Arduino MIDI footswitch, Reaper and TH-U. Newbie question

noomt

New member
Hi guys,

Starting a project to build a footswitch pedalboard based on Arduino to control TH-U in Reaper. It's my first Arduino project so I am learning everything (Arduino/MIDI) from zero. So far I've managed to send MIDI signals to the PC, now working on Reaper and TH-U to read them.

I am still thinking on how I would like it to work, and one feature that would be amazing is to have leds that will show the status of the effects when a patch is selected, or even change when using automation. Dual-colored leds would be a killer. Off if a footswitch is not assigned, green if assigned but off, red if assigned and on

My newbie question is: is it even possible to 'read' the status of the effcts/parameters on TH-U?

Cheers
 
Hi,
I don't know if I can help at all with this but I just wanted to say welcome to HR, and I hope you'll share your progress as you go.
Love to see a good DIY thread once in a while. :)
 
Hi,
I don't know if I can help at all with this but I just wanted to say welcome to HR, and I hope you'll share your progress as you go.
Love to see a good DIY thread once in a while. :)

Thank you!

This is a reply I wrote on another forum as the question was not properly explained by me (sorry!):

-----
TH-U is a Amps and Pedals VST modeler which contains presets with different pedals and amps, so when a preset is selected you can enable/disable pedals (and other settings too)

With the pedalboard I am currently able to send MIDI signals to TH-U (through Reaper) to cycle through the presets and to change the pedals status. So far so good.

However, I am asking if there is any way to get the status of the pedals (and other stuff) when a preset is selected, so I can use the leds in the pedalboard to be off if the switch is not in use (not allocated to any gear in the preset), one color if is in the preset but os currently off, another color when one.

Most presets will have by default some of the pedals on or off.

I can think on some ways to get this, however, I have no clue if they are real options or just sci-fi in my mind:

1. The status of every "thing that can be assigned to MIDI" in TH-U is being somehow broadcasted, so I just have to listen to the right thing.
2. Status can be called/requested, so I can cycle through all these "things that can be assigned to MIDI" and use the info to change the leds
3. I could store somewhere the list of items to switch on/off for each preset so when the preset is called, the pedalboard will configure the pedals in the preset. This is the option to avoid as I don't want to change the arduinos' code each time I tweak a preset in TH-U
4. Forget about this and just build the pedalboard without leds (easy but boring)
5. ...?

I have no clue about MIDI or how Reaper deals with MIDI devices, but I am happy to learn if this is something feasible. If the communication between the pedalboard and TH-U/Reaper is one way only, I will make a very basic pedalboard, no leds and play more guitar.

Thanks a lot for your help, guys!
 
I'm not certain, but I'm pretty sure that MIDI is a one way street when it comes to TH-U. https://overloud.com/sites/almateq/files/2019-02/TH-U User Manual.pdf page 13 (16) talks about controlling TH-U with a footswitch/MIDI interface and binding actions, but I'm sure you've already gotten that far. You'd probably have to write your own plugin/code to read TH-U plugin states though and sending it via MIDI to your footswitch probably isn't going to work... unless you write code for your Arduino to interpret it.
 
Have you used ReaScript at all? I've no idea how deep that goes but maybe it offers a way to read and push the info you want?
 
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