More Dumble than Dumble!

[Mark]

I have meant to mention this a while ago. It seems to me the next step with these amps is to make them MIDI compatible. Often they are used with sophisticated delay effects and the MIDI capability would make them more flexible.

The question is what is practical.

Any thoughts?

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/geekslut ... oller.html

http://www.musicianstechcentral.com/midihard.html#proj

http://www.hinton-instruments.co.uk/ref ... /index.htm

[brentm]

Interesting. What controls within the amp would you want to make midi controllable?

I've often wanted to make my own midi pedal, as I just haven't found one I really like. The only pedal I really care for so far is the Tech 21 midi mouse. All the other pedals to control my G-Major 2 are just too big and bulky.

[vibratoking]

I am not sure it's really necessary to install Midi capability inside the amp, but to each his own...

I run a Midi system with my amps, including a few D-style amps. I use a Ground Control Pro to control an RG-16, some digital effects units, and the amp itself. I have quite a few analog pedals in front of the amp that are switched in/out with by Midi through the RG-16. I have a TC M-One and a D-Two that are controlled directly by the GC Pro. I have a volume pedal wired into the GC Pro to control the volume level of the TC effects. The RG-16 has function switches that are wired into the amp to contol OD, PAB, mid boost, and bright. Any desired change of effects or amp settings can be manually switched or programmed to a single midi program. I have made a custom cable for each amp. I store the Midi programs in the RG-16 and the GC Pro via midi bulk dumps. This way I can load the programming that corresponds to the amp that I want to use.

What do you want to accomplish with midi inside the amp?

[Mark]

In a word, greater flexibility. I think more tones would be available in a live situation where you don't have time to fiddle with the amp settings.

Ideally you'd want the pot settings to change, though as a DIY project, this could get wildly out of hand.

Firstly I should put the idea out there and see if it has merit. Then it can be discussed.

Perhaps Vibratoking can tell us a little more about his amp set up (I love diagrams unfortunately.)

[vibratoking]

The idea certainly has merit. Now I have a better idea of where you are going with this. You basically want presets for your Dumble amp that you can control via midi. I did something vaguely similar to a Roger Mayer Voodoo Vibe some years ago. If you know that unit, there are quite a few knobs and many different sounds to be had. I put a uC, some other circutry, and a bunch of digital pots into the unit. I could create a setting with the analogue pots, measure and store their values in program memory. I could recall settings from memory. It works well, but I'm not sure it was worth the effort. At the time, I was talking with the North American distributor for Roger Mayer. It appeared we could make a business deal to have me retrofit existing units for a fee of course. In the end, we couldn't come to an agreement as the distributor really just wanted me to give him my design. There are quite a few issues related to doing someting similar to a Dumble style amp. I'm not sure it's worth the effort. You are right, it is a lot of effort for a DIY project. I can't see myself going down that road again.

I suppose I could explain my midi rig further if anyone is really interested. It's all off the shelf stuff.

[DonMoose]

Digital pots are only good to 10V (+/-5). What you need is a circuit to servo an LDR to be whatever pot value you want, and a MIDI-to-whatever interface to store and replay presets.

Try this thread on that other board: http://music-electronics-forum.com/t1015/

(if anybody cares, I used to be Don Symes)

[Mark]

VibratoKing I would like a detailed explanation of your rig.

Don, it does all sound a bit hard, though Soldano has done it so it can be done.

[Structo]

Digital pots are only good to 10V (+/-5). What you need is a circuit to servo an LDR to be whatever pot value you want, and a MIDI-to-whatever interface to store and replay presets.

Try this thread on that other board: http://music-electronics-forum.com/t1015/

(if anybody cares, I used to be Don Symes)

Hi Don.

Are you the Don Symes that works at Microsoft Research, Cambridge?

And a programmer of F#?

[Luddy]

This is a fantastic idea. Neil Young's Whizzer control for his tweed Deluxes gives him preset control, but in an electro-mechanical way. I love the idea of doing this with MIDI. Also, I compose electronic music and use Max/MSP. Max can do pitch tracking, which could conceivably allow you to change settings according to the pitches that are being played. It seems like there are two big worlds that probably don't intersect much these days. The Max world can do all kinds of live, interactive things. The Dumble world, of course, would be the ones who could implement MIDI control. I definitely vote for every knob and switch having MIDI control.

[Mark]

I think there are tones which can't be had live as the amps knob have to be changed, and this is the merit of MIDI.

The question is how to do it?

[bcook]

You could find a Mesa Triaxis and modify it. I've never looked in one so I have no idea how big a job it would be, but it would have to be easier than inventing a midi control scheme.

[DonMoose]

Hi Don.
Are you the Don Symes that works at Microsoft Research, Cambridge?
And a programmer of F#?

Nope - I'm a hardware geek refugee from the computer industry, trying to make a living in central Indiana. (just got a job after nearly a year without one)

[LeftyStrat]

I think it could easily be done with a small board like the Arduino. Since the tone stack is AC coupled, how much voltage does it see?

I would replace the pots with rotary encoders, switches would connect directly to the embedded board.

What would be nice is the ability to switch different tone stack topologies. Fender, Marshall, Vox, Dumble, Baxadall.

But I'm not sure how this would jive with the OD section.

Many years ago I used a Marshall JMP-1. When I realized I only used two or three settings, I sold it and got rid of all my MIDI headaches.

Sometimes flexibility can stifle your creativity with too many choices.

[husky]

I have meant to mention this a while ago. It seems to me the next step with these amps is to make them MIDI compatible. Often they are used with sophisticated delay effects and the MIDI capability would make them more flexible.

The question is what is practical.

Any thoughts?

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/geekslut ... oller.html

http://www.musicianstechcentral.com/midihard.html#proj

http://www.hinton-instruments.co.uk/ref ... /index.htm

That is what always bugged me about this style architecture. The tap dancing.
Our Hedgehog (humble inspired) is midi switchable for all the switch functions. Including the effects loop and can be stored in to presets on the 4 preset included footswitch and stored from the mothership pedalboard 7 presets plus random access to any control or from the front of the amp. It is bi directional. It makes it all much friendlier to get more than 1 tone going from the cascaded setup. You basically turn on what you want hit store and a preset. IF you use midi unplug the footswitch and plug the midi cable in same connector, everything is accessible via midi as well .

We are working on a fully controllable preamp but trying to figure out if there is really a market for it. For that reason staying organic and doing all the switch and loop functions seemed like a safe bet. It is laid out so you tweakers could still tweak and I dont believe in goop

[Mark]

I think you're on the right track with the MIDI switching. So many guys use digital delay effects so this is obviously the next step.

Does the Hedgehog change pot settings etc?

If HAD was smart he would have done this himself, still it is a good amp thus far.

Just out of curiosity Husky, who are you?