Whammy DT MIDI and other Ideas!

36-P

Member
I think most people struggle with controlling the Whammy DT via Midi so I wanted to share some ideas and consolidate some other best practices. I know everyone is a little different so I will try to cover as many users as possible. The Whammy DT uses midi Program Change messages (PC's) to engage or bypass effects and only uses Continuous Controller messages (CC's) to mimic the treadle. Here are some ideas to overcome these challenges.

1) Strict instructions via Preset Change! The first secret to controlling BOTH sides of the pedal at the same time is to start thinking of it as TWO pedals. Create TWO generic devices in the device list for both the Whammy & the DT. This creates the flexibility to allow you to send two PC's on the same midi channel without complex button programming and the GT filtering two PC's on the same channel. Preset "X" can send both Active and/or Bypass commands to BOTH sides simply by programing the desired PC's from the preset editor.
device-list.jpg pc-msgs.jpg
When you assign effects with the preset change values in the preset menu the DT becomes very predictable. However, wont be able to Engage/Bypass effects unless you have access to the pedal or you change the preset. You can send any bypass command(s) to either side but the best practice is to send the Bypass command pair / partner for each effect. If you send the the Bypass PC for the effect that you might want to use you can use the actual pedal to engage or bypass effects or use the momentary switch if you have access to it. The GT filters redundant PC's if you are always sending the same commands which may reduce wear on the DT's relays.

2) Simple IA Buttons.
If all you want is to do is Engage or Bypass a single effect(s) you can create a button(s) that sends the corresponding PC's for the desired effect(s) and state(s). This only works with one effect per side per button. Create an IA Button type with the mode set to NORMAL. Select the device name for the side you want to control. Change the action type to PC and change the ON and OFF values to match the desired effect from the midi chart below. This has huge limitations and I still recommend you follow step one so you can predict/control the state of the pedal. The GT won't know what the DT is doing unless you tell it.

Example) Button 1 Engages/Bypasses DT octave down so you can loop a bass line. Button 2 Engages/Bypasses Deep Chorus.

Whammy DT Midi Implementation Charts:

whammy.jpg DT.jpg cc.jpg

3) IA Step Functions. If you want more options with still using one or two buttons you must conquer Step functions. If you read part 1, programing the button is easier since you are thinking about 2 devices. It also helps with the GT filtering redundant PC's which is why I came up with the two device solution if I recall. You can send Commands to both sides at the same time with one press. You can also cycle 4 steps on each button giving you access to your favorite effects.

Example 1) Button 1, Step 1 Bypass both sides, Step 2, Oct Down Active and Whammy Bypassed, Step 3, DT Bypassed and Divebomb Active, Step 4, Shallow Chorus Active and half step detune.

Example 2) Button 1 Whammy Bypassed with 3 effect steps and Button 2 DT Bypassed with effect steps.​

If you use only one Button and you created two devices you can send PC actions to both sides for each step. Check IA Cycle under IA Settings, Name your steps, and create a new IA Action, Type PC, for each device and the correct PC #'s for your setup for each step. You have to click ADD Step to separate each steps function. If you went the two button route you only need to create one New Action per step.

4) You have... Issues! If you must have total control (minus momentary switch) You could create a button with an action type System and a subtype of page and create a page with all the effects on their own buttons. Or, maybe even use IA Cycle and check the Menu option in IA Settings so you can have a dropdown menu so you can pick the page for Whammy or DT and create a page for each side of the pedal. All the buttons must be grouped by side in separate groups with Allow all Buttons OFF checked for both groups. Add a button on each Effect page that takes you back to your main page for convenience! Winning!

5) Putting it all together. There are endless ways to tackle this problem and please contribute your ideas here! You still need to read the manual or dig deeper to understand everything you can do with the GT. There is plenty of good info on assigning the expression pedals to control devices so I won't cover that here. Programming buttons and devices, Step functions, Groups, Hold Functions...this could go on for days! Redundant PC's...I have no idea how it was set and I sold my DT so I can't test this for you. Here are some posts from RJM about the DT that might help:

The Whammy uses PC messages in a non-standard way. Turn on Direct Send PCs/CCs and Send Redundant PCs for the Whammy device in the editor and it should fix the problem. The GT tries to filter out redundant PCs and CCs, which works for devices that follow MIDI's rules, but not the Whammy. Turning on Direct Send and Send Redundant PCs will bypass all of the redundancy checking and allow all PCs to be sent to the device.

Check how your buttons are configured. You probably have a conflict in there somewhere. Remember that any button that has Send and Update on Preset Change turned on is going to send a message on every preset change. If you have multiple buttons that send PCs to the pedal, you will probably need to group the buttons so that only one button (the active one) sends its PC message.

Send on Preset Change and Update on Preset Change should be kept on, otherwise the buttons won't send any messages to the pedal during preset changes. To bypass the pedal, I recommend creating one more button in Group 1 that's programmed to send bypass messages to the Whammy. It doesn't matter which bypass CCs they are, as long as it has one DT CC and one Whammy CC. For example, you could send PC 36 and PC 61. Then, select this new bypass button in any preset that needs to have the Whammy bypassed.



Midi is a nightmare and DT might be the biggest but it shouldn't keep you up at night. I hope this helps someone and inspired some new ideas on how to unlock the power of your gear.
 
Apologies for being a bit late to this.

Digitech for some reason changed up the control options over MIDI CC when they transitioned from the old Whammy 4 to the variations after.

Not sure with the DT, but seem to recall the WH-5 came with true bypass, but didn't have the Whammy iv's CC on/off option.

An easier way around the Whammy is have it in a CC bypassed loop, so any PC is pre-selected and the CC just enables the audio via the loop. I've racked my Whammy iv's for years like this.

That way there would only be a need to send the Active PC message required.
 
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