Xpand2, want the volume/expression pedal to be something else!

[fredmant]

Hi everyone,

First a little background:

By default, xpand2 (RTAS, PT10) treatest expression pedal as a volume pedal. But the "Level" control on xpand2 does not move when you use it. The audio volume goes up and down, but not visually.

With BD-33 (the Hammond organ), the Organ (organ volume) on the cabinet control page visibly goes up and down.

I wanted to reprogram the default of the expression pedal acting as the volume control to something more, well, expressive, for both these instructions.

First the one that worked: DB-33
I right clicked the Organ (volume) control and told it to forget its Midi CC. Then I right clicked the leslie speed control and told it to forget it's Midi CC, then right clicked again and told it to learn and then played with the pedal. It works great. All the way "off" the gas is now the "slow" speed, all the way on is "fast" and in between the "brake" comes on. Very easy to use.

Then I tried the same thing with Xpand2. I wanted to make the expression pedal control the "Balance" control which lets you add some weight/bass on the fly. Very cool and look ma no hands. However, there is no control to "unlearn" the volume swell. So While I can program the balance control, it is in tandem with the volume still, so that's no good.

I'm pretty new to all this, so it's could be something very basic and I'm just searching the manuals for the wrong term. All help appreciated.
Fred

[nigelpry]

Well, what keyboard is the pedal connected to?

You may be able to change what cc number is allocated to the pedal within the keyboard itself.

That way, software won't ever see the incoming midi cc message as a volume message.

It's best if you change the pedal cc number to one of the numbers that is not automatically assigned to something specific in the midi specification, that way it will hopefully not be pre-assigned to something in the software.

Of course if you want to default the pedal back to controlling volume, then you change it's cc number in the keyboard back to what it was before (usually 7 for volume).

Some software, eg Cubase, allows you to transform midi cc data coming in to a different cc number on the fly. There are also some nifty little free little midi utility apps that will do this.

I've always done it on the keyboard, that way I don't forget about some software tweak I'v done to transform the incoming message. So you can allocate various cc numbers to different parameters, then just change the pedal to the number you want.

Of course it helps if you have a keyboard that supports multiple pedals, or, even better, multiple keyboards that support multiple pedals. If your midi/instrument tracks is set to receive midi from all inputs, then all of those pedals are active and can be set to do different things!

[fredmant]

Thanks Nigel. My keyboard is the new Axiom Air 61. It has a sustain pedal and expression pedal. I would like to be able to just do all my "learn/unlearn" directly from Pro Tools. The problem is, there is no "hypercontrol" driver for Pro Tools yet (almost a year now) for this new keyboard. Not that I liked Hypercontrol much, I'd rather just "learn" the controls as I feel I need them for each track.

I'll try doing what you suggest. Usually the expression pedal is CC11 so I'll try that.

Thanks
Fred