Chase Bliss Pedals and the MC6

Hey, congrats on purchasing the MC6! I'm using one to control several Chase Bliss pedals (Tonal Recall included), and it works very well. It can be a bit overwhelming at first, especially when you're coming from a Disaster Area controller, but it's well worth the time and effort in setting it up for your needs.

As you know, the DMC has a Device mode, which allows you to scroll presets. I basically have one MC6 bank dedicated to a 'device mode.'

For the Tonal Recall, my MC6 bank looks like this:

A: Press for TapTempo and to retrigger ramping. Hold for oscillation.

B: On / Off.

C: Press for MIDI Clock On. Hold to toggle MIDI Clock Ignore.

E: Press for Live / Knobs mode; Hold for MC6 Toggle Page (Access MC6 Presets G- L).

D & F: Press for PC Scroll Down / Up.

G - L (MC6 Page 2): Shortcuts to PC Messages 1, 21, 41, 61, 81, 101*.

If you categorize your Tonal Recall presets using program change numbers, you can use these MC6 presets G-L to quickly access specific “Banks” of presets. Pressing switches G-L will send a PC message and return you to MC6 Page 1, allowing you to effectively set a bank, and then scroll programs.

Let me know if you need any help when you get the MC6, I can even send you my banks if you'd like. I think you'll be really happy with it!

Damn, that's cool! Thanks for the reply.

That's right - with the MC6 you can have different commands based on tapping or holding one of the 6 switches, right? So with 12 presets (A - L), you can essentially have 24 commands?

Other than that, I'm not sure I follow "For the Tonal Recall, my MC6 bank looks like this". Do you have to program the 6 switches for each device you have? Or can you have universal commands, such as bypass/engage? Maybe not, since each device may have a different CC# corresponding to bypass/engage?

And, on the DMC you could have "Presets" in terms of turning on multiple devices with one switch. So if you had 6 MIDI devices connected, you could turn on 1 - 6 of them with one tap, and you had 4 different channels (A - D) per preset bank, so you could save a verse, chorus, etc.

Long story short, can you save presets in this way on the MC6?

Sorry, lots of questions, but I just wanna make sure I know what I'm doing! Feel free to ignore some of all of these questions :)

That's right - with the MC6 you can have different commands based on tapping or holding one of the 6 switches, right? So with 12 presets (A - L), you can essentially have 24 commands?

Somewhat, yes! You can send a total of 8 messages per Preset, there are six Presets per Bank page, and two Bank pages. Keep in mind that in order to setup different commands depending on whether the switch is tapped or held, you need to use "Conditional" messages, which determine the behavior of the switch / command, and these take up some of the 8 available messages in the preset.

Other than that, I'm not sure I follow "For the Tonal Recall, my MC6 bank looks like this". Do you have to program the 6 switches for each device you have? Or can you have universal commands, such as bypass/engage? Maybe not, since each device may have a different CC# corresponding to bypass/engage?

I should have explained in more detail, I'm not sure my use of the MC6 is very conventional, but I've planned out my banks and presets quite well... When I'm programming Tonal Recall presets, or I just want to have easy access to it's controls (oscillation, bypass, disable midi clock, etc.), I go to a dedicated bank on the MC6 that allows me to access these parameters easily. I have one of these banks for each MIDI device on my board: Voodoo Labs Hex, Digitech Whammy V, CBA Brothers, CBA Warped Vinyl, CBA Gravitas, CBA Tonal Recall, Strymon BigSky, Strymon TimeLine. This gives me a lot of control over each device, directly from the MC6.

In terms of navigation, I have a MC6 Bank that is essentially the "Table of Contents" or index that has presets that immediately call up a specific devices bank. All of my Device banks can return to the index bank by holding a switch to call the "Return to Last Bank" command.

All of what I just described is purely for deep control of a specific device and I generally don't use those banks in a performance context.

And, on the DMC you could have "Presets" in terms of turning on multiple devices with one switch. So if you had 6 MIDI devices connected, you could turn on 1 - 6 of them with one tap, and you had 4 different channels (A - D) per preset bank, so you could save a verse, chorus, etc. Long story short, can you save presets in this way on the MC6?

Of course! I generally will have sections for a song in presets of single bank. In that case, my MC6 bank would look something like this:

A: Intro (PC messages, device on / off)

B: Verse 1 (PC messages, device on / off)

C: Global Tap Tempo OR MIDI Clock (goes to all devices)

D: Chorus 1 (PC messages, device on / off)

E: Press for Verse 2 (PC messages, device on / off). Hold for MC6 Toggle Page (Access MC6 Presets G- L).

