Gear Guide: How to Update Your Firmware with Nixie
***Please note that the original Nixie software has been discontinued. For the latest firmware updates for your Strymon products, please use Strymon Update.*** Download Nixie
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If you have two or more MIDI equipped Strymon pedals (such as TimeLine, BigSky, and Mobius), you can control them all at once by using the first pedal in your MIDI signal chain to send MIDI Program Change messages.
Setup
To do this, make sure the pedals are properly connected via their MIDI ports and their GLOBLS settings are set correctly for this control.
- First, connect the MIDI OUT of the first pedal to the MIDI IN of the next pedal.
- If you have more than two Strymon pedals, make this same connection from the second pedal to the third pedal.
- Then, in the GLOBLS menu of the first pedal in this MIDI chain, set MIDI PA (MIDI Patch Change) to ON.
- Make sure to set the MIDI CH (MIDI Channel) in GLOBLS to the same channel number on each of your pedals so that they all correspond to the messages being sent from the first pedal.
- For example, if you have TimeLine, BigSky, and Mobius in this setup, you can set them all to the same MIDI Channel so that they all are in sync with each other.
- Lastly, we recommend setting both MIDI CT and MIDI ST to OFF for this setup.
- We recommend setting MIDI CT (MIDI Continuous Controller) to OFF if you just want to change presets with MIDI. Setting this to ON will send MIDI CC messages to the other pedals and will change the settings of your presets by moving parameters on the first pedal in the MIDI chain.
How it works
Once you have configured your pedals for this control, switching presets with the first Strymon pedal will change presets on any other pedals in the MIDI chain.
- When using TimeLine and Mobius together, as you navigate through the presets, the preset bank number and channel letter will stay in sync with each other.
- If the TimeLine is first in the MIDI chain connected into the Mobius MIDI IN port:
- Selecting preset 01A on the TimeLine will recall preset 01A on the Mobius.
- Selecting preset 15B on the TimeLine will recall preset 15B on the Mobius.
- Note that this MIDI communication does NOT go backwards and selecting presets on the Mobius will NOT change the presets on the TimeLine.
- If you are using TimeLine or Mobius with a BigSky, the presets will still be in sync with each other via MIDI Program Change #, however, after preset 00B, the preset bank number and channel letter will no longer be in sync with each other. This is because TimeLine and Mobius both have banks of two presets, whereas BigSky has banks of three presets.
- If the TimeLine or Mobius is first in the MIDI chain connected into the BigSky’s MIDI IN:
- Selecting preset 00A on the TimeLine/Mobius will recall preset 00A on the Bigsky.
- Selecting preset 00B on the TimeLine/Mobius will recall preset 00B on the Bigsky.
- Selecting preset 01A on the TimeLine/Mobius will recall preset 00C on the Bigsky.
- Selecting preset 15B on the TimeLine/Mobius will recall preset 10B on the Bigsky.
- If the TimeLine or Mobius is first in the MIDI chain connected into the BigSky’s MIDI IN:
If you have any questions or concerns about this setup, please feel free to send us an email to [email protected] to help you out with your MIDI setup!
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Hugo
Hugo is Strymon’s customer support manager and calm voice of reason. He spends his time driving through local canyon roads, noodling on guitar, and playing old Nintendo games.
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7 Responses
If Strymon made a combined Mobius / TimeLine / BigSky unit, then we wouldn’t need to sync presets, and we’d have a lot less cables!
Hi Hugo
I’ve started using an Ipad App (Setlistmaker) to send patch changes to my various pedals. I can make my Mobius change to a new patch ok, but I can’t figure out how to make it bypass again. The App sends Midi Data as Bank MSB, Bank LSB, Program. I’ve read your info on CC messages and how the CC needs to be 102 and off is 127, but I dont understand what these MSB, LSB things are and how they relate to CC’s. Arrgh! I’m just a dumn guitar player. Please help!
@Nigel – Thanks for supporting Strymon! 🙂 MSB and LSB stand for ‘Most significant byte’ and Least significant byte’ for MIDI. These do not need to be used when controlling bypass or changing presets so please set these parameters to OFF. You just need to send MIDI CC# 102 with values of 0=BYPASS and 127=ENGAGE to toggle the bypass state of the pedal.
Is there a setup for just banking up/down? I don’t want to recall the same presets on multiple devices, I just want to be able to have the banking synced.
@Grant – There is no way to do this with just our pedals. You would need an external MIDI Controller to send the MIDI CC’s that correspond with the physical footswitches on the pedals to get the to bank. Check out the following blog post on controlling our pedals via MIDI: https://www.strymon.net/using-midi-control-pedals-2/
Hi Hugo, thanks a lot for your post, its very useful, I want to ask you a question, i have BigSky, Volante, Mobius and Iridium, so i connect it in a midi path, and i use BigSky as the first pedal to send midi signal to the others, but when i am storing presets in each pedal, i want Mobius to store on/off feature, for example when making sounds with and without modulation.
Volante does store on/off when changing presets on the bigSky, but Mobius does not, how to enable on/off in Mobius when it receives midi patch change signal.
Hello! On newer firmware versions, there is an option in the params menu for PRE/POST that allows Mobius presets to be recalled as bypassed when presets are engaged. Adjust this setting and save your presets and that should work. Otherwise, there is no way to have the presets recalled as bypassed specifically.