Triaxis/GMajor/Ground Control

[jeff5]

I'm having a lot of problems setting up my rig. I know some of you have used this set up, so I wonder if anyone can please help me here.

First, the GC was controlling the Tri and GMajor on the same channel. I wanted the GMajor to stay on one channel and only switch the Tri. I couldn't get this to work.

Then I did something where the GC is only controlling the GMajor and won't send anything to the Tri.

Also, I can't seem to sync up my Triaxis Presets with the program number. I want Program 21 to map to Preset 21. I hit the shift key, program it it in, hit enter 2 times. Then preset 21 goes back to program 02!

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

[JMMP]

For the switching separately problem,

1. Select a channel for the triaxis, and a different channel for the gmaj. Channels 1 and 2 work fine
2. Go into each unit and set them to those channels (gmaj I remember being easy, and the tri is as well, just read the manual.)
3. Go into the setting on the ground control and assign device names to their respective channels. On my GCP, this is done from the main setup menu under "device name/channel"


The triaxis maps programs. After going through the mapping process you did, that preset should show up in programs 02 AND 21.

 

[jeff5]

Thanks!

I think I know what I'm doing wrong now.

One question though. I can set my Triaxis as channel 1 on my Ground Control. That's fairly easy. If I do this then do all my Presets on the Triaxis have to be set to Program channel 1? I thought it was 1 for 1 meaning you can only have 1 Present per Program or am I wrong?

 

[JMMP]

The midi channel is separate from the program change message.
Think of your ground control as a broadcasting station. If it broadcasts a signal on a channel (like a tv channel), only tv's watching that channel will get the broadcast. Similarly, if your triaxis is set to that midi channel, it will respond to commands on that channel only. There are 16 midi channels, but there are 128 program change messages.
Changing the midi channel on the Triaxis changes it for every program.

 

[jeff5]

Got it! Makes total sense, and I think I know what I'm doing wrong now. I was changing the Midi channel when all I wanted to do was change the Program channel. This unsynced the Triaxis from the Ground Control because I probably have the Triaxis on midi channel 2 or something. (I'll look at it tonight)

So basically, the Tri needs to recognize midi channel 1 and the GMajor midi channel 2. I got it.

How does this relate to the Program number? If I understand correctly, the Present I want must be mapped to the Program number that I want. The Program number is what I tell the Ground Control to access, not the Preset number. So for instance, if I want 01 on the Ground control to access Preset 21 mapped to Program 2, I need to tell the Ground Control to access Triaxis Program 2. Is this right?

Thanks!
Jeff

 

[JMMP]

That is right. When you sit down and play around with the programming on your GC, Tri, and Gmaj, it will make a lot more sense and become more intuitive.

The program number is the information sent on a channel. Relating back to the TV analogy, it is the show you're watching/ information you're receiving. If you want news, you put it on the channel that provides you news, and then wait for the programming to be sent to you.

The following is a little more technical breakdown. I have looked into the hard code that midi uses, and it breaks down something like this: the first few digits are the channel, so only the devices looking for that channel will look at the message; the second part is the type of message, Program Change or Controller Change (as far as we guitarists are concerned); then the value of that change, in this case the program number. So each message, in a simplified way, would be 010421, where the first two digits are the midi channel, the second pair is the type of message (we will pretend 04 means program change), and the last pair is the value of the message (preset 21). So if your GC sent that message out, and your triaxis is on channel 01, it would change to program 21, but your gmaj would stay on whichever program it was on.
And so no one thinks I am ignorant to real MIDI, I do know that the messages are hex, not base10, but for the sake of explaining, I felt that method was easier.

 

[jeff5]

That's a really good explanation, thanks a ton!

Regarding the GMajor, I think that there are two ways I can do it.

If I leave it on Midi Channel 1, it will take whatever information the Triaxis passes to it and go to that channel. This is what was happening yesterday. (I had it on Midi Channel 1, same as the Tri) So for {Programl 21 on the Triaxis, the GMajor was changing to Program 21, for 22 it was changing to 22, etc.

I believe the second way is to set the GMajor to midi channel 2, which is it's channel on the Ground Control. Then tell the Ground Control to tell the GMajor what program I want it on. For instance, I think I can set 01 on the Ground Control to tell the Triaxis to go to Program 21 and the GMajor to go to Program 2. I'm not entirely sure on this though.

The GMajor will also take an incoming midi change and let you map it to whatever you want. So if it gets Program 21 from the Triaxis, I can tell the GMajor to map that to Program 2 as opposed to just mimicing the Program the Tri sends and going to Program 21.

This is helping a lot to walk though this. I have to mess with it more tonight!

 

[JMMP]

I recommend connecting the gmajor to the midi thru port of the triaxis. When you get into midi mapping in units to change what they output, it gets complicated and can lead to some frustrations.

I would set them each to different channels and control them independently inside the GC. My GCpro allows this, and I believe the GC is similar in that it allows you to program in that fashion.

 

[jeff5]

Thanks man, that's what I'm thinking too. The GC can send separate midi commands to the different channels too.