F: Press for Chorus 2 (PC messages, device on / off). Hold to go to MC6 Bank for TimeLine Looper....

It's an incredibly flexible controller. There's a bit of a learning curve, but once you get it, it's pretty hard to find something that it can't do. Hope all the above made sense!

Wow, thank you for the fantastic information! I'm excited to dig in. I was wondering with the Tonal Recall if you ever set up a preset to toggle the tap divisions switch? That is, have you set up a switch (A - L) to toggle between, say, quarter note divisions and eighth note? I'd love to set mine up like this for pitch bending type effects, but Joel doesn't recall if he coded the note division CC# to respond to that.

Also, what is the difference between midi clock and tap tempo? Or, is it the same thing?

Hmm... Good question, I haven't tried that exactly - but that sounds like a pretty cool idea! I could give that a try this weekend to see. Even if that didn't work, there's ways around that, depending on your use case. If you don't need an exact tempo for this feature, you could toggle between the max time and half the time via CC.

MIDI Beat Clock sends a constant timing signal to every connected device, 24 pulses per quarter note (ppqn), the frequency of which, is set by the BPM. To use MIDI Clock on the MC6, you have to enter a specific mode to send it, when you exit that mode, it stops the clock. It's really useful if you have a specific tempo you need all of your devices syncing to. You can save a BPM value in the MIDI Clock message, or you can tap it in.

Tap Tempo isn't MIDI clock; it's setting the tempo of the device via CC message, which is the same as tapping the tempo on each device locally. If you tapped tempo on your delay pedal, and then a tremolo pedal, they most likely will not be perfectly in sync. If you have both listening to the MIDI Clock signal, they should be perfect.

That's a great idea about switching the CC Value for the time parameter as an alternative.

I just checked, it works by toggling the CC for tap divisions. You can get some pretty cool pitch shifting :)

F*in rad! Thanks for checking! So can you set it to toggle through two values, back and forth? Or could you have the switch scroll through all 6 possible CC commands for the note division switch?

You can toggle two values with the CC toggle command, back and forth. You can only scroll program change messages a text the moment. Scrolling or stepping through CC could be a good feature request though.

That's still cool though. My MC6 is supposed to arrive Monday, so I'll try getting everything set up and give you a break for the time being :) Thanks for all of your help!

Hi njschneider2, found this thread here while coming up to the forum with similar questions.

Like you did, I come from a DisasterArea controller (DMC-6) and so I am used to that "Device-" and "Preset-Modes".

I have purchased the MC6 because I now have 7 devices I want to (or better have to) control with a midi-controller. Since the DMC-6 is limited to 6 devices a change was needed.

Did you figured out a good way to set up the MC6 to have those songparts (Intro, Verse, Chorus, Bridge) like on the DIsasterArea?

Thanks.

Stefan

Hey Stefan,

It's nice on the DMC's because the controller seems to memorize the current preset array, allowing you to simply hold a switch to save that array (i.e. presets for any number of the 6 pedals).

On the MC6 this feature doesn't exist. So, say you have three Chase Bliss pedals (Gravitas, Brothers and Tonal Recall) that you use for a verse. If you use preset 1 on the Gravitas, preset 4 on the Brothers and preset 3 on the Tonal Recall, then you have to assign three PC change messages to one of your MC6 footswitches. So you would send a PC# 1 to the Gravitas channel, PC# 4 to the Brothers channel and PC# 3 to the Tonal Recall channel.

You can call the switch on the MC6 that you programmed to do this "Verse", and when you step on that switch, it will send those three messages.

I'm going to send this as a feature request - the ability to save the current preset array to a switch.

Please help. I'm completely new to MIDI. I have a Warped Vinyl and Tonal Recall and am trying to set them up with my new MC6. But I'm unable to do so! I've looked at the CBA video on hooking up with the Boss ES-8 and tried to replicate with the MC6, but without success. I thought I understood the basics re CC# etc. I'm doing something wrong! Can someone walk me through a v simple set up (or 2) e.g. engaging / bypassing pedals and tap tempo. Thank you, in anticipation.

Hi @richardjw89,

I am not sure if I can help you with all your questions since I am still figuring out some points, but maybe I am a step further...

First. Have you read the Midi manual for ChaseBliss pedals?

Have you assigned them to a midi channel?

What do you like to control with Morningstar? Presets of the CBA-pedals or parameters? For presets you will need Program-Change-messages (PC#).

