# MIDI with Boss ES8



## Warren Gibson (Jun 9, 2018)

Hi there, I am new on this forum so I am looking for some help that i havent yet been able to find on YouTube.. I am looking for someone In Edmonton, Alberta to help me out. I have over the years amassed some great pedals and Recently a new Canadian built REVV amp G20........My search more specifically revolves around MIDI on the Boss ES 8. i have the ES8 for about a year now and know the fundamentals but would love to dig deeper into the pedal....i have a few pedals that are MIDI in and out and the G20 is Midi in the help im looking for and and if some one has the knowledge i am seeking willing to pay...looking for someone with midi programming experience on the ES8 let me know


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## Hammerhands (Dec 19, 2016)

It isn’t that hard! What are you trying to do?

I‘ve got the ES-5 and have fooled around with the MIDI a bit. I bought it instead of q MIDI switching pedal. I started to set it up using the ES5’s editor so it would send patch changes like a MIDI switcher would. I will get that done eventually.

You can send several messages when a patch changes or I think you can assign something to a button as well as send MIDI control messages like the footpedal or the “wave pedal”.

I’m going to try to have the ES-5 send SysEx messages to adjust the output level on a multi-effects unit depending on if the patch is using the multi-effects preamp. I never find time for these things!


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## Cups (Jan 5, 2010)

With the editor and the manual from whatever pedal it is your trying to midi up, and you should be fine. It’s a lot of tweaking and fine tuning so I don’t blame you for wanting to pay someone. But if you’re going to get instructions from someone online then you’re basically doing it all yourself anyway. If you don’t want to do it then find someone local who will physically do it.


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## Warren Gibson (Jun 9, 2018)

Cups said:


> With the editor and the manual from whatever pedal it is your trying to midi up, and you should be fine. It’s a lot of tweaking and fine tuning so I don’t blame you for wanting to pay someone. But if you’re going to get instructions from someone online then you’re basically doing it all yourself anyway. If you don’t want to do it then find someone local who will physically do it.


thanks for the reply that is what i was hoping for was to find someone in Edmonton that knows there way around this switcher to physically show me how to the use the finer more intricate steps with the midi


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## Warren Gibson (Jun 9, 2018)

Hammerhands said:


> It isn’t that hard! What are you trying to do?
> 
> I‘ve got the ES-5 and have fooled around with the MIDI a bit. I bought it instead of q MIDI switching pedal. I started to set it up using the ES5’s editor so it would send patch changes like a MIDI switcher would. I will get that done eventually.
> 
> ...


The midi programing is where im stumped...the physical patching is done but i have not been able to wrap my head around the programming as i stated i have a few strymon's with MIDi in and out a Specular Tempus and my REvv G20 with just midi in so this is where i am strugging


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## troyhead (May 23, 2014)

There are a few things you might want to look into with the Boss switchers:

Each device you want to talk to via MIDI needs its own channel. Even the ES-8. You'll need to go into the settings of each pedal you want to control to assign the channel. (e.g. for the Strymon big-box pedals, you will find this in the "Globals" settings)
Each device you connect in your MIDI chain will need to have MIDI Thru set to "Merge". This means that if MIDI messages are destined for other pedals further along in the chain, the pedal will pass them along. If that is not set, the MIDI messages will stop there and only MIDI generated by that pedal (instead of the ES-8) will be passed along.
The ES-8 will output a MIDI Clock signal. This is to keep your tap tempos in sync. It's kind of a broadcast to all pedals that are configured to listen to it.
You may need to configure some pedals to turn MIDI Clock sync on or off, and in some cases you can turn MIDI Clock sync on/off per preset on the target pedals. (i.e. You can turn off MIDI Clock sync per preset on the Strymon Timeline so that your slapback delay patch ignores the tapped tempo, but your dotted delay patch is synced with the MIDI Clock.)
On the ES-8, you can assign a button to be your tap tempo. For example, perhaps you find the "Mute" button redundant because you have an external tuner pedal that does that. In your ES-8 patch, create a new Assign with the source "Mute" and make the target "BPM".

