written by: prstorms
Just the info I need, John... thanks!Is it possible to hook a volume pedal up to the Alpha base station? I need real-time volume control and can't seem to find a way to do it. If it IS possible, what pedal should I get and how to I hook it up and use it to control the instrument?
Thanks!
Pat
Hi Pat,
Our Musicians here at Eigenlabs use the Yamaha FC3 or Boss FV50. All you need to do is plug the pedal into the input on the Base Station and route the parameters in the same way you would with the strip and breath controllers.
Hope that helps, do let me know if you need any more help.
Cheers
Aaron
Customer Support
I'm great through "route the parameters the same way you would with the strip and breath controllers". I'm afraid I'll need a step-by-step on that task!
Thanks,
Pat
Hi Pat,
That's OK! It's probably easiest if you have a look at this Wiki article (www.eigenlabs.com/wiki/Audio_Unit_Parameters) and it will explain everything you need to know.
Pedal 1 & 2 are connected to parameter 8 & 9, so you just need to tick the box in the appropriate column to the effect you want.
I hope that helps, if you have any questions do contact me.
Cheers
Aaron
Customer Support
Thanks, I'll give it a look!
Pat
OK, I've got the Gofriller running, now on to volume. I've got an M-audio pedal that I'd hooked to the sustain on my M-audio keyboard, so rather than buy another pedal I hooked it in to Volume Pedal 1 "To Input" on the back of my base station. I then clicked on "Configure" in my AU window and got the spreadsheet-looking table that had my inputs on top and CCs to the left side. In this application CC #7 controls volume. However, setting the pedal to CC #7, even with the number value cranked to 99 did nothing to the volume as I played. I switched it to CC #11 (expression) with no effect. I then tried mapping breath blow to CC #7, thinking it might be the pedal. Again, no effect. Am I doing something wrong?
Thanks! I know that I'm requiring a lot of spoon feeding with this, and I appreciate your efforts. I'm getting closer and closer to what I'm looking for... a remarkably expressive cello emulator.
Thanks,
Pat
Hi Pat...
I'm dropping some lines about the pedals because it was easy for me.
Manage to have a YAMAHA FC3 (recommended by Eigenlabs) and it worked OK. You just have to "calibrate" the pedal, give the ALPHA the info about minimum and maximum.
Go to Advanced controls (On split 1) press key 4 (Pedal Calibration) it's not really documented, but you can see (in the center) four keys lit (two for pedal1 in a row another two for pedal2, other row) put the pedal all the way down and press one key in the first row, then put the pedal all the way up , and press the other second key in that row....
Don't have my ALPHA here, but give it a try and its easy ( there is the issue of polarity of the pedal and the correct key press)
Besides this, not all pedals work...
good luck
keyman
Many thanks, Keyman... gotta love those undocumented gotchas! I'll give this a try!
Pat
Hi Pat
The reason you don't find much documentation about the pedal calibration is that we're changing it at the moment. The current ability to manually calibrate them will remain but there will also be an automatic way to do this at startup (which Jim has figured out) which will become the default factory setup behaviour in new releases and means that you should never notice the need to calibrate at all. I personally hate the need to calibrate and if this new feature works well then I think it will be a big improvement as it won't matter so much if you plug the wrong pedal into the wrong input, or if the pedal mechanics drifts over time, which they are prone to do as they wear.
There is some documentation about calibration, the calibrate verbs are described here in the section towards the end, but we will be adding a wiki 'howto' when we've given the new approach a decent testing too.
Great to hear that you got Gofriller running.
John
No joy on the M audio pedal, even after the calibration attempt. Ah well... it's meant to be a sustain pedal, so I expect it's either on or off. I'd like a pedal that rocks back to get softer and forward for fortissimo, and Amazon offers a Boss FV-500 that looks sturdy and has an adjustment for the ease of pushing the pedal. It's advertised as a "high impedance" pedal. Will that be a problem for the Alpha? The Boss FV-50, by the way, comes in low and high impedance models. Which should I choose? Just to make things more interesting, I tried to configure breath (blow) and the strip controller to work volume (CC #7) and expression (CC #11). None of the attempts seemed to have any effect. Is there a trick required to use breath and/or the strip controller for volume or expression?
Thanks... I know I'm needy, but I'm getting close to having the ultimate electronic cello emulator and I'm stoked!
Pat
I think the latest unstable release of eigenD will allow you to connect up the controllers on the harp to MIDI CCs, haven't tried it myself yet.
I'll leave the unstable releases to you adventurous types!
Pat
Well, one of the biggest adventures is to have an ALPHA!! other then that, I'm sure you know you can install every version and go back at any time ( I do it all the time, for my show.)
About sending MIDI CC's take a look at http://eigenlabs.com/forum/threads/id/515/
MIDI CC matrix to the AUs - V1.2.4
keyman
Folks,
How about a re-attack on the high vs low impedance volume pedal question?
Thanks,
Pat
Hi Pat
I don't think it makes any difference. We measure the position of the pedal by sending it an audio signal then measuring what comes back, so if it'll do audio it should work just fine, regardless of impedance. I think Dave here uses a Boss FV-500 to good effect, I use an FV-50, which is lighter to carry around but not as tough as it's made of pl;astics rather than metal. The Yamaha FC-3's are great if you want a continuous control pedal that's sprung, so it returns to one position, although according to Geert that can get a bit squeaky over time.
John
Just the info I need, John... thanks!
Pat
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