USING A DIGI 002 LIVE WITH A FOOTSWITCH FOR BACKING TRACKS

[Drown79]

Though I have frequented the boards to solve many a problem, this is my first post, so hopefully you guys will continue to be as helpful on this as you are on all the other posts, I really need some help.

I'm in a touring rock band, we have a few backing tracks we use live (some synths and percussion that would require an extra person). Right now we are using a second generation Ipod with pre-mixed stereo .wav files, with click panned hard left and tracks panned hard right. Everything gets fed to a headphone amp and then the R Main output of that gets sent to the FOH. It has worked fine up until this point but the Ipod has seen its share of road wear and now the touch sensitive buttons are not so sensitive and need to be pressed harder to react and the result sometimes is skipping too far to the wrong tracks etc., not to mentioned the HD is failing, acting very strangely. I'd like to take this opportunity to upgrade things a bit so I can have a more rich sound. I would like to use a laptop with my DIGI 002 so I can have multiple outputs to a mini mixer for a more clean grouping of sounds and sending in stereo to the house so the synths will have their true stereo effects etc. Also it would be easier for the drummer to use a foot switch to start and stop playback as opposed to having to turn around and tap an Ipod for every song switch. To my dismay, I found that the foot switch input on the 002 is only for punching, not starting and stopping playback in PT. Here is my question. First off, is there anyway to use the foot switch port but reconfigure it to start/stop playback as opposed to only punching? Am I going to have to go to a midi foot switch for this? If so, I found this really great device (because I want to use the sturdy Boss FS-5U foot switch) that can take a foot switch signal and send a specific midi signal, http://www.midisolutions.com/prodfsw.htm , do you think this would fix the problem? Is there anyone else who has either used this product or found a way to make things work with the foot switch port? My last resort, which may end up being a more stable solution, is to nab this midi box, and use Ableton Live 6 instead of PT (because it's even easier to midi map AND is more of a live forum). I have never used Ableton, though I assume it can use the DIGI 002 interface so I can have the multiple outputs and midi ports available? Any thoughts, guidance or other suggestions would be greatly appreciated! You guys rock!

[monotaxi]

Hey Drown79

I wonder if you ever found a solution to this problem.
I happen to be in exatcly the same situation and it seems very hard to get any information on controlling ptotools/002 (play, stop) with a pedal.
Can anyone out there advise on this ?
It'd be great if the footswitch input was assignable to play/stop rather than punchin/out. Is this possible ?
If not then what kind of midi pedal do you need to control the transport of protools ?

I really hope someone can help with this, I called digidesign (in the uk) and they don't seem to have any kind of answer to this, they even told me to ask in a music shop!
Thanks to you all

[monotaxi]

Anyone ?
Help on this would really be appreciated...

Thx

[albee1952]

Protools without an operator(not one of the players) can be tough. I would lean toward getting another ipod and maybe getting one of the ipod DJ rigs that offers more control over a pair of ipods. Opening and closing sessions just takes too much time in front of a live audience. Plus, the footswitch is only for punchin and out so it would be useless for your plan.

[Bodenski]

One option would be to use a Frontier Design TranzPort (http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/TranzPort/). I have used one to control protools to record my band while playing. It could also be used to play back a session. It lets you also jump from marker to marker, so you can have just one session with the markers at the beginning of each new song.

Having said all that, I have also lost recordings because I relied on it and something happened at the computer I couldn't see. When you are recording a live performance the show must go on. Same with playing live. You read about the big shows that rely on some soft synths and they have two rigs running, so if the main one fails they have an immediate back-up. They also have full time bodies to babysit them!

If you don't like the iPod you could get a zune or some other MP3 player. Or burn it to a CD and play it through a CD player with more consistent buttons. If you are always playing back the same thing I wouldn't risk it in ProTools. Make what you have to play back as simple as possible, but not simpler!