Using midi expression c.c. with Strymon pedals

[Wheresthedug]

I have finally finnished building my new board and now have my PBC up and running. I am starting to explore some of the possibilities it offers. I'm a total noobie to the PBC and PBC editor. The issue I am having is probably totally obvious if you know your way around; but I don't yet.

Can anyone explain how to use expression pedals via midi cc to achieve similar results to just plugging into the exp socket on the Strymon pedals?

What I mean by this is that on the pedals you can simply turn the knobs for any parameter (or multiple parameters) so the min and max settings correspond to the heel and toe extremities of the EXP pedal then save these per preset on Mobius or Timeline. However, you can't save midi CC ranges in the Strymon presets. I can see that I can set the EXP pedal min and max values in the PBC but these appear to be global values.

I have only messed around with this briefly so I am sure I could figure it out with enough time and trial and error but why have a forum and not use it ;-)

• How do I set the min and max values to vary from preset to preset?

Say in preset one I want the EXP pedal to control the delay mix on TimeLine. I want the mix level range to go from say 30% to 50% and have the range spread evenly over the full travel of the pedal for fine control.​

Then in preset two I want the EXP to control delay mix again but with a range from 0% to 40%.​

Say in preset three I want it to have a range from 50% to 100%​

Can this be stored in the PBC presets?​

• Taking this concept to the next level, can I store different ranges for different effects. Either in different presets or when controlling two effects simultaneously. Say in one preset I want to control TimeLine delay mix with a range of 25% - 50% and Mobius modulation depth with a range of 10% to 60% at the same time. In another preset I want to control the same two parameters but with totally different ranges. How would I do that?

• If I want the range to be reversed so that moving towards toe down reduces a parameter, do I just make the min value a higher number than the max value? Can I set two parameters on two different pedals so that one increases while the other decreases? In the example above say mod depth decreases as delay mix increases but the ranges aren't the same for both parameters.

Most of this would be really easy on the Strymon pedals themselves (even a muppet like me can figure it out). The PBC seems to be uber powerful so I am guessing it is easy enough to achieve all of this and much more with the PBC but this thing is so deep it is a really steep learning curve.

Any advice to get me going in the right direction would be much appreciated.

Alan

 

[rjmmusic]

I can't speak to whether the Strymon pedals have any capabilities along those lines, but I'll try to play with that when I'm back in the office.

I can tell you for sure that you can program all of that in the PBC presets. Any or all presets can override the global expression pedal settings, so you can change the range and direction of the expression pedal values. Values are the MIDI standard 0 through 127. You'll have to do a little math and/or some trial and error to figure out how the desired parameter range maps to the 0-127 values. You are correct that reversing the values so that min is greater than max will result in reversing the direction of the pedal's sweep.

 

[Wheresthedug]

Brilliant. Thanks Ron. I was sure it would be possible but can't figure it out myself even after looking at the EXP options in the preset page of the editor. I think I'll opt for trial and error over math everytime ;-)