Guitar players using receptor live?

[nias]

I'm interested to hear how other guitar players are using receptor live. How are you handling preset changes, tempos, exp pedals and what foot controller are you using to do this??

I'm a little frustrated with the fixed midi implementation in the receptor. It's impossible to find a midi foot controller that allows proper control of the receptor. I've spent the last two days reading foot controller manuals, fun! and still can't find one that would work. You should be able to assign your own controllers for what you need control of. Maybe this is possible??

cheers,

-nias

www.theevening.com

[tconrardy]

well..I used it live..but all I did was change presets. Nothing fancy. However on all my custom multi-presets I always program the guitar input so my guitar will be live all the time. However I did a Guitar specific bank( you can get it at plugarama) and I use that all the time as well.

[nias]

hey TC, thanks for the reply. So how do you change your presets live? Do you have multiple presets per song? Or just one per song?

-nias

www.theevening.com

[tconrardy]

hey TC, thanks for the reply. So how do you change your presets live? Do you have multiple presets per song? Or just one per song?

-nias

www.theevening.com

I just use the mouse :-)I guess if you knew the patch number you could do it on a foot pedal or MIDI controller..so again..nothing fancy. If I want a rough distort, I choose my Clapton patch. If I want plenty of sustain and echo, I use my Hillage patch. if I want clean, I choose my Chorus patch. ect

[Rick@MuseResearch]

The problem you are faced with is that the floor controllers are not as feature based as keyboard controllers.

My Receptor solo live rig has a Roland PK-5A bass pedal, Roland GR-33 guitar synth with a GK-3 pickup mounted to a Taylor acoustic, Behringer FCB1010 MIDI Foot Controller, Korg Kontrol49, Midi Solutions 4x1 merge and MIDI filter box.

Let me know what you want to do and I may be able to help.

I'm interested to hear how other guitar players are using receptor live. How are you handling preset changes, tempos, exp pedals and what foot controller are you using to do this??

I'm a little frustrated with the fixed midi implementation in the receptor. It's impossible to find a midi foot controller that allows proper control of the receptor. I've spent the last two days reading foot controller manuals, fun! and still can't find one that would work. You should be able to assign your own controllers for what you need control of. Maybe this is possible??

cheers,

-nias

www.theevening.com

[nias]

The problem you are faced with is that the floor controllers are not as feature based as keyboard controllers.

True, and that’s why I think it’s important that receptor be flexible here and thereby more compatible with controllers that guitarists generally use. Not only that it would be much easier to program the receptor than a foot controller, those things are horrible to program. The receptor is probably more aimed at synth players but I think it's also marketed at guitar players, it does have a dedicated Hi-z guitar input. I would love to see more features for us guitar players in the near future.

My Receptor solo live rig has a Roland PK-5A bass pedal, Roland GR-33 guitar synth with a GK-3 pickup mounted to a Taylor acoustic, Behringer FCB1010 MIDI Foot Controller, Korg Kontrol49, Midi Solutions 4x1 merge and MIDI filter box.

I purchased the receptor for flexibility and simplicity. One 2 space rack unit and 1 midi foot controller, maybe a small keyboard controller if I want to trigger samples or play a keyboard part. I know I could go out and buy tons of gear and spend thousands of dollars and have to spend an hour setting up at each gig, but that's what I’m trying to avoid.

I have to say though that I do love the receptor, it’s an awesome tool and I have found workarounds for the issues that I have now (see below). I just hope that these will be addressed in a more elegant way in the near future.

Let me know what you want to do and I may be able to help.

Thanks Rick, I actually talked to you for quite a bit on the phone. You were very helpful (great customer support) and I posted this before I spoke with you. I’ll repeat everything so it may help anybody else and hopefully get others to push for these features. Here are some fairly simple things I’d like to do, hopefully without buying more equipment.

-- Load patches without a lag, switch from say a clean patch to dirty patch instantly with no sound dropout with a midi foot controller.

-- Midi foot controllers let you assign an expression pedal one cc# globally, but I'd like to control different parameters for different patches, say master volume control on one patch and wah on another.

-- Tap tempo. Band starts a song faster than the tempo I have setup for that patch, what do I do now?

-- Access different banks with my foot controller. Say I play in two bands and have a different bank of patches for each band, how to access these without totally reprogramming my foot controller?


Here are some of my workarounds.

** First off I got a new foot controller. Most midi foot controllers can’t be programmed to access some of the receptors features. Mainly you can’t send cc#’s on different midi channels or access banks other than the first one (Multi synths). I spent hours reading different manuals online and finally found one that would work in . The Yamaha MFC10.

