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FBV MkII Advanced User Guide: Controlling 3rd Party Software

Control Surface Options

Some applications specifically offer a selector to choose one or more connected “Control Surface” or

“MIDI Controller” devices, and you should first look to see if your software offers this type of option.

You should see 4 selectable options for your connected FBV MkII device - one for each MIDI Out Port.

Note the slight differences for how your FBV MkII MIDI Out ports appear within computer operating

systems (for FBV Express MkII, you’ll see “Express” in place of “Shortboard” in these titles):

Mac OS® X Windows® 7 & Vista® Windows® XP

MIDI Out Port 1

FBV Shortboard Mk II (Port 1) FBV Shortboard Mk II USB Audio Device

MIDI Out Port 2

FBV Shortboard Mk II (Port 2) MIDIIN2 FBV Shortboard Mk II USB Audio Device [2]

MIDI Out Port 3

FBV Shortboard Mk II (Port 3) MIDIIN3 FBV Shortboard Mk II USB Audio Device [3]

MIDI Out Port 4

FBV Shortboard Mk II (Port 4) MIDIIN4 FBV Shortboard Mk II USB Audio Device [4]

MIDI In Port 1

FBV Shortboard Mk II (Port 1) FBV Shortboard Mk II USB Audio Device

TIP: Also see “Ableton Live® - FBV MkII Setup Tutorial” on page 6•4 for examples of how FBV MkII

appears as a selectable MIDI Controller in the Live Preferences dialog.

You’ll want to select the FBV MIDI Out Port to which your FBV Controls are transmitting. By default,

all FBV MkII Control assignments are configured to transmit to the FBV MIDI Out Port 1, but you can

change this MIDI Out Port setting per Control within the Line 6 FBV Control application’s Control

Properties List (see page 3•3).

Note: You do not need to select the FBV MIDI In Port within any of your MIDI/DAW software, since you

will not want to feed MIDI from your software to the FBV device. (The Line 6 FBV Control and Monkey

applications utilize the FBV MIDI In for communication, but no settings are necessary for this.)

In many cases, this is all the configuration needed, and the MIDI/DAW software will then receive your

FBV MIDI commands. Some applications, however, offer additional options to choose the brand or

type of MIDI controller device to communicate properly with it. For applications that offer this, you’ll

want to look for the option to choose a “generic” controller device. Further, some applications also

allow you to rename your MIDI Device port names, giving them more “friendly” titles. See your MIDI

software’s Help documentation for specific instructions. You can also check the following sections to

see examples of a few popular MIDI application examples.

MIDI Input Options in your Software

In some MIDI and DAW applications’ Preferences or MIDI Options, you may see only a set of “MIDI

Input” settings (rather than a specific “Control Surface” or “MIDI Control” option, as described above).

If your MIDI/DAW software’s documentation instructs you to use this for selecting MIDI controller

devices, then you’ll want to select the FBV MIDI Port to which your Controls are transmitting. By

default, all your FBV MkII Control assignments are transmitted to the FBV MIDI Out Port 1, but

you can change this MIDI Out Port setting per Control within the Line 6 FBV Control application’s

Control Properties List (see page 3•3).

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FBV MkII Advanced User Guide: Controlling 3rd Party Software

MIDI Channels

Each USB MIDI Port carries 16 MIDI channels. By default, your FBV MkII device is configured to

transmit its MIDI data to Channel 1 on the selected MIDI Port for each Control. However, you can set

any individual FBV Control to transmit its MIDI control data to any MIDI Channel (see the “Control

Properties List” section on page 3•3).

You may find that your software offers options to choose one specific MIDI channel from the selected

MIDI port, so you will want to be sure to configure any such MIDI channel options to match those that

your FBV Controls are transmitting to. This allows you to set your FBV MkII controller to transmit

all its MIDI commands out one common MIDI port, yet with some of its individual controls fed to

different channels, thus allowing your MIDI/DAW software to “filter” and receive only the desired

commands. Consult your software’s documentation for info on its MIDI channel options.

