Please change the behavior of "turn tempo on automatically" when receiving MIDI clock

This is a very annoying behavior IMHO. The fact that I've connected a MIDI footswitch that sends MIDI clock to the KPA does not mean, by any stretch of the imagination, that I want all my rigs to suddenly start responding to MIDI clock. No, not even the ones I am editing with MIDI clock on. I am not The Edge, and I can only assume 7,000,000,000 people out there are not him either, including other KPA owners. I want a rig to respond to MIDI clock if, and only if, I specifically turn it on for that rig only. Currently not only does the KPA assumes that if it's receiving MIDI clock it should use it, but in the rig menu it's impossible to turn it off! I'm hoping this is a bug and not an intentional design decision.

For now this means I cannot use MIDI clock at all, because if I turn it on in my pedalboard the KPA starts to show this rather obnoxious and extremely annoying behavior. Please fix this. And I'm really thinking that over a year has gone by since the KPA was introduced and I shouldn't have to tell you this.

EDIT: And while you're at it, may I suggest that you separate the tempo sync parameter from time/rate? That way we can have tempo sync on a per-effect basis, so for instance delay could be tempo enabled and chorus not. Meaning, for each time-based or modulated effect one parameter would control tempo (1/1, 1/3{t}, ...., OFF) and a second parameter would control rate/time but would be only enabled when tempo would be set to OFF, otherwise it would just display the rate/time calculated based on the tempo parameter.

As there has been no response to this feature request I'm wondering if anyone is actually using (or trying to use) MIDI Clock for controlling tap tempo. My request is simple: let users enable or disable MIDI Clock on a per-patch basis, in the rig menu, *even if the KPA is receiving MIDI Clock*. Currently if the KPA senses MIDI Clock present it will turn the "Tempo Enable" parameter in the Rig menu and won't let me disable it.

I know that not many pedalboards out there can send tap tempo via MIDI Clock, but mine does and it's basically impossible to use this feature because once I enable MIDI Clock in my pedalboard, every single patch will sync its delay to the currently set tempo. Am I the only one facing this problem or is it not clear why this is a problem?

Let's suppose I'm playing some covers in a bar, and the following songs are in the set list:

1. Another brick in the wall (long delay)

2. Seek and destroy (slapback delay)

If I tap/sync the delay in the rig for song #1 to the drummer's hihat beat reference, once song #2 comes up the carefully tuned slapback delay in the corresponding rig will be set to the same long delay time as the one in song #1, unless I try to tap the slapback time in my pedalboard tap tempo button.

So basically if I turn MIDI Clock on, I will need to tap the delay tempo on my pedalboard after switching to any rig with delay on. Not good.

I've been thinking about this and have come up with a solution that if implemented will benefit those who want a per-patch control of tempo regardless of tap and MIDI Clock (performing musicians) and still allow the current behavior, which IMHO is more suited for studio work.

My suggestion is creating a system parameter called "Auto Tempo Enable" or someting like that, with the following values:

Off: this is the behavior I've requested, both Tap (CC #30) and MIDI Clock will only affect tempo if it's enabled in the rig menu, otherwise both messages will be ignored.

MIDI Clock: only MIDI clock will turn tempo on automatically

Tap: only tap (CC#30) will turn tempo on automatically

Both: (current behavior) either MIDI clock or tap (CC #30) will turn tempo on automatically

Quote from timo

What kind of controller is it? Doesn't it support MIDI Clock On/Off be its own preset handling?

Timo

It's a Lexicon MPX-R1, unfortunately MIDI Clock is an on/off system parameter, so it affects all presets. As far as I know, only the more expensive MIDI footswitches have that kind of flexibility, the MPX-R1 and others I've tried don't have support for preset-by-preset programming.

Quote from Trazan

Not the exact same problem, but I need some efx (e.g. delay) to follow tap tempo and others to not follow (e.g. tremolo. As it is now, if I tap tempo for the delay, any tremolo stomp will automatically sync to it too....whether I want it to or not.

I've mentioned this as an additional feature in my first post (after the "EDIT:"), glad to know it would be useful to others.

Quote from ckemper

I understand you can disable the send of midi clock in your pedal.
Why do you send it even?
If you disable it, you could program all tempo issues in the rig, and additionally have the tap tempo as a foot botton (routed to the respective tap controller), in case you need to adapt the tempo on the fly.
This is how most people work.

In my particular MIDI footswitch (Lexicon MPX-R1), MIDI clock is how it handles tap tempo natively, it even has an LED that blinks to indicate the tempo and a dedicated tap button, but I can't assign CC #30 to that particular button (or any CC for that matter), it only works with MIDI clock unfortunately.

Quote from troynova

A work around for now you could turn off midi clock and assign another switch for tap tempo.

Yep, that's what I did - less than ideal though. I suppose that in order to justify a new feature it must be weighted over users who will benefit from it vs level of difficulty for developing it, so that's something only the Kemper staff can determine. IMHO having options is rarely a bad thing, and besides this particular feature there's the one for the rig tempo affecting only individual selected effects, which probably will be useful for more people. Then there's MIDI mapping, assignable realtime control of parameters, etc. I'd love to have more control over my KPA, and I bet other users would too.