AXE I/O External Footswitch to Control Looper

[fender6strat]

Is it possible to do this? After plugging in my Vox foot switch to the back of the AXE I/O and setting the input as a 2 switch external controller (manual says any switch will work), I can't seem to make it do anything. When right clicking on a pedal > assign midi> learn bypass, it doesn't even pick up the switch(es). I've tried to setting it to both momentary and latching. I tested the switch, and it is latching and functional. The looper is about impossible to use without a foot control, and I really don't want to spend additional money on another controller. On top of this, the cheapest external midi controller (on this site) doesn't seem to be compatible with Windows, which is what I'm using to run Amplitube. Any help would be appreciated here. Thanks.

[djr0]

fender6strat...Hi, I think I'm trying to accomplish the same thing. I have an axe i/o and amplitube 5, which has a built in looper. I'm thinking it should be possible to control the looper with footswitches but I'm not finding any source of clear information about how to do that.

I'm a total nooby with using DAWs etc so this is all pretty difficult for me so I'm hoping you've had some luck.

BTW I have a stomp i/o and I can't for the life of me get that coordinating with the axe i/o as a controller. I'm using the axe i/o, the stomp i/o (connected to the axe i/o with midi cables) and windows 10 with amplitube 5 and I don't have any consistent control of anything, which is weird considering all three are IK Multimedia products.

If you've had any luck I'd sure be interested to know and if I have any luck I'll post to this thread.

thx, Don (vancouver canada)

[smilde]

Same here, have a Fender two button footswitch. Doesn't do anything on my Axe/io.
Can't finder proper info about the specs a footswitch should have.

[fender6strat]

Hi Don,
Unfortunately I've had no luck with this issue. I've contacted IK multiple times about it but it seems as though they're not too concerned. I too am a total novice to DAWs & the like but I'll try to point you in the right direction. I'm probably wrong, but there's that whole thing about posting the wrong answer somewhere so that someone will post the correct one, so let's hope that's the case...

Obviously, make sure your Stomp & AXE I/O are at the latest firmware. In the AXE IO's control panel (mine is a Solo, I'd guess others have a similar interface), there are options for "Interface" and "Controller" at the top, maybe start there? This is where I could set CC#s to the external foot switch control. I don't have external midi control, but there may be something in there that can help you.

Also, when you open Amplitube 5 at the IO screen (also opened by hitting the three bars in the top right), make sure you have the AXE I/O's midi in selected as your midi device input, if you don't see it as an option then maybe you have a driver issue.

Move on over to the Control tab, once there click on Control Change (it's on Program Change initially) then you'll see a bunch of midi controllable things (I think). I'd imagine that if you click one and hit "learn", you can then hit the foots witch for it to "learn" which one you want to apply to it, Loop 1 and 2 are options there. In AT4, I was able to change the CC# on these to match the ones I'd applied to the foot switches in the AXE I/O Control Panel, though I could never get the thing to recognize that I'd hit the foot switches.

There's also a Stomp I/O tab, try that one too.

I've only used either program for a grand total of about an hour as ultimately it just annoyed me and I end up closing it and just using a loop pedal.

Personally this whole thing doesn't seem to be for me and I'm not happy that I blew $300 bucks on it (though it was on sale!); especially with the lackluster support. I only knew that you replied to this thread as I was checking my email to see if their support team had responded to my inquiries from the beginning and end of December, which they hadn't. But hey, it's only a few days into the first workweek of the year so maybe I'll hear from them.

Anyways, hope this helps and that you don't end up being as discouraged as I ended up. Good luck.

[webbadeth]

I'm having a similar, yet less consistent issue as stated above.
I have a generic Hosa FSC-385 two button foot switch and a Roland EV-5 plugged into the Axe I/O. In version 4 the EV-5 wouldn't work at all. It would work through logic when using amplitube 4 as a plug-in. Now with version 5, the EV-5 works great, and I can get the two button switch to bypass effects. You do have to right click on the stop box's foot switch and choose "learn, bypass" then stomp it. That works great. But the looper.... Ohhh the looper. I have been able to get the looper to work by going into settings/control/change control/global/looper 1. Click it, then learn then the foot switch. I see that the CC# changes to the corresponding switch. However, it doesn't always work when I use the looper. I have gotten it to work, I'll save the project, close the app, then re-launch it to make sure it sticks. Some times it works, and some times it doesn't. No rhyme or reason.

Side note, you can't stop the looper from a footswitch either. You can only record, and stop recording. But you can't stop the loop. That's not an assignable item.

