Trigger midi notes with Mod Duo footswitches?

Hi! Is it currently possible to use the 2 foot switches on the Mod Duo to trigger Midi notes? I would like to use the 2 footswitches along with midi drums to trigger a kick and a snare sound live.

Thus far I can’t find a way to do so.

Cheers!

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It’s not possible right now, but it’s only a plugin away.
I imagine a plugin with 4 trigger parameters, that send midi notes when pressed (notes could be configurable).
It would need to send a note-off after a specific amount of time.
Or perhaps 4 toggle parameters for on/off control, but that’s not very good for drums.

the infamous mindi can do this, just set up the note in the settings and push the button. I should get that in stable…

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Nice! I would love to try it out :slight_smile:

hey I’ve seen you around this forum and you seem to be knowledgeable of the inner workings of this UI, I was wondering if you could help me. I’m trying to make my own ribbon controller that one can use as an instrument (make it sound sort of like a theremin, so for now I’m just using an Teensy for usbMidi commands and a potentiometer for the analog. However, I can’t get a nice smooth transition from note to note, in fact I cant get any variation in notes when the pot is turned, I’ve tried the “CC to note” module, but it only plays one note at around a CC value of 20 on one mode and on another mode it just varies the velocity with a lot of crackling on the same note still. The Teensy is sending the data as CC, as any attempts to send midi “note on” commands have a lot of crackling still. Any suggestions? Would getting a commercial made ribbon controller help in doing what I’m looking for or is this not supported by mod duo yet?

I think you must send a different midi CC for each note for the CC to note to work, and the crackling you are getting is because you are sending the same note over and over so fast it sounds like crackling.

I don’t have any experience with commercial ribbon controllers, but just based on my knowledge of MIDI I can tell you that not every synth has been made to handle them properly and I’d guess they typically come with a custom synth. I can see a couple ways they might work and without googling it I can only guess which way they typically do.

I’d guess the way to get the right effect from the most synths would be to convert the signal to a midi note and pitchbend message. This would at least give a continuous sound, but requires the synth to have a legato mode and a pitchbend setting that is a half step or can be configured to one. Actually on 2nd thought there are several ways this specific scheme could be implemented and the best one will depend on the synth you intend to control. So if one synth has a full octave pitchbend, then you only need to send bend messages until the player goes more than an octave up or down, then you’d send 3 messages: pitchbend clear, new note on (an octave away from the previous note), then turn off the previous note. This way a synth with legato mode won’t retrigger a new note. If the synth has full step pitchbend then you’d only have to send every other note on. Does that make any sense? Basically send the note and smooth the transitions using the pitchbend messages. Don’t send a note if you can get to the right pitch using bend. Of course whether you can or cant depends on the synth you are using and sometimes how the synth is configured.

I think thats the only approach that will work without requiring a special custom synth on the MOD. Barring that approach though you could do a CC and convert it but a CC isn’t going to be high enough resolution, so you’d have to use 2 or 3 messages to get good smooth transitions, and you’d have to make a special converter plugin anyway to make it work with any synths. Another approach would be to use sysex. ZynAddSubFX (which isn’t yet ported to the MOD) supports this sort of control where you can send specific frequencies to the synth rather than using traditional midi notes. I don’t think any synths on the mod support that though. Finally you could instead of using midi use a CV signal and use a CV to midi note converter. The MOD ecosystem is missing such a plugin though last time I checked (which was a long time ago), but it really needs one. I’m not sure how to send a CV through USB either unfortunately.

So lots of hard ways to do it, but the easiest by far after listing these out appears to be adding pitchbend messages to your teensy code to fill in the gaps between notes.

Feel free to ask for clarification, I’m just jabbering here.

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…in my experience, @ssj71 doesn’t jabber… :wink:

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Thank you for your detailed response!! I thought about doing the pitchbend but I wasn’t sure how to get the mod duo to recognize it as when I tried it didn’t do anything, is there a specific synth for it? Or do I need to keep trying to get my teensy code right? I’ve been using basically just generators as I only know how to play a classical violin and am unfamiliar with the tech side of music, though I am a computer engineer so i can at least understand the programming aspect of it (I’m trying to make a smaller, cheaper, and easier to play version of Wintergaten’s modulin)

just depends on which synth you tried. I haven’t tinkered with the synths for a while, but I remember some of them didn’t respond to pitchbend properly. I’m not sure which ones do. If I have some time to play this weekend maybe I’ll see which one would be the best for it.

As for the modulin, its easy because its just producing cvs, no midi at all on it. Trying to make such a controller work with midi is a bit of a square peg in a round hole, but we can probably get it to work.

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Ok, I just played with a few for a minute using the infamous mindi to generate bend messages. Noisemaker and nekobee are not responsive to pitch bend so they’re not going to work. Amsynth and triceratops worked though. If you play with them you’ll get an idea of the difference in how they respond to the same bend which is why you will have to pick which synth you’ll use our add a knob or something to select different options.

Hi! So I just installed mindi and I am able to trigger notes using my foot controller; however, since the only way to trigger a note is to toggle the plugin on and off, it means that I can trigger a note but then I need to hit the pedal again to ‘reset’ the plugin again before I can use it to generate another note. Any suggestions would be much appreciated :slight_smile:

edit: nevermind I figured it out! I linked the foot controller to the value, which for me is irrelevant. now everytime I hit the pedal I get a kick as desired. now the only issue is my poor footwork :smiley:

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