MIDI Learn Functionality

Many MIDI and DAW software applications make using an external MIDI controller very easy by way

of a “MIDI Learn” functionality built into their software. With a MIDI Learn feature, you typically

click on the desired knob/slider/switch in the GUI of the software to place it in a “Learn” mode. Then

you simply access the control on your FBV MkII device and the software instantly maps the accessed

FBV switch/pedal to control the selected parameter. For example, Propellerhead Reason and Ableton

Live applications provide exactly this type of functionality for most of their parameters - including

their transport buttons, mixer faders, track options, and even their synth & effects parameters!

For applications that offer this “MIDI Learn” capability, you’ll want to be sure that your FBV MkII

footswitch and pedal controls have MIDI commands assigned so that the target software has something

to “learn”. The nice thing about a MIDI Learn feature is that, typically, you need to only configure

your controller to transmit MIDI CC commands of any Value - the software simply listens and learns

whatever it receives when in “learn” mode. Some applications’ parameters might also require a specific

“Switch Type” setting though (Single, Toggle or Momentary). As always, it is a good idea to read

through your MIDI/DAW software’s documentation on its MIDI Learn options for details (or, some

applications have such a feature with a different name). Please see the tutorials for several popular

DAW applications later in this chapter for some helpful examples!

For use with your MIDI Learn software, you can set each FBV MkII control to send a different MIDI

CC command and the software will utilize this communication with FBV. To configure these settings,

use the Line 6 FBV Control application’s “Control Properties List” section options (see page 3•3 ), or try

loading the “FBV-Default.fbv” preset we’ve provided as a starting point, and customize it as needed.

Manual MIDI Control Assignment

For applications that do not offer a “MIDI Learn” feature, then the process is more of a manual one,

where you’ll need to acquire MIDI reference documentation from the software manufacturer that

lists specifically what MIDI Commands and Values are already assigned for the parameters within the

software. Typically, applications utilize MIDI CC commands for their parameters, Bank & Program

Change commands for switching patches, and sometimes MMC or Mackie commands for transport

buttons. With the manufacturer’s MIDI reference documentation in hand, you can then use the Line

6 FBV Control application to assign your desired FBV Footswitch/Pedal controls to trigger the desired

software parameters.

You’ll want to consult the documentation that comes with your MIDI/DAW software for details on

how to access its MIDI Control setup and the necessary MIDI command assignments, since most

applications differ in how they offer these options.

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FBV MkII Advanced User Guide: Controlling 3rd Party Software

®

Ableton Live

- FBV MkII Setup Tutorial

We’ve provided a step-by-step tutorial here for how to configure the popular Ableton Live software’s

functions to be controlled by an FBV Shortboard or Express MkII device. For this example, we’re using

Ableton Live version 8, but the steps are similar for most recent Ableton Live versions (including the

Live Lite Line 6 version you might have received with your other Line 6 gear!) Ableton also offers a

free downloadable demo of Live at www.ableton.com/downloads should you want to try it out. This

tutorial should help you grasp the basics for how to set up other MIDI/DAW software for your FBV

MkII Controller, however, most such applications vary to some degree in their MIDI options and

features, so be sure to check your software’s documentation for more specifics!

Note: For the following steps, we’re running a Mac®, but the steps are the same if you are using Windows®

7, Vista® or XP, unless otherwise noted.

FBV Control Assignment Configuration

The first step, before even launching Ableton Live, is that we’ll need to configure a set of MIDI

assignments for the footswitches and pedals of our FBV device. Ableton Live, like many other DAW

applications, utilizes MIDI CC commands to access most of its parameters. Therefore, we’re going to

assign MIDI CC commands to our FBV footswitch and pedal controls using the Line 6 FBV Control

application, and save these settings as an FBV preset:

• Connect your FBV MkII device to your computer and launch Line 6 FBV Control.

• Go to File > Open and load the “Blank.fbv” preset.

• Go to File > Save As and let’s title this new preset “Live.fbv”.

