Newsgroup: it.arti.musica.strumenti.chitarra
Titolo: Pedaliere midi

Devo prendere un G Major, ma senza il G-minor.
Dovrei prendere quindi anche una pedaliera midi,
cosa mi consigliate?
Midi Mate Rocktron, Rolls 128 buddy o cos'altro......
con queste pedaliere posso sfruttare al massimo tutte le funzioni del
G.Major?
Grazie

Midi Mate Rocktron, Rolls 128 buddy o cos'altro......
Dai un occhio al mio sito, sezione gear.
Io ho preso una PROEL MS16 a pochi soldi ed ero scettico. Ora la
consiglio perche' mi sto trovando piuttosto bene. Unica pecca: non ha
il pedale d'espressione (che comunque io non uso).
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      Andrea Del Miglio - 
del...@delman.it
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    Home pages: 
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http://www.drinkpink.net
 
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 , dopo avere montato un vibratore nella
sua Dobro per aumentarne la risonanza, ha il coraggio di scrivere:

COME SCEGLIERE UNA PEDALIERA, LUNGO ED IN INGLESE, COME AL SOLIT!
Midiboard features
Pedals
An Expression pedal (Continous Controller/CC pedal) is recommended for
real-time modifying of levels and other effect parameters. If the pedal
is built into the Midiboard the amount of cables will be decreased, but
on the other hand it cannot be moved away from the Midiboard´s switches
if you´d feel they are positioned too close. If a board does not have a
pedal built in it might still be possible to connect one or more
external pedals. Some Midiboards propably accept just about any
expression pedal while others work best with certain models. Most likely
this is due to the impedance of the pot inside the pedal, which should
be easy to change if necessary. For example, with DMC´s "Ground Control"
Midiboard, expression pedal pots with 250kOhm impedance are recommended
(personal communication with DMC). Other brands may work best with other
impedance values. Even if a board does not allow any external pedals to
be connected to it, you can of course still connect a pedal directly to
the G-Force expression pedal jack. For more information about pots and
expression pedals go to the Electronics and External modifiers pages,
respectively.
Switches
The minimum number of foot switches depends on how you plan to use the
board. If you want to bypass effects, one switch for each effect block
is the most convenient, plus up/down switches for preset changes and
maybe one or two for the tuner, tap tempo or other specialized uses. You
might also be able to change the board´s function so that each switch
corresponds to a pre-determined preset instead. In that case, and if you
want to be able to recall a lot of presets at any time, you might need
more switches. Note that different boards may utilize their switches in
different ways. For example, one board may have many specialized
switches while another is fully programmable, so you can´t always
compare the total number of switches directly on different boards. The
switches should have a tactile feel so that you can feel if you have
pressed hard enough on them.
Amp channel switching
Some Midiboards feature one or more relay outputs to control preamps
(instead of the amp´s footswitch), but since the Midiboard and the
preamp are located at different places you must use an extra cable in
addition to the one meant for the Midi signals. Another more practical
solution (Vagn R. Nissen gets credits for this idea) could be to use the
two unused pins in the Midi cable for transmitting the relay signals,
like when phantom powering a Midiboard (see below).
If a board lacks a relay output you may still use it together with a
Midi patchbay, which will let you control effects without Midi. A Midi
patchbay and a Midiboard is more expensive than just a Midiboard with a
relay output built in, but it´s more flexible and you´ll get one cable
less on the floor since the patchbay is controlled by the Midi cable. A
number of switching products are listed on Maarten van Helden´s web
site.
Display
Most boards have LED:s showing which switches have been depressed (but
see section Block status On/Off below) and a numerical display showing
the current preset number. If the left-most digit in the display has
seven segments it can show any number, but if it has only two it can
only show the number 1 or nothing at all. For example, a 3-digit
numerical display may show either numbers 00-199 or 000-999 depending on
if the left-most digit features two or seven segments.Some big displays
let you enter preset names, which can be very useful if you use lots of
presets and cannot remember their numbers.
Phantom power
A few boards can be phantom-powered through the Midi cable in order to
limit the number of cables on the floor (otherwise you must use a
separate cable from the power supply). Unfortunately there´s no standard
way of doing this: some boards use ordinary Midi contacts (for 5-pin
plugs) while others can accept 7-pin (Ernst, Lexicon, Rocktron) or even
8-pin (Peavey) plugs instead (see also the page on Audio electronics and
the Midiboard table below). A cable with a 5-pin plug still fits into a
contact with 7 or 8 holes though, in which case the extra holes (and the