** Load patches without a lag: Set up a multi patch and on each mixer channel setup your patch changes. So let’s say you have clean on channel 1 set that up as clean no fx. Dirty on channel2, maybe load a distortion in FXA on channel 2. To switch between these patches setup your foot controller to send a “solo channel” message (receptor cc#110) for that particular channel. For mixer channel 1 send cc#110 on midi channel 1, mixer channel 2 = midi channel2 and so on. Now the tricky part, if you try this setup you will see that if you start, solo channel 1, switch to channel 2 and then go back to channel 1 it wont work properly. What happens is you send an initial solo on message the first time for channel 1, then a solo on message for channel 2 and then you are sending a solo off message the next time you go to channel 1. Simple solution is set up your foot controller to always send solo on messages. Tell it to send value 127 for note on and value 126 for note off (note: receptor doesn’t like it if you send both messages as the same value 127 for example. Now you have seamless patch switching. A more elegant way to do this would be to have scene selections (snapshots of setups) in receptor, checkout brainspawn’s forte.

** Expression pedal: for this you have to always use the same FX slot for anything you want to control. You can reassign the order of different parameters (see manual) but you are fairly limited. Midi mapping would be great here.

** Tap tempo: You click off the song according to your delay time for example, or set up an expression pedal to control a delay time or whatever it is that must match the song tempo. Another way is to setup a few different tempos that you can quickly access but there is no real elegant way for this. Hard to believe no tap tempo and no way to save tempo with each multi patch.

** Access different banks with foot controller: With firmware 1.3(beta) you can unlock and overwrite the factory multis. So if you have a foot controller that only sends simple program change messages you can set up the first factory multi called “Multi Synths” as your user multi. Overwrite all the patches in that one with your own and you should be able to use any foot controller to access these patches. If you want to access any other banks you’ll have to get a controller than can send bank select messages (msb/lsb values).
It would be great if you could assign which multi gets to be multi number 1 (msb000/lsb000) on the fly so you could easily switch which bank you are accessing from any foot controller without having to reprogram it.

Anyway as I said I do love the receptor and the pros far outweigh the cons right now and I’m sure things will just get better in the near future. I’d love to hear some suggestions and hear how other guitar players are using receptor.

Cheers,

-nias

www.theevening.com

[cbreeze34]

nias-

great advice, i've been having exactly the same issues with my receptor (posted in the "Receptor Improvements" thread not too long ago). i did the same foot-controller manual search and came upon one that i thought would work, the Roland FC-200. well turns out it can only send controller messages up to 95, meaning i can't bypass effects. However, that may not matter, because i'll try out your "solo" workaround and see if it'll be doable with my current setup (though i don't know off hand what the cc# is for track solo). i really don't feel like returning the foot controller as i'm super excited to start using the receptor for some upcoming shows. fortunately most of my quick switching is done with my distortion pedals which are obviously external.

tap tempo would be fantastic.
midi controller remapping would be superb.
midi plugin support would rock. (imagine intelligent harmonies/comping being added on a piano behind your guitar work? all you'd need is a guitar-midi interface.)

[cbreeze34]

blast. foiled again. cc# for soloing a channel is 115. looks like i'll be exchanging the Roland PB for the Yamaha. unless, of course, cc mapping is part of the next release...in which case i may be able to wait.

[DanTimis]

The next release will concentrate on Uniwire. There will be some bug fixes and other small improvements, but there will no cc mapping. I hope we will address this in the release after that.

[PhilAiken]

Check out my midisolutions event processor post. It will do a TON of what you need without buying a new floorboard.

[nias]

hey cbreeze34, yeah i had the same problem, my foot controller wouldnt send out cc# past 99 and it couldnt send stuff out on different midi channels from patch to patch. The Yamaha MFC10 works great, you can even split the buttons so the top five control cc#s and the bottom ones control program changes (although i wish it were the other way around). I was definately frustrated with no midi mapping in receptor but I'm happy now that i got this controller.

Now please, please, please, tap tempo and save tempo with mulitis.

-nias

www.theevening.com

[nias]

hey phil thanks, yeah another solution is the midisolutions event processor which will work great for many people. I looked into this as well but found you can only map 10 events and it's $149. thrown in another $100 and you got an all in one controller which is capable of a lot more. Also on the yamaha controller there is a midi thru so you can run a keyboard through to the recpetor as well which is nice because the receptor only has 1 midi in.

-nias

www.theevening.com

[PhilAiken]

You can get one that will do 32 midi events for $150.00
But I see what your saying for your use.

[cbreeze34]

i do wish cc mapping would be part of the next release, but on the other hand, i'm pretty excited that uniwire will finally be available. we've been using receptor as a studio box for a bit now as well as my guiter fx proc, so i've had todo a lot of switching around and rewiring when it changes roles. with uniwire, however, i'm hoping i'll be able to leave the receptor in my guitar rack and wire it into the network to use it as a studio box.

as far as tempo...even having one option available would be great, but lacking both tap tempo and saving tempos with multis creates problems. i'm sure you guys realize that though. one thing that excites me about muse research in general is you guys here on the support forum are really helpful. thanks for that.

[tee boy]

I think Receptor is a really cool idea. Id love to give it a whirl live, and may well do in the future.

Id probably using it before a nice valve amp. In my studio Iv had great results recording this way - using amp sims before valve amps. You seem to get the best of both worlds.

Interesting thread.