Ableton Live incorporates a “MIDI Learn” type of functionality for setting up MIDI Control devices

(see “MIDI Learn Functionality” on page 6•3 for more about this). So, this means it really does not matter

specifically what MIDI CC numerical Value we assign to each Control, as long as each Control is

sending a unique CC Value.

For this example, we’ll configure several FBV Controls as follows (you can do the same on either an

FBV Shortboard or Express MkII device):

• Assign the A, B, C & D footswitch Controls to use MIDI CC’s 001 thru 004, respectively.

• Set the Switch Mode for the A, B, C & D Controls to “Single”, since we want each press of a

footswitch to send the same single MIDI CC command each time.

• Assign the Pedal Wah and Pedal Vol Controls to use MIDI CC’s 5 and 6, respectively.

• Set the Port and Channel for all of the above Controls to “1”, since we want to transmit all our

MIDI commands to the FBV USB MIDI Out Port 1, Channel 1.

• For all other FBV Controls, we’ll keep them to “Unassigned” since we won’t be using them right

now.

The result should appear in the Control Properties list like this:

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FBV MkII Advanced User Guide: Controlling 3rd Party Software

Once you have all these settings created, go to File > Save to save the preset, and exit the FBV Control

application.

Ableton Live MIDI Input Device Configuration

Next, we need to configure Ableton Live to receive MIDI commands from the FBV Controller device:

®

Launch the Ableton Live software, and go to Ableton Live > Preferences > MIDI/Sync page (Mac

)

®

or Options > Preferences > MIDI/Sync page (Windows

). Here you will see that Live automatically

detects all four of the FBV MIDI Out Ports. You might see additional devices’ MIDI Ports appear here

as well, depending what other MIDI hardware/software you have installed on your computer.

®

®

Note that the names of these Ports will appear differently if you are running Mac OS

X, Windows

XP,

®

Vista

or 7, as shown below.

• Click on the Remote button to the right of the first FBV MIDI Out Port so it is “On”, and then

deselect any other active “On” buttons in the Track, Sync and Remote columns so that all others

are “Off”, as shown in the following screen shots. This allows Ableton to receive MIDI Control

commands from your FBV MIDI Out Port 1.

Turn first FBV Port ON,

You’ll see all 4 FBV

and all other Track,

MIDI Out Ports listed

Sync & Remote buttons

here as available

OFF

“Inputs” into Live

Mac OS® X

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FBV MkII Advanced User Guide: Controlling 3rd Party Software

The same applies in Windows® XP, Vista® & 7, but you’ll see the FBV Port names are listed differently

Windows® XP Windows Vista® & Windows® 7

• Now go to the Input menu in the top row of the dialog and select the same FBV Port 1 device.

This allows Live to utilize your FBV as a MIDI Controller Input device. Once again, you’ll see

®

®

these FBV port names listed differently, as shown above for Mac

versus Windows

, so just

choose the first FBV USB MIDI port in the menu list:

Select the first FBV Port in this

top Input menu. Leave all other

control Surface, Input and

Output menus set to “None”

so that Live is only receiving

MIDI Control data from your

FBV

• Close the Preferences dialog - this completes MIDI input device configuration steps.

Map FBV Controls

Next we need to “map” the FBV Controls to a few of the Live functions. Live refers to this process as

“manual mapping”, and we need to enter the Live “MIDI Map Mode” (some other applications refer

to this type of process as “MIDI Learn”).

• To enter MIDI Map Mode, click on the MIDI button at the top right of the Live screen:

• You will then see many of the Live controls become highlighted - as our screen shot shows

highlighted in blue here (your Live settings or version might use a different highlight color).

These highlighted controls indicate that they are “map-able” (able to be controlled remotely).

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FBV MkII Advanced User Guide: Controlling 3rd Party Software

• To map one of the Live highlighted controls, simply click on it - Live then waits to receive a

MIDI command. For this step, we’re going to map the Live Transport Play, Stop and Record

buttons to the FBV A, B & C footswitches, respectively.