phantom power feature) will not be used. DMC (personal communication)
says that its "Ground Control" Midiboard can be phantom powered from
either 5-pin or 7-pin cables.
Some effect processors (not the G-Force) can send out power to
Midiboards through the cable. There are also adapter Midi cables
available on the market for boards using a Midi In jack with 7 holes. At
least Rocktron makes one, where one end is split into a 5-pin Midi plug
(for the effect processor) and a connector to a power supply, while the
other end (meant for the phantom-powered Midi board) consists of a 7-pin
plug. Note: For boards that have jacks for 5-pin or 8-pin plugs there
are (to my knowledge) no adapter cables available, so if you want to use
the phantom power feature in these boards together with a G-Force
processor (or any other device that cannot provide phantom power) I
guess you must make an adapter cable yourself.
You can also convert a Midiboard to be phantom-powered. How this is done
varies between Midiboards, but here´s a couple of general ideas:
The simplest method is to change the 5-hole Midi In jack in the
Midiboard into a 7-hole connector, then wire the two extra terminals to
the board´s power supply terminals (see the Audio electronics page for
the pin numbering of Midi/DIN plugs). Power can then be provided through
an adapter cable such as the one from Rocktron described above. 
Another idea is to keep the 5-hole Midi In jack and wire its two unused
terminals to the board´s power supply jack (see the Audio electronics
page for the pin numbering of Midi/DIN plugs). The hard part is then to
get power into the Midi cable, which involves rebuilding either the
effect unit or better some inexpensive intermediate Midi adapter plug or
Midi thru box (if you don´t want to make changes in your effect
processor). Perhaps you should also make sure that the phantom voltage
will not reach the effect processor (or other connected Midi gear) since
it may or may not take damage from that. 
Preset change mute on older Midiboards
Some older Midiboards may deliberately mute the signal during preset
change. The same could be the case if you´re using the switches of an
old floor multieffect unit as a Midiboard. The reason is, I believe,
that older Midiboard processors couldn´t keep up otherwise. Some
Midiboards have controls where you can adjust this. To make sure it´s
the Midiboard that is causing the muting, try a preset change using the
G-Force front panel buttons instead, and see if that works better. If
the signal is still muted during preset changes the cause might be
something else, for example that you have enabled the G-Force´s Effect
muting feature in the Utility section (in software version 1.12 and
higher). See also the page on Seamless preset change & effect spillover.
Common Midiboard models
A low-budget solution (in emergencies) could be to use the switches of a
floor multieffect as a Midicontroller, even though these may not be as
seamless (see above) or practical as a dedicated controller. The floor
effect doesn´t have to be included in the actual audio signal path since
only its Midi Out jack will be used.
It´s also quite possible to build your own Midiboard. The switches are
propably the most expensive parts, depending on their quality. It does
require some working skills (making an enclosure, wiring and soldering
switches, internal processor programming).
Midiboard comparison table
_____________________________________________________________________________
Brand/model--Phantom power--Display shows--Expression pedals--Amp switch
____________________________________________________________________________
ADA MXC (discontinued) Yes  2 external  
ART X-11 (discontinued) No 2 digits No  
ART X-12 No 2 digits 1 external "AP-1"  
ART X-15 Ultrafoot No 2 digits 2 built-in Yes 
CAE RS-10 No 3 digits 2 external No 
CAE RS-10 MkII No 3 digits 2 external(?) No 
Digitech Control 7 No 4 digits No No 
Digitech Control 8 No 4 digits 1 built-in, 1 external No 
DMC Ground Control Optional (5- or 7-pin cables) 12 characters 2
external No 
Engl Z-10 Optional (5-hole contact) 2 digits No No 
Ernst The Navigator Optional (7-hole contact) 16 character 2 external No
Lexicon MPX R1 Optional (7-hole contact) 3 digits 1 built-in, 1 external
Yes 
Nobels MF1 Optional (5-hole contact) 3 digits No No 
Nobels MF2 Optional (5-hole contact) 3 digits 4 external Yes 
Peavey PFC-10 Optional (8-hole contact) 20 character by 2-line 2
external No 
Philip Rees MM5 (discontinued) No 6 characters 2 external No 
Rocktron Midi Mate Optional (7-hole contact) 8 characters 1 external No 
Rocktron All Access Optional (7-hole contact) 3+13 characters 2 external
No 
Roland FC-100 (discontinued)     
Roland FC-200 (discontinued?) No 2 digits 1 built-in, 6 external No 
Roland GFC-50 No  2 external No 
Rolls MP128 Midibuddy Optional (5-hole contact) 3 digits No No 
Rolls MP1288 Midiwizard Optional (5-hole contact) 3 digits 8 external No
T-Rex Big Foot No 16(?) characters 2(?) external No 
Skrydstrup SC-1 No 8(?) characters 2 external No 
Yamaha MFC05 (discontinued)  No display   
Yamaha MFC06 (discontinued)  No display   
Yamaha MFC10 No 3 digits 1 built-in, 4 external No 
cIAOOO
-- Borgiaz
 
   ICQ # 70428611