PBC6X Midi to HX Stomp

[cuterigs]

hello!

I have a client who's on tour in the UK and he's had this rig for most of the year (and has done several gigs). He's mostly happy with the setup but he's getting some unusual behavior in regards to sending MIDI to his HX Stomp. I recently replaced his MIDI cables (again) and we thought we nailed it. Now he's in the UK touring with a pretty well known artist to large venues and he continues to have issues.

Obviously, it's tough to diagnose from here, but here are the details:

- Since the HX stomp has a gap when changing presets, we made a preset in the stomp for each song and the RJM's presets (in song mode) are 'sections' of the songs and basically they just turn on CC's to the HX for whatever block he needs on or off (by using preset actions). So we'll save the HX preset with whatever effects the intro of a song needs to ON, then the proceeding presets in the RJM for that song send on/off CC messages. So for example, "Song 1" on the HX has trem on and reverb on by default when he calls up "Song 1 Verse" on the PBC. Then "song 1 chorus" on the PBC sends a CC to turn off the trem block on the "Song 1" HX patch. Then he has to go back to Verse on the PBC, so "Song 1 Verse" also has to have a CC for trem block ON (even though it's already on the first time he loads up the preset). I feel like this all can create some conflicting messages, but I'm not sure how else to go about it.

Unfortunately, he says that sometimes the blocks are recalled correctly and sometimes they're not. I haven't seen this in person when he comes in, it always works as intended. So it's hard to say if he's programming the patches in a way that's not right, etc. I think I read somewhere that @rjmmusic prefers to set the CC's to IA buttons on any page and activate those buttons from each RJM preset. we're going to try that next. Hopefully the IA buttons page trick will work.

- the other random bug is that he has MIDI Clock transmitting to the HX (and a timeline after it). He sets the tempo of the songs in song mode in the PBC. In some of his song patches in the HX, he has a tremolo block set to 1/16 notes. He says that sometimes it calls up correctly but often it also comes up twice as fast as he needs and he just has to play with that sound since he's in song mode and doesn't have an IA available for midi clock tap tempo. again, every time I have the rig, it's perfect. but he seems to get these glitches on his gigs (which are pretty major, so it's a lot of pressure to be on point).

Any ideas as to why this stuff is happening? At this point it feels like we've tried a million things.

thanks so much for your help!
jg

 

[rjmmusic]

As for the first issue, it probably is a conflict as you suggest, or possibly something going on in the HX. Using a MIDI monitor to see what CCs are actually being sent at each step, and comparing that to the result on the HX would be a good first step to debugging it.

The other one is pretty weird. The PBC's MIDI clock is pretty reliable, and a tempo that's double what's desired points to two sources of tempo trying to send the same tempo at the same time. Are there any CC tap tempo messages defined anywhere in the system? Is there any possibility of a MIDI loop in the system? Is there anything in between the PBC and HX in the MIDI chain? And, is there anything plugged into the PBC's MIDI input?

 

[cuterigs]

Good call on the MIDI Monitor, we will definitely try that when he’s back in town.

I checked out my personal rig which also has the PBC6 controlling an HX stomp via MIDI

I basically have one preset on the HX stomp with a bunch of effects blocks and I use IA buttons to turn on whatever effect I need with CC’s. At last night’s gig, the HX wouldn’t respond to some of those commands now and then, so I’d have to tap it again to make it work. The PBC6X screen shows the label I assigned when I hit those CC’s, like “Lead Delay” or “Octave +”, but the HX doesn’t register sometimes.

Regarding MIDI Clock:
Nothing is going into the PBC via MIDI In. The physical MIDI chain goes: PBC6 > HX > Timeline but I believe (I could be wrong) that he has the HX on MIDI channel 2 and the Timeline on MIDI channel 1. I’m not sure if that makes a difference? MIDI Thru is on on the Stomp. One other interesting thing is that on some of his patches, the Timeline’s Tap Tempo light blinks erratically, like in rapid groups of 3 blinks instead of a steady tempo.

I might have to just get into the programming myself and see what’s going on and possibly forward his settings over here to check out.

thanks so much for your time and help!