At the top of the Live software screen, click on the Live Transport Play button

You’ll see text at the bottom of Live’s screen indicating it is

waiting to receive a MIDI Controller message

Stomp on your FBV “A” footswitch. Then you’ll see the text indicate the message was

received, and the Play button is now mapped. Keep “Absolute” as the Mode

You’ll also see that the Play button now has a “1/1” overlaid on top. This indicates it is mapped to

MIDI Channel 1, MIDI CC #1, which is of course what we configured the FBV “A” switch to send

While still in MIDI Map Mode, repeat these steps again for the Transport Stop and Record buttons,

mapping the FBV “B” and “C” buttons to them. Once done, you should see the Transport buttons

show the proper mapped indicators, like this:

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FBV MkII Advanced User Guide: Controlling 3rd Party Software

If you have the Live MIDI Mappings panel open, you’ll also see these mappings you just created

there. Note that if you want to delete any of them, select the mapping in this list and hit the Delete

button on your computer keyboard.

• Press the MIDI Map Mode button again at the top right of the Live screen to exit Map Mode.

Now press your FBV’s A, B and C buttons to try them out. You should see Live’s Transport react

accordingly! Repeat the above steps again if you like, and map the FBV “D” button to any other

of Live’s “switch” type controls.

Note: The Ableton Live Transport design incorporates separate Play and Stop buttons, which each

respond to a MIDI CC “Single” Switch Mode. Some application’s Transports incorporate a single, dual-

function Play/Stop button. To alternately trigger the two functions for this type of switch, you can set

the FBV Control MIDI CC Switch Mode to “Toggle” in the FBV Control application. Alternatively,

some applications respond to MMC or Mackie type commands rather than MIDI CC commands for their

Transport functions - Please check your software’s documentation for details.

It is worth noting here that there is nothing preventing you from mapping any one FBV Control to

more than one parameter in your targeted MIDI/DAW software, and the result will typically be that

FBV will control all mapped parameters simultaneously - which may or may not be the behavior you

are after! One such useful implementation is to map one FBV footswitch to both the Live Transport

Play and Record buttons, which then provides you a handy “one-touch” record switch since it toggles

them both on simultaneously.

Mapping the FBV Pedal Controls to Live’s Parameters

Next, we’ll map the FBV’s Pedal Controls. The FBV “Pedal Wah” and “Pedal Volume” Controls each

send a stream of MIDI CC values, so you can map to any available Live parameter that has a range,

such as an effect knob or slider, to control it in real-time. We’ll first map the FBV Pedal Wah Control

to Live’s Chorus effect - Dry/Wet parameter. This will allow us to change the Dry/Wet mix of Live’s

Chorus effect in real-time. Note that this also makes it possible to “write” parameter automation in

real-time using the FBV Pedal (more on that later).

• On your FBV device, make sure the onboard Pedal is set to “Wah” (the Wah LED indicator is

on). If it isn’t, press the Pedal all the way forward and click the toe switch.

• In Ableton Live, first record or load an audio file in an audio track so that you have something

to play and hear your effect in action.

• Load the Chorus as an insert effect on this audio track - You can do this by selecting

Effects>Chorus>Chorus in the Live Devices panel and then drag this Chorus effect on top of

your audio track to insert it.

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FBV MkII Advanced User Guide: Controlling 3rd Party Software

Drag the Chorus effect to your

Audio track to insert it.

• You’ll then see the Chorus effect module appear in Live’s lower effects panel. Now place Live

into MIDI Map Mode (see the instructions above, at the start of this section). Once in Map

Mode, you will see the Chorus effect’s “map-able” parameters highlighted.

• We’re going to map to the Chorus Dry/Wet knob. Just click on the knob and Live will then wait

to receive a MIDI Control command. Move your FBV Pedal until you see the text at the bottom

of Live’s screen indicate that the Dry/Wet parameter was successfully mapped:

Click on the Dry/Wet knob.

The text at the bottom field of Live indicates

it is waiting for you to press a Control on your

FBV device to map it.

The newly mapped MIDI Channel/CC is now

displayed.

The text shows mapping details.

