper front panel results in a ‘midi offline’ warning on the boss unit and nothing happens otherwise. Removing the midi cable from the kemper and plugging into an fcb1010 the sy1000 performs as expected (patch changes, cc changes etc) so to me that shows the sy1000 is set up correctly. Anything I may be be doing wrong on the kemper ?

  • I’ve been using my Kemper with my GR55 for over 10 yrs with no problem

    I just made sure the midi send on Kemper and receive on GR55 were turned on

    I think I saw you asked the same question on the Vguitar site

  • is the boss unit expecting to receive “active sensing”?

    Might be disable-able ?(if that is a word?)


    Active Sensing. This message is intended to be sent repeatedly to tell the receiver that a connection is alive. Use of this message is optional. When initially received, the receiver will expect to receive another Active Sensing message each 300ms (max), and if it does not then it will assume that the connection has been terminated. At termination, the receiver will turn off all voices and return to normal (non- active sensing) operation.

  • To set up the PC# for the SY, make sure the Midi send on the Kemper is the same as the midi receive channel on the SY.

    You need to then press edit on the KPA, and then system to go to the soft button "Slot settings", where it will give you the option to use different program change #s to send to the SY.

    In this video, beginning at 2:30, Midi program change is addressed.

    At 4:00, midi program change assignment is addressed.

    Hope this helps. The video tutorial is below.

    Midi