[jtmpsu96]

+ 1 on the looper in Amplitube 5 not being assignable to a controller via midi. Not sure how that functionality was overlooked when it already exists for every other piece of gear.

IK are you listening?

[djr0]

That's all been very interesting I must say! For a couple years now I've been making half attempts to get looping with some kind of software and pedals combination and thinking something's wrong with me (i.e. lack of competence/experience). I would have thought that a company like IK Multimedia would have seen an obvious opportunity to build in looping capability that is straight forward using say an axe i/o (has midi and external trs connector control) or the stomp i/o (same) or certainly the two in combination. I mean how hard can this be to assign a 'start' and 'stop' and next loop to controller switches?

I can loop and start/stop with the stomp i/o with and ios device but I don't see any easy way to do that while changing the effect for each loop easily. All I want to do is 'start' 'stop' a loop initially with an acoustic guitar and then follow up with an electric, maybe with a backing track parallel initially even to just have a progression to track with and rhythm to follow for example.

I was thinking say with a multitracker like amplitube 5 i'd be able to do a simple foot control start and stop at least for one channel (so that I can play into the start as it's hard to start nicely rather than simply playing into my start point with rhythm) and then hit stop at loop end and move to next track...again start/stop with foot control.

Maybe that can be done.

Anyway I just ordered a Boss FS-7 two switch controller and an expression pedal. I'm going to hook these up to the axe i/o and leave the stomp i/o out (anyone want to buy it LOL?) to avoid interaction complications and see what I can figure out.

Funny how over the years I keep on reverting to playing my acoustic with no recording, no nothing, no record, just playing to have fun and escape to guitar magic enjoyment land. I've literally spent 1000s on electronics that have mostly ended up in landfills or sold el cheapo to another victim.

OK that's overstated...I do really like the axe i/o...

Don (Vancouver, Canada).

[anthonycassio]

Bumping this. I have an AXE I/O solo and can't seem to make anything work with the external control inputs. I've tried an expression pedal and momentary normally open / normally closed switches. All 4 buttons are also all forced to the same CC number.

I've opened a support case with ZERO response in a few days.

What am I missing?

[djr0]

hi anthony

i'm a rookie at this but i thought i'd mention where i have some success. so with the axe i/o i have software (downloaded) called axe i/o control panel. in that software i have a 'controller' option and in that software if I use the available dropdowns etc i can select 'single switch' for each external control input (I have two inputs in the axe i/o each connected to single momentary switches). These generate 64 and 65 as 'cc#s' and when i work with ableton live (which I'm now attempting) these definitely trigger correctly.

do you have a setup software option such as that?

don

[anthonycassio]

Yep ... unfortunately for me the control panel does not seem to work properly. The cc values are all forced to the same number - not the number ableton sees.

Im returning mine.

[adridev]

Hey Anthony,

about the fixed values in the control panel. Try to click on them and drag the mouse up/down.

For the looper and MIDI control, in general, I'm totally done. I started using Ableton live 10 lite, as a looper/daw that way I'm happy using Amplitube 5 other way I always rage quit after spending time trying to set up MIDI, restarting after a crash, or simply having to reconfigure all the things after starting the program... For me, the standalone is just unusable right now, just unfinished software. However is amazing how it sounds, so use it as a plug-in and you'll be happy.

Cheers.

[djr0]

anthony

i am tending to agree with adridev...ableton live 10 lite was included with my axe i/o and i'm setup with that and am having positive results with amplitube plugins for sound and using external pedals.

i've had no luck at all getting the stomp i/o setup with this though. it's back on my shelf so i may try it in the future once i get more sorted understanding midi in ableton

the ableton software is very good for learning a DAW with no background as their help system is extremely good.

I couldn't change cc's in the axe i/o control panel btw...

don

[adridev]

This is a video showing how to change CC values. Is only click and drag. Agree, not the more intuitive interface.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/pmp9xFzVNkECKsUD9

Cheers.

[webbadeth]

I know it's suppose to work that way, but I'm only able to change the value of the data knob CC. None of the other numbers change unless I change the data knob number, then scroll across the other numbers. They all change to be what the data knob is. Super weird.

https://youtu.be/8kmeXOzCHis

[Peter_IK]

Since this thread has run its course with unnecessary editorializing , users not able to fix others' issue and at least one having an issue that others do not, it has become obvious that this is something that must be handled via IK Support. Please report your issue to IK Support if you have not already done so or keep working with them if you have.