• Since we configured the FBV Pedal Wah control to send MIDI CC 5, you should see that Live’s

Chorus Mix knob is mapped to Channel 1, CC 5.

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FBV MkII Advanced User Guide: Controlling 3rd Party Software

Exit Live’s MIDI Map Mode and give it a try - You should see the Chorus Dry/Wet knob respond to

your FBV Pedal movement! Now it’s your turn. Switch your FBV pedal so the “VOL” LED indicates it

is set for the Pedal Volume Control and go ahead and map it to a different effect parameter following

the same steps we just did here. You’ll see that you can switch between using the two mappings you just

made for the Pedal Wah versus Pedal Volume Controls by toggling the pedal’s toe switch.

FBV Shortboard MkII Users: If you have an optional Expression Pedal connected, you can follow the

above steps to additionally map it to another parameter as well!

®

Mapping to an AU or VST

Effect Parameter

As with most other DAW software, with Ableton Live you are not just limited to mapping your FBV

footswitch and pedal controls to Live’s parameters. Once a 3rd party AU or VST Plug-In is loaded in

the software, it is also possible to map to the Plug-In’s parameters. In this example we’ll show you how

to map the FBV Pedal Wah Control to the Line 6 POD Farm Plug-In’s Wah Position parameter. This

allows you work the FBV pedal and control the POD Farm Wah effect in real-time! These steps would

be similar for the Line 6 POD GearBox Plug-In, or most any 3rd party AU or VST Plug-In effect you

might have available.

• Switch your FBV on-board pedal so that the “WAH” LED is lit, indicating you are using the

Pedal Wah Control.

• In Ableton Live, record or load an audio file in an audio track. A recorded clean rhythm guitar

would work nicely here. We’re working in Live’s “Arrangement View” here.

• In Live’s Plug-In Devices Browser panel, select your Plug-In and drag it on top of your audio

track.

• You’ll see the effect module load into Live’s lower panel. If you click on the little arrow at the

top of this effect module, you’ll see it expands to expose a Configure option. This allows you to

add parameters from the Plug-In’s edit window so that it is accessible within the effect module

display.

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FBV MkII Advanced User Guide: Controlling 3rd Party Software

Click the arrow here to expand the

Click the Configure button to add a

effect module...

POD Farm Plug-In parameter to this

module

Now, in the POD Farm Plug-In window,

click directly on the Wah edit panel’s

Position knob to select this parameter.

Once you’ve selected the Plug-In parameter, you’ll

see a slider appear in the Line effects module for

that parameter.

• Now just follow the same steps as in the previous examples to enter Live’s MIDI Map Mode,

click on the parameter in the effect module, and then move your FBV Pedal to map it. For our

example, we now have successfully mapped Channel 1, MIDI CC 5 from our FBV Pedal to the

Wah Position parameter. Exit MIDI Map Mode.

Go ahead and hit Play in Live and work the FBV pedal and you’ll hear the mapped effect parameter

do its thing. You might also see the control for the selected parameter within the effect’s own window

move in response as well. In our case, the POD Farm Plug-In Wah Position knob moves in response.

But wait - it gets better! Read on for more fun with mapped parameters!

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FBV MkII Advanced User Guide: Controlling 3rd Party Software

Cakewalk SONAR™ - FBV MkII Setup Tutorial

Line 6 FBV MkII devices’ Footswitch and Pedal controllers can be configured to trigger many of

Cakewalk SONAR functions, software instrument & plug-in parameters and more by taking advantage

of the SONAR built in ACT (Active Controller Technology) features! To follow are the instructions

for configuring an FBV MkII to function with SONAR 8 Producer (the steps should be similar for

other recent versions of SONAR as well).

Line 6 FBV Control Application Settings

First, before launching SONAR, connect your FBV to your computer’s USB port, launch the Line 6

FBV Control Application and load the FBV-Default.fbv preset.

• Above shows the FBV-Default preset settings for an FBV Shortboard MkII. For an FBV Express

MkII you’ll see only the A, B, C, D footswitch and Pedal rows. This preset assigns MIDI commands

to all the device’s MIDI Controllers for us so that we can then map them in SONAR.

