Hi community, let me start by saying I’m not very familiar with midi controllers so pls excuse me if I’m not clear.
I’m wondering if our quad cortex and plug-in users have come across an expression pedal that has both a tps connection like would would connect to qc expression input and a usb to midi connection like you would connect to a computer to control wha and whammy type fx in ndsp plugins.
I’d love to get 1 pedal that could do both. Not at the same time but if I needed to ctl something on qc I have something… some other time I need to ctl something in a plug-in I can use it for that as well.
That won’t workI’m afraid @Quannis . That is purely for some newer devices that have moved Midi connections onto minijack cables.
A great idea since 2 of the 5 pins on a midi connector aren’t used, and they are huge for a cable with three connections.
The only issue currently is that people are disagreeing on which pins should be which in a TRS midi cable
For what it’s worth, it’s not a complete answer to your problem, but I am having good luck with the cheap Nektar MIDI CC pedal. It’s as cheap or cheaper than smaller, cheaper (in the quality sense) pedals. I am planning to buy another and since they’re so cheap - usually around USD 25 - it’s a small decision.
It has a TRS cord, which may or may not suit your setup. I plug it into the also-cheap Asmuse MIDI Captain (there are several clones/knockoffs that are the same thing just rebranded) which is also one of the cheaper MIDI control boards out there. The midi captain has both USB and 5-pin midi connections. The USB connection works as a midi connection as well as the pedal’s power source, which saves a cable, which is nice.
The midi captain is easy to use; I literally use the same all-cc configuration exclusively. That’s with no special configuration of the pedal. I do want to eventually play with some of the advanced “geek mode” settings (that’s literally what it’s called) and see if there are any useful options in there.
Just replaced a Nektar Pacer with the MIdi Captain and really liking it so far. The Geek mode is actually easier to use than than the Normal when it comes to customizing and with the pages, like scenes on the QC, I have a Setlist folder page, a Preset Folder page, then my actual playing play which works with they Hybrid on the QC giving me 4 scenes in the preset across the top and then 4 block switches across the bottom. I can easily scroll up to the Setlist page and choose one then back down one and choose a preset then back down one more and be with my playing layout!
Yeah the Morning Star has the labels and the soon Pro 8 looks like it will be nice but it will be around $500 and only 8 switches. The MC is way more bang for the buck.
I’ve been using Super Mode just because it seems a little simpler on the configuration side. It seems to have what Geek offers while being simpler to configure, plus it has the “keytimes” option which lets you cycle through messages only taking one switch up. Sounds like you might be able to use one switch to cycle through your setlists, another for your presets, and the rest for your playing layout!
You actually don’t need to buy anything else to do this, as the QC can act as an expression to USB MIDI interface.
Leave your expression pedal plugged into your QC and then connect your QC to your computer using USB. The QC will pass MIDI to your computer (assuming you have usb over MIDI turned on in MIDI settings) and you just set your software to watch for expression input on CC#1 (if your expression pedal is connected to EXP Input 1).
The Nektar CC pedal’s TRS plug is plugged into the MIDI Captain, which sends it as MIDI CC messages. I don’t have a QC, I control my Gojira X plugin (plus many others) with the Captain.
