midi noob here, help me find a midi controller that works for my setup!

    Hey guys. Had my kemper for about a year, loving it completely. Sold all my amps, cabs, and mics.


    However I feel like I'm not using it to its full ability because I run my traditional pedalboard right into the front of it, which limits me to mostly cleanish profiles, and since I'm not using midi to control the kemper's fx, I have to duplicate a lot of the kemper's features on my pedal board (pitch fx, tremolo, phaser, volume, etc). On profiles with any amount of gain above a slight breakup, any amount of delay and reverb above a very light slapback / small room verb starts sounding really bad quickly, since I'm running reverb into distortion which doesn't make sense.


    So I want to start running my wet effects in the kemper's loop and using midi to control them. The problem is that even though I'm 20+ years into this thing, the extent of my midi experience is sending midi clock data from the SMARTclock to my timefactor a couple years back.


    Here is my current pedalboard:
    [Blocked Image: https://i.imgur.com/7U5v3uN.jpg]


    So here is how I am envisioning my future setup:


    1) Pedalboard: midi controller & expression pedal controlling volume on kemper via midi, plus my wireless receiver, compressor, and drives going into the front of the kemper.
    2) timefactor and big sky in the kemper's loop in a rack drawer.


    First a couple questions:
    1) I know I would have to program the particular stomps I want on every rig I use. Can I use the copy/paste feature to copy (for example) a tremolo setting from one rig to another?
    2) I pretty much use a few different AC30 style profiles all the time, and want to possibly start eliminating some of my drives by using rigs with different amounts of gain controlled by midi. But once the midi controller is programmed, would (for example) hitting button 1 still turn on slot X on whatever rig might be active at the time?


    What I need from a midi controller:
    1) I would need the midi controller to turn on and off stomp and fx slots on the kemper, regardless of what rig is active at the time.
    2) must accept an expression input or two for post preamp volume control
    3) preferably lightweight
    4) most importantly: must be able to activate at least 3 reverb presets and 12ish delay presets from the timefactor and bigsky independently at any time. I'm ok with banking up and down a couple times to get to different delay presets since that's what I do now on the timefactor.
    5) must be able to somehow get tap tempo input and send that via midi to the timefactor and the kemper (for tempo-synced choppy tremolos). Not sure if the kemper can turn tap tempos into midi clock data, or if that would be done at the midi controller. If not, I own the disaster area smartclock so that could solve that problem if absolutely necessary.
    6) it would be nice if I could hit one button and have it switch to a clean profile on the kemper, a particular reverb on the big sky, and a particular delay on the timefactor. This is a sound I use all the time so it would be nice if it were always one tap away.


    All of this would allow me to get rid of my volume pedal, pitch fork, obscura delay, and zoom ms-50g, and have way more flexibility with the kemper profiles. The only disadvantage would be that during setup I'd have to run a midi cable on the stage in addition to power and 1 audio cable. I can live with that since in the future I might end up being able to eliminate my drives completely by using a combination of different rigs and kemper stomps.


    So do you guys have any recommendations for me??


    So far I'm looking at:
    Disaster area DMC-8D.
    Rocktron midi raider
    Voodoo Labs ground control pro

    I use the Voodoo Labs Ground Control and the Voodoo Labs PSX8. The PsSx8 stays by my Kemper, the midi cable that connects to the Ground Control also sends power to it. I then can control my Kemper and my stomp boxes all from the Ground control.


    I also sometimes just use the PSX8 when I am playing through my tube amps, so,it serves a dual purpose.


    You could also go with the Ground Control and Voodoo labs GCX which is a rack version.


    Boss also just just came out with the ES8 and ES5, you could also look at using that. It has a smaller footprint than the Voodoo Labs unit.


    I chose the Voodoo Labs because I already had the Ground Control unit.


    Cheers!

    Peanut gallery hard at work::


    As far as getting to your main clean patch that's a breeze. My controller like many others uses banks of 5, my main clean rig is preset #1, 6, 11, 16, etc what ever bank I'm on I'm only click away from clean. Your Time factor and Bigsky are both midi programmable. Just save your fav clean rev/delay as preset 1 on both as well as the Kemper (in the System menu) and you are good to go there.


    As for copy paste yes you can do it that way. I saved/named my Stomps and Presets settings (press and hold Stomp button until menu opens up, press store, and save as) and then scroll down the list whenever I need a particular one.


    You can also use the Morph feature on each preset, adding gain this way or changing the loop mix from 0-100 may be of particular interest to you.