• You likely do not need to make any changes to these default settings, but if you do make any

changes, it is a good idea to go to File > Save As and this as a new preset - perhaps titled

something clever, such as “SONAR.fbv”.

• Exit the FBV Control application.

Configure SONAR MIDI Device Settings

To set SONAR so that it can receive surface controller MIDI data from your FBV MkII, you’ll need

to select your device in the SONAR MIDI Device Settings dialog. Be sure to always have your FBV

device connected to your USB port before launching SONAR. Launch SONAR and go to the SONAR

Options/MIDI Devices and check the first FBV MIDI Out Port as the MIDI Input device and choose

OK.

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FBV MkII Advanced User Guide: Controlling 3rd Party Software

Note that if you are using Windows® 7 or Vista®, your MIDI Out Ports will appear as “FBV Shortboard

MIDI Out” or “FBV Express MkII MIDI Out”.

Use FBV MkII as a Surface Controller in SONAR

SONAR includes its own ACT MIDI Controller Plug-In feature, which allows you to easily create,

customize and save mappings for any MIDI surface controller. The SONAR ACT feature is very

powerful and it is recommended that you read the SONAR documentation. We’ll show you how to

create your own mappings for FBV’s Footswitch or Pedal controllers. Open or create a new project in

SONAR, and then follow these steps:

• Go to the SONAR Options > Controllers/Surfaces.

• In the Controllers/Surfaces dialog, click the “Add new Controller/Surface” button. For

Controllers/Surfaces, choose “ACT MIDI Controller”, and for Input Port choose your first FBV

MIDI Out port . You can set the Output Port option to “None”, then click “OK”. Your settings

should now look like this:

• Close the Controllers/Surfaces dialog when done.

• Next, go to Views > Toolbars and ensure the Controllers/Surfaces box is selected, then close the

window. You’ll see this adds some handy ACT options to your SONAR Toolbar.

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FBV MkII Advanced User Guide: Controlling 3rd Party Software

• In the ACT Controllers toolbar options, click the Controllers/Surfaces Properties button that

is at the right end of the Control Surfaces toolbar.

• In the ACT MIDI Controller dialog, select the Default preset from the Presets menu. When

this preset is loaded, you’ll see that the “cells” in the dialog allow access to numerous SONAR

parameters. Also, when you click on a Plug-In or Software Instrument edit window to shift the

“focus” to it, the parameters for that plug-in/instrument become available in the ACT dialog

cells. However, your FBV Controllers are not yet mapped to control any of these parameters with

the Default preset. To configure a mapping, you can use the MIDI Learn function.

The ACT MIDI Control dialog - Default preset selected (the SONAR main window has “focus”)

Using the SONAR ACT MIDI Learn Function

Here is an example of how to map the FBV Pedal Wah controller to the Wah Position parameter of the

Line 6 GearBox Plug-In, allowing you to remotely control the GearBox Wah in real-time as you hear

the input monitor recording signal or playback of your audio track. These mapping steps are the same

to map any knob, button, footswitch controller to any other available parameter in the ACT MIDI

Controller dialog as well.

• Open the SONAR ACT MIDI Controller dialog with the Default preset loaded, as described

above. Leave this dialog open and where you can see it.

• Create an audio track in your SONAR project, and record or insert an audio file so you’ll have

something to hear your Plug-In effect applied to. A nice clean guitar recording wold work nicely

here.

• Click on an FX Bin Insert slot for this audio track and insert the GearBox Plug-In.

• In the GearBox Plug-In window, load a Tone preset, and click on the Wah pedal effect to make

sure it is “on” and to show the Wah effect’s edit settings in the edit panel.

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FBV MkII Advanced User Guide: Controlling 3rd Party Software

The GearBox Plug-In Edit Panel, Wah effect

• With your “focus” still on the GearBox Plug-In window, you should now see the many GearBox

Plug-In parameters shown in the cells of the ACT dialog. We specifically want to access the Wah

- Position parameter. To see this you’ll need to select Bank 4 of the top row of “Rotary” cells, and

the Wah - Position parameter should appear in the Rotary 1 controller slot.

