has anyone got Master Volume controlled by midi

[Normski]

I have been experimenting with using a Behringer 1010 midi controller pedal.

It’s a bugger to program, but im getting there.

I want to be able to use a pedal to adjust the whole stage setting volume.

Has anyone got this working.

 

It shouldn’t be a big ask really.

But as the stage settings use in to midi Ch 1 to 4.

How do you keep the balance between zones and fade up/down.

 

There is a master volume, that would do. But It doesn’t appear to be able to be used as a  controller destination, unless this is in the latest O/S which I will get around to installing when my heavy gig sheet allows.

 

If I set a 1010 midi pedal to Ch 1 it will adjust that zone only. The zones on any of the others 2,3 &4 will not be adjusted

 

So - Can Master Volume be controlled by midi?

 

It shouldn’t be a big ask really, wanting to adjust the complete stage setting volume when playing on stage while both hands are a bit busy.

I love this keyboard but its very frustrating. I use a fairly complex set up and im an old hand with midi.

Norm

[Normski]

Found this is the Midi doc.

So it looks like it might be posible, Not sure if the 1010 is gonna manage it tho.

 

----------------------------------------------------------------------

16.1.1 Master Volume

Message format:   FOH  7FH  ddH 04H 11H mmH F7H

                    dd:    Device ID

                    11:     LSB Value (Receive: Ignored)

                    mm:   MSB  Value

 

Transmit - sent when the Master Volume is changed

Receive – Receipt changes the Master Volume.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Norm

[Choppin]

Hi,

 

The formatting looks like a Sysex message.  You can transmit that through a midi file or through an external device, in this case, your pedal.  In the Behringer manual, look for information on transmitting Real Time sysex messages.  The alternative, is to transmit CC 07 on all channels to the PX.  This, in effect, would control all of the channels volumes.

 

For the sysex, the mmH parameter is the value of the volume to set.  Here it is displayed in Hexadecimal which ranges from  0 to 7F.  In decimal that's 0 to 127 - depending on the display of your pedal.  Assumingly, the values change with the depression or elevation of the pedal.

 

You don't want to send a sysex dump (that would likely be all of the memory of the pedal for storage purposes).  You want to send a single message.  It's likely you'd have to program a preset or something like that - there may already be one configured.

[Normski]

Hi,

 

The formatting looks like a Sysex message.  You can transmit that through a midi file or through an external device, in this case, your pedal.  In the Behringer manual, look for information on transmitting Real Time sysex messages.  The alternative, is to transmit CC 07 on all channels to the PX.  This, in effect, would control all of the channels volumes.

 

For the sysex, the mmH parameter is the value of the volume to set.  Here it is displayed in Hexadecimal which ranges from  0 to 7F.  In decimal that's 0 to 127 - depending on the display of your pedal.  Assumingly, the values change with the depression or elevation of the pedal.

 

Hi Choppin

Yeah, it looks like using sys ex is gonna be out.

And the Midi pedal only allows 1 midi ch per Expression pedal (there are two Expression pedals)

So sending on four channels simultaniusly is out.

I'd rather just be able to control the master volume, But It look like thats not going to be posible.

 

So for me a few updates are really are nessasary.

 

Master Volume needs to be accessable somehow, without using your hands.

It would be good if you could choose with midi channels the zones recieved on.

Instead of fixed as 1,2,3 & 4 .I've always found that a pretty rubish idea.

Norm

[Choppin]

So the Behringer can't be programmed to send a specific Sysex message?  So it seems all gear has its limitations.  A possible solution would be to route the continuous pedal data (CC 07 or 11) to a computer then from the computer send that data on all channels to the Px-5s.

 

Another solution would be to use MIDI Solutions Pedal Controller which can accept the input of a standard expression pedal ("1/4 jack) and output to standard 5 pin midi it can then be programmed to send out the Sysex message that controls the master volume on the PX-5s - the goal being to control the volume on all of the channels.

[Normski]

Im not sure if the Behringer can be programmed to send a specific sysex message. I will be continue with this.

But what a palaver, to just adjust a master volume. Definitely not a pro feature this.

Im frustrated with this to the point of giving up. Surely this could have been fixed with the O/S updates.

[Ebonivor]

Normski, I'm pretty much a MIDI novice and too old to learn (unlike Choppin, whose knowledge and ability to communicate it is admirable), but I'm fairly sure that System level parameter are sent and received on channel 1. I only know this from setting up MIDI Designer layouts and using MD to 'learn' the sysex.

[Brad Saucier]

I confirmed this myself today.....The Master volume parameter is under the system settings button>sound generator.  Adjusting this sends a sysex message to midi ox. Sending this message back to the PX-5s alters master volume.  Same thing happens with the Data Editor.  

[Choppin]

Hi Ebonivor,

 

System Exclusive messages can be transmitted for a single channel or for all channels using the Midi channel 7F.  General CCs are per channel.  There are some global commands that can be transmitted through a specific channel but that really depends on the hardware and how it accepts the messages.  The Basic Channel setting on the PX-5s seems to be for program changes specifically and its setting does not affect volume per channel.  For example, if you wanted to change the volume on channel 4 you would send CC 07 on channel 4 even if the Basic channel was set to 1.  I think!

[Ebonivor]

That is exactly as I understand it Choppin, except I didn't realise there was a MIDI channel 7F (127). The MIDI Designer captured sysex string for the Master Volume indicates channel 1 (00) I think, but I might be interpreting it incorrectly. In fact, I'm not sure that I can interpret it at all! :-) In this case, 7E is the value.

