MIDI for setting Strymon Display of Preset Name

[Jonn]

This is really a question for Strymon. I've asked and haven't heard back, so I'm asking hear in case someone has encountered and solved this and can share your solution.

Question: Is there a MIDI command I can send from the PBC that will tell a Strymon pedal to display the preset name?

Background: I run a TimeLine and BigSky after the PBC and control them with MIDI from the PBC. I've added MIDI commands to set both Strymon pedals to Bypass when the PBC mute switch is clicked. This has worked great, but I recently noticed that if I have self-oscillation happening on a preset configured to persist, I'll still have persistent noise coming out of my rig after muting via the PBC. So I added MIDI to also turn off Persist on the Strymon pedals when the Mute button is clicked. Great, problem solved. But now my Strymon pedal displays are always saying "OFF" or "ON", telling me the state of the Persist setting.

I'm hoping there is another MIDI action I can add to the Mute button IA Actions, after the Bypass/Persist changes, that will set the display back to the Preset name.

Or some other solution to turn off a persistent preset when muting via PBC without loosing the Strymon preset name display? Again, I'm running the Strymon pedals AFTER the PBC, not inside its loops.

Thanks!

 

[shoelesscraig]

There is no way to tell the Strymon stuff to display the preset name via MIDI (I own the TL, BigSky and Mobius, and I'm pretty familiar with all 3).

Is the oscillation that you're experiencing on purpose? Or is the delay just turned up too much? I believe it does this on the TAPE setting pretty easily, but changing to Analog (dBucket) makes it less likely to happen. Either way, none of my business...I've just found that sometimes people simply have a setting problem rather than a real need to do some fancy programming. Let's assume you have to have that...

Instead of killing the persist via MIDI, how about creating a "blank" preset on the TL that has the MIX all the way down...essentially a dummy preset. Change to that instead. That will kill the oscillation you're having and it won't kick the preset names off the display. I've done this on occasion on my rig and it works well.

 

[Jonn]

There is no way to tell the Strymon stuff to display the preset name via MIDI...

Thanks shoelesscraig!

Yes, the oscillation is intentional and a part of the band's sound. On the presets I'm doing this I've also got it dial-able via expression and I can roll it out with my expression wheel, but I'd like to be sure Mute is a sure-fire silencer.

Your dummy preset idea sounds like a great solution for me and I'll give that a try.

Too bad we can'd ask the Strymon pedals to display the preset name via MIDI. I've been through both the TimeLine and BigSky manuals and, not seeing it, hoped there might be something semi-secret that would do it. I also have a "strymon page" with switches to turn on/off the boost of each - if I set these boost switches to send/update on preset change (which is nice for including the boost on certain PBC presets) I get the same problem - the Strymon displays are always telling me 0.0db or 3.0db boost depending on the preset. So currently I don't have those switches set to send/update on PBC preset change so I can see the Strymon preset names.

Thanks again,
Jonn

 

[Jonn]

Instead of killing the persist via MIDI, how about creating a "blank" preset on the TL that has the MIX all the way down...essentially a dummy preset.

Thanks again for this suggestion. I'm using this now. Problem with the Mute button is that, now, when I un-mute, I've still got the blank presets engaged until I toggle presets. With the Mute button IA actions there doesn't seem to be a way to recall the previous PC on Mute off. As a work-around, I've changed my Global setting for "Preset 2nd Press" to "Reload" - Mute still sets the Strymons to "blank" presets on engage, and they still stay when Mute is disengaged, but now I can reclick my muted preset and have it return to it's default stage. So now I click Mute to mute and reclick the lit preset to unmute.

Not perfect as a Reload removes any live changes I made to the preset before clicking Mute, but that's not a regular issue for me.

Also, I've heard back from Strymon, with confirmation that there is no way to recall the preset name to the display via MIDI. I've requested this functionality be added, which they have noted, but not guaranteed.

 

[shoelesscraig]

Correct, there is no way to recall the last PC sent to a pedal. I’ve requested this with Ron, hoping that it will be implemented in the next update for the PBC. It would be SUPER helpful to myself and I’m sure a TON of other PBC users.

I currently do something similar where I press a button that sends my BigSky to a huge reverb at the end of a song so it trails loudly into the next song. When I press the button again, I would like it to return to the previous sound, but for now I just have it going to a generic “all purpose” reverb. For reverb it isn’t as big of a deal, but for delay it would be (specific tempo, etc). Hoping we get this...would be a great addition.