The Default preset is selected.

In the Controllers tab, select Bank 4 for the

top row of cells.

The GearBox Plug-In Wah-Position

parameter appears in the Rotary 1 slot.

• Click on the lower cell of the Rotary 1 controller slot and this places it in “MIDI Learn” mode,

where it then waits to receive a MIDI command from the assigned MIDI surface control device

(your FBV).

• Now move your FBV Wah Pedal and you should immediately see the Rotary 1 cells switch out

of MIDI Learn mode, meaning your Pedal’s MIDI command was “learned”, thus mapping your

controller to the parameter.

• Now just move your pedal and you should see the big Wah position knob move in response in the

GearBox Plug-In window. Play your track and you’ll hear the Wah do its thing.

• Repeat the above steps to use MIDI Learn to map any other controllers from your FBV MkII

device to other SONAR, plug-in, or instrument parameters. When done, type a new title in the

Preset field at the top of the ACT dialog and click the Save button to save all these new mapped

settings as a SONAR ACT preset.

The SONAR ACT feature offers a great deal more functionality for MIDI control - please be sure to

read the SONAR Help documentation for details!

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FBV MkII Advanced User Guide: Controlling 3rd Party Software

®

Propellerhead Reason

- FBV MkII Setup Tutorial

The FBV MkII devices of course do not include the note keys & knobs like a Line 6 KB37 “keyboard”

controller offers, to allow you to play the Reason instrument devices, record MIDI performances, etc.

However, FBV MkII devices do offer Footswitch & Expression Pedal controllers, which can be used to

trigger and control lots of parameters in Reason! To configure an FBV for this functionality, you’ll need

to set it up in Reason as a “Generic MIDI Control Surface” (although, for the record, we hate to think

®

®

of our beloved FBV “generic”!) Just follow these steps - which are the same in Windows

or Mac

OS

X, unless otherwise noted.

• In the Reason Preferences dialog, select Keyboards and Control Surfaces and click the Add

button, then select <Other> in the list of devices.

• Make the following settings in the Control Surface dialog:

Select MIDI Control Surface as the Model.

Type in a name for your device (this is how

it will appear in the Reason MIDI Controller

menus).

Choose the USB MIDI Port that you want

Reason to receive from. We’ll choose the

first FBV MIDI Out Port (note that your

port names appear differently on Mac® or

Windows® - see page 6•1).

Click OK when done.

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FBV MkII Advanced User Guide: Controlling 3rd Party Software

• You should now see your FBV device configured accordingly. Exit the Preferences if all settings

appear as shown here:

Please see the next section for how to map your FBV MIDI controllers to Reason parameters.

Configuring FBV MIDI Controllers with Remote Override

Reason also offers its “Remote Override” feature, which is an easy way to allow Reason to “learn” the

MIDI message coming from your MIDI control device and instantly map it to a Reason parameter. You

can use the Remote Override options for your FBV MkII when configured as a Generic MIDI Control

device, as described in the previous section.

First we’ll need to make sure your FBV footswitch and pedal controllers are configured to send MIDI

CC messages out the MIDI Port we selected in the Generic MIDI Control setup steps. With the Reason

application closed, launch the Line 6 FBV Control application and load the “FBV-Default.fbv” preset.

• When the FBV-Default preset is loaded, you can see the FBV Pedal Vol controller is already set

to transmit MIDI CC 007. Note that the Pedal Vol is set to transmit its command to the FBV

MIDI Out port 1, which is what we want since this is the port we selected in the Reason Generic

Controller setup steps for Reason to receive MIDI. Exit the FBV Control application. We’ll next

show how to map this Pedal to a Reason parameter.

• Make sure your FBV pedal is set to utilize the Pedal Vol controller (the “Volume” LED indicator

on your FBV unit should be lit).