 

44 17 02 7F 01 02 03 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 03 00 00 00 00 00 7E

[Choppin]

Thats a big string! The format of it looks like a conversation to set up midi data transfer as opposed to a real-time sysex message.   A real-time sysex message should start with F0 7f

 

The string you listed:

44 17 02 = CASIO PX-5s model ID

7F = Midi device ID in this case 7F means transmit to all midi devices (this is what I meant by all channels but said it completely wrong)

01 = tell the device that an individual parameter is going to be sent

 

The rest makes no sense to me but from the look of it, the whole string is skipping a bunch of data banks (all of those 00) and other parameters.  The 02 after the 01 suggests a patch change, the 03 has me baffled.  My guess is that in the case of Midi designer, conversations are started and stopped between the px and the device.  This is so that parameters such as patches, DSP, mixer settings, and any other "deep" parameters can be affected.  This is a little different than universal real time sysex messages.  It's still in real time per se, but it's functioning is for complete data transfer abilities.  But I'm a novice at all of this as well.  I'm making a lot of suppositions based on what I read and am seeing in the displays.

[Ebonivor]

Ah, Choppin, I forgot to explain that MIDI Designer strips out the beginning F0 and ending F7 but sends them universally. I was initially just typing in the basic real-time messages as described in the Midi implementation Manual, but got nowhere with trying to understand the more complex messages that included Block, Size and Array details. Then Mike Martin told me that he had found a simple way to pass the message to MIDI Designer from the Data Editor by setting the PX-5S USB Out to MIDI and having MD learn the string. The result is the type of string the I posted. In MIDI Designer, for a variable control, you replace the value with V and specify the number of bytes in the value. You can also replace the channel byte with L to be able to also vary that. I can't find any relationship between the "learnt" string and the details given in the manual. I was actually hoping that you might be able to decipher it!

 

Interestingly, I can have MIDI Designer control the master volume with the standard message 7F 7F 04 01 00 V (V=value), but if I get ti to learn the sysex sent by the Data Editor, the string is 44 17 02 7F 01 02 03 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 03 00 00 00 00 00 V which also works. I can't see the relationship between the two, particularly, like you, the significance of the 03.

 

This is probably getting a bit far away from Normski's topic, but I would love to explore the mysteries of the PX-5S MIDI implementation further...perhaps directly via PM any time if you like.

 

BTW I now understand that 7F in the channel area of the message doesn't mean channel 127, but rather :disregard channel"

[Choppin]

Thanks Ebonivor, that's some neat stuff!  Sorry Normski for high jacking the thread a bit, but I like trying to get good comprehension on this midi stuff.

[Choppin]

 

Interestingly, I can have MIDI Designer control the master volume with the standard message 7F 7F 04 01 00 V (V=value), but if I get ti to learn the sysex sent by the Data Editor, the string is 44 17 02 7F 01 02 03 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 03 00 00 00 00 00 V which also works. I can't see the relationship between the two, particularly, like you, the significance of the 03.

I will apply this to Normski's original post:

 

Ebonivor,

 

There are 2 things going on here as I see it:

     1. The long string represents a device specific (in this case the PX-5s) system exclusive message 

     2. the short string represents a universal system exclusive message

 

For an external device to control the master volume on ANY midi capable device, all that should need to be sent is 

F0 7F 7F 04 01 00 (volume) F7

 

Normski (and Ebonivr),

 

For example, set master volume to 100 on any listening device:

F0 7F 7F 04 01 00 64 F7

 

So any midi pedal that can send that string can control the master volume on the Px-5s.  There is a difference between master volume and CC 07 or CC 11 .  Those 2 control codes only control the volume on 1 channel - for any midi devices.  Those are channel specific messages.  So yes, one could control a single channel on the Px-5s with the behringer, but unless a user specified sysex message can be sent, there would be no way to control the master volume "out of the box".

 

What does this mean?  Well, as I mentioned before, with software like Midi-Ox for example, one could take the input from say, channel 16 (or whatever channel you like) for control code 7, and map it to all of the other channels.  So if the behringer was plugged into the computer and it's pedal was set to channel 16, cc07, then from the computer (at least using midi-ox) plugged into the px-5s, you could control the volumes on all or any midi channels you choose at once.  This is actually a little more flexible than controlling the master volume as you could control any combination of channels.

 

You could also apply this technique to filter cutoff, or reverb, or chorus, for all or any channels.  In fact, you could create combinations of various effects and volumes to control from a single pedal input streaming continuous data. 

 

Outside of the behringer pedal, it looks like the Roland FC-300 can control master volume (or at least send different sys-ex), and as has been mentioned, there is the Midi Solutions foot controller.

[elecmuse3]

I've gone around this problem too. I just use a physical volume pedal. Doing so eliminated a lot of programming headaches.  I'm currently using mostly Behringer pedals, (separate not the MIDI board), which are active & require a power source, partly because if the pots get worn, presumably the jumps from scratchiness will be evened out by the circuitry. The main disadvantage they have is that putting two or more side by side they won't go too close to each other because the jacks are on the side. I have four volume pedals plus sustains on my pedal board.

[elecmuse3]

BTW the pedal is a Behringer FCV100, $30 at B & H. It's stereo with one of the 2 jacks changeable to a CV output.

[Normski]

Hi elecmuse3

That looks to be a nice way to go.

Norm