PC and Mac editor available here !

Hi everybody,

I created an editor panel for the GrandMeister 36. It runs with the Ctrlr.org platform which is available on both OSX and Windows.
This is the first version, but it's almost fully functional.
Only the "Store" button is not wired yet (if anyone owns an iPad or an Android tablet and can sniff the MIDI frames to see what message is sent by the app to send the "Store" command…).
The preset names are the factory ones. You can change them to suite your configuration by modifying the content of the setPresetName() method (go to Panel/Lua Editor/setPresetName).
The panel file is available here : http://ctrlr.org/hughes-kettner-grandmeister-36/
You will need to install the Ctrlr application first (choose the latest version for your platform) : http://ctrlr.org/nightly/?C=M;O=D
I will try and create standalone binaries for Mac and Windows soon.

Any feedback is welcome !

Fredo.

P.S.: Many thanks to spk77 for the help on SysEx message decoding !

Very nice - looks good!
I'm going to test it when I get back to my amp.

Just a little thing I noticed

REAPER shows a lot of extra parameters in the "parameter modulation" window:



Maybe the vstIndexes should start at 0 and go to "modulator_count - 1", without gaps. (If it doesn't break anything )

OK ! Did not know about this vstIndex stuff... I set the value to the same as the corresponding CC#.
I will update that, no prob.

Hi looks really good. I tried hooking up to GM but doesn't seem to be talking (on Mac). Ahh I needed to set the device from the Midi menu Very cool!!!

streuth wrote:Hi looks really good. I tried hooking up to GM but doesn't seem to be talking (on Mac). Ahh I needed to set the device from the Midi menu Very cool!!!

Oups maybe I should have mentioned that !
Yes you need to go the MIDI menu to set Input / Device and Output / Device to match you USB cable or whatever MIDI interface you connected the GM36 to.
Thx BTW !
Let me know if you have any other trouble (did not test it on Mac yet).

Just uploaded a new version here with updated vstIndex and some other bugs fixed.
There still is a bug with the Modulation Rate button.

So from my Android tablet,

I hit store on the tablet and this lights up the store button on the GM36
Hitting store again on the tablet the light on the GM36 goes out and the following gets received on my laptop from the MIDI out on the GM36

F0 00 20
F0
C0 00

I'm using one MIDI device to send from the tablet and a second to receive into my laptop, so it might not be totally accurate if the tablet is expecting a return message

and once I remembered that the Android app doesn't particularly like it when the GM is set to a specific MIDI channel and reset the GM36 to OMNI mode, the output looks like this..

First press of store
F0 00 20 44 00 10 00 06 00 04 50 00 7F 29 F7

Second press of store:
C0 00
C0 00
F0 00 20 44 00 10 00 06 00 04 50 00 00 56 F7
F0 00 20 44 00 10 00 06 00 40 00 00 00 01 59 01 7F 01 17 01 0F 00 35 01 25 00 53 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 09 00 00 01 3E 08 F7
F0 00 20 44 00 10 00 06 00 04 10 00 00 16 F7
F0 00 20 44 00 10 00 06 00 40 00 00 00 01 59 01 7F 01 17 01 0F 00 35 01 25 00 53 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 09 00 00 01 3E 08 F7
F0 00 20 44 00 10 00 06 00 04 50 00 00 56 F7

OK, thx a lot for that !
Unfortunately I could not manage to make it work with this messages...
Those are the messages sent by the amp after pressing the store button on the tablet, am I right ?
I believe that the messages sent by the tablet are different because sending this messages to the amp have no effect on it (the store button doesn't light up).

What you could try, if you have some time to spend on it, is to use the MIDI-OX application as a MIDI sniffer with the following connections :
Tablet midi out -> PC midi in -> MIDI-OX -> PC midi out -> GM36 midi in / GM36 midi out -> Tablet midi in
MIDI-OX will show the MIDI frames on the screen and pass them from the midi input of your PC to it's midi output.
Let me know if you have any trouble !

I'll see if I can cable it up that way. Unfortunately the way the (specialised) MIDI interfaces I'm using don't let me do that.

Maybe you don't even need to hook up the GM36 to do the test ?...
You could simply try :
Tablet -> PC midi input -> MIDI OX (or whatever application that lets you see the MIDI messages)
Not sure if the application will send the Store command if the GM36 is not connected, but it worth the try !...

Just uploaded a new version of the editor (here).
I finally got the "Store" button to work (@ normula1 , I borrowed a Tablet at work to do the reverse engineering, thx anyway for the help !).
The preset names can now be modified and are stored within the Panel state in Ctrlr (meaning that you must not "File / Close" the panel if you don't want to lose your modifications).
Please give me your feedback folks !

This is awesome! I'll try to play around when free time pops up.

OK great. Sorry for the delay in replying; I was travelling for work.

A new version of the panel is available here.
I added a "Store as" button to change the preset location.
The panel now uses SysEx messages instead of CC messages for a better accuracy.

What is the next feature you would like to see : preset backup/restore from a file ; or A/B compare current settings with previously saved preset ?

backup / restore for sure

Been trying on the mac and it's working really well. I don't have an IPad and I tried with a Nook using the android app but unable to get the Nook working, so what you've done with the control panel is great for me

My FSM pedal doesn't track changes made from the control panel (it doesn't change patches), does it changes patches when using the IPad app?

Yea I vote for backup/restore.

I'm working on the backup/restore feature right now ;-)
Not sure as I don't own one, but I think the FSM pedal should track the changes made on the editor.
How did you hook it up ?
I think it should be something like : Mac Midi Out -> Amp Midi In / Amp Midi Out -> FSM Midi In / FSM Midi Out -> Mac Midi In

fredo wrote:I'm working on the backup/restore feature right now ;-)
Not sure as I don't own one, but I think the FSM pedal should track the changes made on the editor.
How did you hook it up ?
I think it should be something like : Mac Midi Out -> Amp Midi In / Amp Midi Out -> FSM Midi In / FSM Midi Out -> Mac Midi In

My midi connector has "To Midi In" which I put to the FSM "Midi In"
and a "To Midi Out" which I put to the GM "Out/Thru"

Have you looked at how to save the preset name to the GM?

streuth wrote:
My midi connector has "To Midi In" which I put to the FSM "Midi In"
and a "To Midi Out" which I put to the GM "Out/Thru"

Yeah that should work too, but just in case, could you try the other way around (To Midi In -> Amp Midi In / Amp Midi out -> FSM Midi In / FSM Midi Out -> To Midi Out) ?

streuth wrote:
Have you looked at how to save the preset name to the GM?

Yeah, unfortunately that's not possible...
The amp does not store preset names, only preset parameters.
The preset names are only stored within the application.

How about storing them the backup/restore file?

Oh yeah, that we'll do !
Unfortunately the ".gm36memory" file format used by the ipad application is an iOs specific binary format, so I will not be able to be compatible with this format...
I plan to save the presets in a plain text file with a key/value properties format to keep it human readable.
Something like this :

Code:


[preset]
name=Super Clean
number=1
gain=50
etc.


fredo wrote:Oh yeah, that we'll do !
Unfortunately the ".gm36memory" file format used by the ipad application is an iOs specific binary format, so I will not be able to be compatible with this format...
I plan to save the presets in a plain text file with a key/value properties format to keep it human readable.
Something like this :

Code:


[preset]
name=Super Clean
number=1
gain=50
etc.


Cool that will be great!