Control Specific PBC Buttons from External Devices

[PianoMan]

I know this is a weird one, but this would expand the ability of the PBC to sync button states with other devices.

For example, I have an HX Stomp XL that I currently control one particular filter setting manually, as the only way I can control it via the PBC is via a straight toggle (no specific on/off control). Because of that limitation, if I manually toggle it (which I do regularly in improv moments), it gets off sync with the PBC's settings, which could result in a drastically wrong sound being pulled up for a planned song. If I could program the HX Stomp switch to also toggle a specific button on the PBC, then I could make everything sync up perfectly all the time.

I think I figured out how to make this work in a relatively simple manner. How I can see this working from a MIDI perspective:
1) Reserve a CC Number for each individual page on the PBC/GT/etc.
2) Assign (4) CC Values to each button on each page. Each value would represent an on/off/hold on/hold off command for each button.

Ex: If CC 82 controls buttons on Page 2, then CC82 with a value of 2 would toggle the off command of button 1, while a value of 5 would toggle the on command of button 2.

If I'm doing my math right, then this system would work for every controller that RJM offers, so I hope it's a possibility!

 

[rjmmusic]

CC Link almost works like this. But, it's based on CC number - you would only be able to have one CC assigned to one button. You can't assign to different buttons based on value. The values are used to determine whether the specific button is being turned on or off.

Let's say you have an IA button with CC Link turned on and the first action is set to HX Stomp : CC Toggle #10. If the PBC receives CC #10 on the channel that the HX Stomp is assigned to, it will change the state of that IA button. If the incoming value is 0, the button will turn off, and if it's 127, it will turn on.

This may or may not be enough to do what you need. Trying the synchronize with a device that doesn't really support it is tricky at best.

 

[PianoMan]

CC Link almost works like this. But, it's based on CC number - you would only be able to have one CC assigned to one button. You can't assign to different buttons based on value. The values are used to determine whether the specific button is being turned on or off.

Let's say you have an IA button with CC Link turned on and the first action is set to HX Stomp : CC Toggle #10. If the PBC receives CC #10 on the channel that the HX Stomp is assigned to, it will change the state of that IA button. If the incoming value is 0, the button will turn off, and if it's 127, it will turn on.

This may or may not be enough to do what you need. Trying the synchronize with a device that doesn't really support it is tricky at best.

Cool, that definitely helps! The PBC doesn't always pick up on the switch between on/off states, but at the very least it prevents the buttons from actually getting completely de-synchronized between preset changes, so that's a win to me!

As a note, I did a proof of concept for my idea by linking a button on the HX Stomp to an audio loop on my PBC, and I haven't been able to screw them up no matter what I've done, so I still think my idea might actually be able to resolve the issue for pedals like the HX Stomp or other MIDI controllers that have the ability to add MIDI programming to buttons. That said, I'm still happy to at least be able to prevent accidents that would cause mistakes live, so thanks for the heads up!