    I would also try to use Pure Boosters or a Green Scream from within the Kemper to get rid of some of your drives.

    I use a Roland FC-300, built like a tank, has expression pedals and is just about flexible enough for me.


    This link from Kemper's Wiki touches on many of the most popular controllers (I call it the FCB1010 page lol)


    http://www.wikpa.org/Using_Specific_MIDI_Controllers


    Keep in mind that with many controllers it's not 2 way communication. In other words the controller doesn't always reflect on/off state of the switches. I use a Roland FC300 and I'm always looking back at my Kemper on stage to see what's on and what isn't, drives me crazy.


    Hope this helps.

    What do you mean bypass delay? Do you mean not having it on for that patch or the ability to step on a button to turn it on and off. Are you running midi to the delay? Is the delay on the Kemper or a floor unit?

    Set your GCP for "4 Prst/bank " this way you can use buttons 1-8 for instant access buttons (on off effects).
    Enter setup mode by pressing both "setup mode" buttons at the same time. Then select "utility " button, then tap down one on the "select" down button. The display will probably read "10 prst/bank" press the "yes/+" button to change it to "4 prst/bank". Tap the setup exit button, save.
    Now you can set the instant access buttons. Enter the setup mode (same as above). Press the "instant access button" you should see something like "1.gcx-1 loop1" this says instant access button 1 is controlling GCX 1 loop 1. Decide which button 1-8 you want the delay on. Use the "bank down" button to cycle through the instant access buttons 1-8 . Use the cursor button to move over to change from GCX to CC message. Press the "yes/+" button to move the display to read 1.ch01 ctl 004" this says that instant access button 1 on midi channel on controls CC 004. Leave it on midi channel one for the Kemper. Move the cursor button one more over and change the ctl to 26. That will control the Kemper delay on/off.
    repeat these steps for each patch you want to be able to control the delay. Note you can control any of the effects in all eight Kemper slots the same way. Go to the Kemper download page to get the midi chart.
    to get the GCP to display the lights correctly follow these steps.
    Go to the preset you want to edit. Press the instant access buttons that should be on and turn off any that should be off to correspond to the Kemper effects on off state. Press and hold the "edit" button until you see the GCP display change. Once it changes press the "edit" button again and then say " yes" to save.


    Enjoy!

    Edited 2 times, last by drog ().

    Like 1
    Quote from drog

    What do you mean bypass delay? Do you mean not having it on for that patch or the ability to step on a button to turn it on and off. Are you running midi to the delay? Is the delay on the Kemper or a floor unit?



    Thanks for the reply. I don't just have one delay set up per kemper rig. I have a timefactor with a bunch of my common delay sounds, so I can pull them up at any time (on any kemper sound), and tap in the tempo. This allows me to not have to program in any set lists and call up any sound I want to at any time.

    In essence what you need is a button that will send the TF Midi PC changes only on that midi channel and not change the KPA.
    I would be surprised if the GCP wouldn't let you do that. May mess with the desired button layout and the different modes the GCP can go into, and if you have 3 different TF preset you like, it would take three buttons to make that work.....

    Yes you can setup the time factor the same way. Set your time factor to midi channel 2. Make sure you set the time factor output to "Thru" so your Kemper can receive its messages from the GCP.
    Follow the same sets as above and now add a second device to control ch.2 (your time factor)
    You can send your Timefactor CC messages and put it into bypass mode or out of bypass mode to use it.

    If you hadn't spend money all ready, I would have suggested you look into a Free The Tone Arc-3. It's a combination midi and pedal switcher.


    The great thing is that it has a volume loop. You can put your Kemper in the volume loop and then have pre-Kemper and post-Kemper FX. It can send up to 8 CC or PC messages simultaneously, which means you could switch on or off all 8 stomps on the Kemper, or send different PC numbers to 8 midi devices.


    Something like this is the best for people who want to use pedals with their Kemper. Just a press of a button and you can change so many things simultaneously.

    EDIT: Whoops, scratch that. The Free The Tone can't have an amp in its volume loop.


    I have the next best thing, a Loopholic 5. It also has a volume loop and I can send up to 5 PC and CC messages simultaneously.


    But it has a big drawback. No stereo loops, so you miss out on a lot of stuff. Quite an oversight, seeing that it has dual outputs.


    Oh well, I bought it a long time ago.


    FURTHER EDIT: I really should test this stuff out sometime. Wish I hadn't sold all my pedals. Now I have to get new ones :D


    ONE LAST EDIT: Here's the relevant info from the Loopholic manual.