Maybe I can help you with some more information, but first I need to know if this is what you were asking for.

Greets

Stefan

First you'll need to assign the Warped Vinyl (WV) and Tonal Recall (TR) to their own midi channel. To do this with Chase Bliss stuff, you hold down both footswitches on the Chase Bliss pedal and then insert power. The pedal will now be set to the Midi channel that sent the first program change message. So do this:

Setting up the Warped Vinyl

- Assign one switch (say, switch A) on the MC6 to be a PC scroll up message and set it to Channel 1. You could name this switch WrpdUp

- On the WV, hold both switches down and insert power. Now press switch A on the MC6. You may want to press it a couple of times. If done correctly, the WV is now set to Midi channel 1 and you'll see the middle LED on the WV switch from green to red to green to red (etc) as you press switch A

Setting up the Tonal Recall

- Repeat the process above, but set up a second switch on the MC6 (switch B) to send a PC scroll up message to Channel 2

- Hold both switches on the TR while inserting power, just like you did with the WV, and then press switch B on the MC6 a few times.

You should now have the WV and TR talking with the MC6 controller.

To set up Bypass/Engage on the Warped Vinyl

- Assign a CC toggle message to a switch on the MC6 (switch C). Call this switch WVBYP, and give it the full name #WVACT. That way when you press the CC toggle, the name on the MC6 will switch between WVBYP and WVACT each time you press it. This is helpful for seeing the state of the pedal from just the MC6.

- For the inactive state, send a value of 0 to CC#102. For the active state, send a value of 127 to CC#102. Assign this command to Midi channel 1.

To set up Bypass/Engage on the Tonal Recall

- Follow the same steps as above, but assign the CC toggle message to switch D and name it TRBYP with a fullname of #TRACT. Assign the CC toggle message to Midi channel 2. Each Chase Bliss pedal uses the same CC# for bypass/engage (#102). A value of 0 to CC#102 bypasses the pedal, and a value of 127 engages it.

Setting up Tap Tempo

- Set up a switch on the MC6 (say, switch E) and call it Tap. You will probably want to have all of your devices on the same tempo, so you will have two commands assigned to this switch. Name this switch Tap

- Send a Control Change message to channel 1. Send a value of 127 to CC#93. Send a second Control Change message to channel 2. Same value, same CC#.

- Now each time you press switch E on the MC6, it will simulate pressing the tap switch on the WV and TR.

- Some people prefer midi clock, so you would have to assign a Midi Clock Tap Tempo message to switch E instead. I think Midi Clock Tap Tempo is more accurate than simulating pressing the tap switch, but YMMV.

Just read through the midi manuals on the Chase Bliss pedals, (here's the Tonal Recall's, for example http://chaseblissaudio.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/CBA_TonalRecallMidiSheet-Web.pdf) as well as reading through the different midi types on the MC6: https://morningstar-engineering.gitbooks.io/mc6-midi-types/content/chapter1.html

The MC6 has a slightly bigger learning curve than more user friendly midi controllers, like Disaster Area stuff, but there is so much more potential with the MC6! Good luck and have fun.

Hi @njschneider2,

I am still struggling with finding an equivalent function of the "preset mode" of the Disaster Pedals. That is so cool to step through all devices find the correct sound and then just save this complete presets to one knob of the midi controller.

It seems so complicated to save the correct messages by hand to have all devices in the right preset.

Don't I have to know all numbers of all presets of all devices in my head or a list to program everything correctly?

Greets

Stefan

Hi @stefan - to my knowledge, there is no equivalent mode on the MC6. So yeah, you'd have to know what preset you're on for each device and then assign a switch on the MC6 to change each pedal to the specific program number. So if you had three pedals (say a Warped Vinyl, Tonal Recall and Brothers) you use for a verse, you'd have to assign three messages to a footswitch called "Verse" and send a PC message to each device.

I submitted a request to replicate this feature on the MC6, so I'm hoping it's achievable!

Thanks guys. This looks really helpful. I'll need to sneak away from the family over the next few days where possible and try your tips out. I'll let you know how I get on. In the meantime have a great Christmas and New Year.

Richard

In a comment from last year, anthonytaglianetti said this:

"In terms of navigation, I have a MC6 Bank that is essentially the "Table of Contents" or index that has presets that immediately call up a specific devices bank. All of my Device banks can return to the index bank by holding a switch to call the "Return to Last Bank" command."

Does anyone know how to set something like that up? I can't figure out how to navigate banks other than iterating through them, unless I hook up a separate MIDI controller.

Thanks!