There are two basic MIDI functions you will send to your pedals with the ES-8: Program Changes (PC) and Continuous Control (CC).
PC messages will change the patch on your destination pedal. For example, on a Timeline, PC 3 = Preset 01B. Sending that PC message will literally change the patch on the Timeline, but it won't engage it if your pedal is bypassed.
CC messages can change all kinds of various parameters on the pedal, from knob settings to many other settings. Most MIDI pedals have a MIDI implementation chart so you know what CC# is responsible for what parameter. For the Timeline, that is currently page 25 of the manual. In our example, you would need to send a CC message to engage the pedal because it may have been bypassed. (If it was already engaged, sending the signal to engage won't do anything bad -- the pedal will just stay engaged.) On the Timeline, that is CC#102 with a value of 127 (0=bypassed, 127=engaged, according to the manual).

To build on that, each patch on your ES-8 may need to send a message to *all *your MIDI pedals to tell them what to do for each patch.
Let's say you've got Strymon's three big pedals, and you have set the MIDI channels for the Timeline, Mobius, and Bigsky to 2, 3, and 4 respectively. Your first ES-8 patch you want to have just a delay from the Timeline's 01B patch. Then you want a second ES-8 patch to have just some reverb from the BigSky's 00A patch.
ES-8 Patch 1 (just delay) will need to send these MIDI messages:
Channel 2 (Timeline)
PC 3 (for Preset 01B)
CC#102 with a value of 127 (to engage the pedal)

Channel 3 (Mobius)
CC#102 with a value of 0 (to bypass the pedal, because we don't know whether it was engaged or bypassed before, but we definitely want it off now)

Channel 4 (BigSky)
CC#102 with a value of 0 (to bypass the pedal, same reason as above)


ES-8 Patch 2 (just reverb) will need to send these MIDI messages:
Channel 2 (Timeline)
CC#102 with a value of 0

Channel 3 (Mobius)
CC#102 with a value of 0

Channel 4 (BigSky)
PC 0 (for Preset 00A -- PC messages start at 0, not 1)
CC#102 with a value of 127




Each patch on the ES-8 can send a bunch of messages. Let's say you really like a particular preset on your Timeline, but for some reason you want the delay repeats higher than normal. You could either create a new preset on your Timeline, or you could just setup your ES-8 to send the MIDI PC change to the Timeline, but also add CC#9 with a high value to bump up the repeats just for this one ES-8 patch. (Again, CC#9 is listed in the Timeline's MIDI implementation chart to be responsible for the Repeats knob, but every MIDI pedal is different.)
From here, you can delve into the interesting and weird, where you create various Assigns to do neat things. Perhaps pressing a button on the ES-8 has the momentary feature of ramping up the Repeats. Or you use an expression pedal as the Assign's source to control both the Repeats and the Mix in real time. And that's just the beginning.
Learning how to use Assigns on the ES-8 has a big learning curve. At first it might not make sense. But follow a few tutorials, and suddenly it will all make sense and seem pretty simplistic.
Get the ES-8 editor for your computer and create & manage patches that way. It is SO MUCH easier than on the pedal itself.
If you do this, get the recommended Roland UM-ONE USB MIDI interface. Other ones often cause problems.
Also note, if you have your entire MIDI chain connected to your computer, you might not be able to manage all of them with the various computer-based editors at once. For example, I could not use Strymon's Nixie app while the ES-8 was in the MIDI chain. The ES-8 filters some of the system MIDI messages and wouldn't let me write the changes.

Create template patches on the ES-8. Then you don't need to create all of the necessary MIDI messages from scratch each time, just copy the template patch to your destination patch location and make a few minor edits.
Hope that helps! You can do some weird stuff with MIDI and pedals. But beware, you can enter a time vortex of spending forever managing patches rather than playing!


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## Warren Gibson (Jun 9, 2018)

Hi thanks ever so much it appears as though you have a pretty good understanding of the ES8. i will take a peek at your in depth instructions tomorrow and let you know how i made out...Greatly appreciated


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## troyhead (May 23, 2014)

@Warren Gibson Here is a good site for getting started with the ES-8 (it’s written fir the ES-5, but everything is basically the same)









The Ultimate Guide to the BOSS ES-5 - Roland Australia


A comprehensive overview of the features available in the BOSS ES-5 effects switching system.




rolandcorp.com.au


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## Warren Gibson (Jun 9, 2018)

Hi thanks once again work went a bit crazy so it kept me from doing the necessary work with the ES8 hoping today to spend some quality time with it...but thanks i will take a peek at the link 
greatly appreciated


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