    Some effects like delay, reverb and chorus work best post-preamp. If your amplifier has an effects loop you can use the Volume Loop on the Loopholic to place some effects in front of your preamp and some effects between your preamp and power amp on a patch-by-patch basis.
    Use Loop 1 – 5 as you normally would, placing effects in these loops to be switched on and off by the Loopholic with each patch.
    Run the Volume Loop Send signal to the input on your preamp. If you would like to use a volume pedal you can run the Volume Loop Send signal first to the volume pedal and then from the volume pedal to the input of your preamp.
    Run the output from your amplifier’s effect loop, generally label “Send”, to the Volume Loop Return input on the Loopholic. If your amplifier has a series effects loop use that, if it only has a parallel effects loop set the mix to 100% wet.
    Run Output A from the Loopholic to the effect loop return on your amplifier.
    You can now use Loops 6 – 10 for post-preamp effects such as delay, reverb and chorus. Any effect placed in these loops, when turned on, will be applied after your preamp signal but before your signal reaches your power amplifier.

    Quote from Joptunes

    In essence what you need is a button that will send the TF Midi PC changes only on that midi channel and not change the KPA.
    I would be surprised if the GCP wouldn't let you do that. May mess with the desired button layout and the different modes the GCP can go into, and if you have 3 different TF preset you like, it would take three buttons to make that work.....


    Quote from drog

    Yes you can setup the time factor the same way. Set your time factor to midi channel 2. Make sure you set the time factor output to "Thru" so your Kemper can receive its messages from the GCP.
    Follow the same sets as above and now add a second device to control ch.2 (your time factor)
    You can send your Timefactor CC messages and put it into bypass mode or out of bypass mode to use it.


    Thanks for the replies. That is how I set it up at home to test it out. I had a bank of 4 presets set up. Each preset sent out a PC to the TF to call up a particular preset. In this case, they were all quarter note sounds with increasing intensity for each preset. The problem is, once that PC message is sent to the TF an the TF is engaged, hitting that same button again (i.e. sending the same PC message to the TF) doesn't put the TF into bypass mode like if I were actually pushing the buttons on the unit. I guess I could dedicate one of the eight "instant access" buttons to the TF CC number that bypasses or toggles it, but then it's just going to get even more confusing and unintuitive.

    So much of this depends on your controller and its capabilities. Unfortunately there's not a fully powered solution that's cheap and or easy to program.


    i use the Liquid Foot controller and it is by far the most powerful controller I've ever used. It's not cheap and there is a programming learning curve, but once you've gone through it, you can pretty much dream up and design exactly what you want and put stuff where you want it. You can send 10-15 commands with a single button push, you place the buttons where you want them, buttons can go through step commands so adjust delay mix level from 50% to 75% to 100% in a circular motion with three steps on the same button, etc. pretty powerful stuff, and designed to run large midi setups with multiple devices.


    I am so happy that Kemper continues to support and document the support of external midi controllers. It leaves that door wide open for people to fully leverage all of the KPAs features

    Well you could do what I do and run the Voodoo Labs PX8 as well along with my GCP, this way I can control my external stomp boxes and Kemper with a single button push. Most of my stomp boxes do not have midi and I need a switching system for them. The bonus for me is I can use my pedal board with my tube amps as well, so it serves a dual purpose.

    Quote from strabes

    Thanks for the replies. That is how I set it up at home to test it out. I had a bank of 4 presets set up. Each preset sent out a PC to the TF to call up a particular preset. In this case, they were all quarter note sounds with increasing intensity for each preset. The problem is, once that PC message is sent to the TF an the TF is engaged, hitting that same button again (i.e. sending the same PC message to the TF) doesn't put the TF into bypass mode like if I were actually pushing the buttons on the unit. I guess I could dedicate one of the eight "instant access" buttons to the TF CC number that bypasses or toggles it, but then it's just going to get even more confusing and unintuitive.


    You will have to send a PC that takes the TF to a bypassed, or blank patch. No other way to do it with midi. If you send the same midi PC number to a pedal or midi device, it will never bypass, just load that patch.


    Quote from drog

    Well you could do what I do and run the Voodoo Labs PX8 as well along with my GCP, this way I can control my external stomp boxes and Kemper with a single button push. Most of my stomp boxes do not have midi and I need a switching system for them. The bonus for me is I can use my pedal board with my tube amps as well, so it serves a dual purpose.


    Are you able to put your FX pre- and post-amp with the PX8? And are any of the loops stereo?