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FBV MkII Advanced User Guide: Controlling 3rd Party Software

®

• Launch Reason and load one of your Reason projects. Right click (Windows

) or Ctrl+click

®

(Mac

) on any Reason component’s knob or slider that you want to control with your Pedal.

We’ll choose the FREQ knob of one of the Reason synth devices.

Right click (Windows®) or Ctrl+click

(Mac®) directly on the knob you want to

control...

Then choose Edit Remote Override

Mapping.

• In the dialog, just check the box for “Learn From Control Service” and Reason will wait to

receive a MIDI CC message from your assigned MIDI Control Surface.

Move your FBV Pedal and you should

see the Control Surface Active indicator

receive a MIDI signal.

Once it does, the Control Surface

and Control fields above will fill in

automatically with the “learned” MIDI

device name and CC value, as shown here.

Click OK once the step is complete.

• And that does it! Now if you move your Pedal, you should see the selected knob move in response.

You can follow these same steps to map any FBV controller directly to any assignable Reason

knob, slider, switch, etc.

The Reason Remote Override feature offers several other features - it is recommended you check

the Reason Help documentation covering all that this powerful feature offers for your Line 6 MIDI

Controllers!

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FBV MkII Advanced User Guide: Controlling 3rd Party Software

®

Digidesign Pro Tools

LE Transport Control - FBV MkII Setup Tutorial

We’ve provided a step-by-step tutorial here for how to configure an FBV Shortboard or Express MkII

®

device to remotely control the Transport of the Digidesign Pro Tools LE

8 software. (The steps are

similar for other Pro Tools versions as well.) Configuring a MIDI Controller device such as FBV MkII

for this task in Pro Tools is not too obvious, but pretty simple once you know the steps, and it can be

very helpful to have foot control over your Transport functions for recording and punch-ins!

Note: For the following steps, we’re running a Mac®, but the steps are the same if you are using Windows®

XP or Vista®, unless otherwise noted.

FBV Control Assignment Configuration

The first step, before even launching Pro Tools, is that we’ll need to configure a set of MIDI assignments

for the footswitches and pedals of our FBV device. Pro Tools utilizes MIDI Machine Control (MMC)

commands to access its Transport functions remotely. Therefore, we’re going to assign MMC commands

to our FBV footswitch controls using the Line 6 FBV Control application, and save this as an FBV

preset.

• Connect your FBV MkII device to your computer and launch Line 6 FBV Control.

• Go to File > Open and load the “Blank.fbv” preset.

• Go to File > Save As and let’s title this new preset “PT-Transport.fbv”.

For this example, we’ll configure several FBV Controls as follows (you can do the same on either an

FBV Shortboard or Express MkII device):

• Assign the A, B, C & D footswitch Controls’ MIDI Command settings all to “MMC”.

• Set the A Control’s Value setting to “Play”.

• Set the B Control’s Value setting to “Stop”

• Set the C Control’s Value setting to “Record Punch (Pro Tools)”

• Set the D Control’s Value setting to “Rewind”. Note that for Rewind, you have the option of

choosing a Switch Mode, each of which offers a different behavior:

• “Single” initiates rewind action on each footswitch press, and keeps rewinding.

• “Momentary” initiates rewind action on the footswitch press, but stops rewinding when you

release the footswitch.

• “Toggle” alternates between initiating rewind and stopping rewind on each successive

footswitch press.

• Optionally, you can assign the “Fast Forward” Value to one of your footswitches instead of one

of the above (or for an additional footswitch if you have a Shortboard. However, note that the

MMC “Pause” value simply performs the same action as “Stop” (since Pro Tools’ Transport has

no Pause button).

• Set the Port and Channel for all of the above Controls to “1”, since we want to transmit all our

MIDI commands to the FBV USB MIDI Out Port 1, Channel 1.

• For all other FBV Controls, we’ll keep them to Unassigned since we won’t be using them for this

example.

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FBV MkII Advanced User Guide: Controlling 3rd Party Software

The result should appear in the Control Properties list like this:

• When settings are complete, exit the Line 6 FBV Control application and leave your FBV

connected to your computer.

Configure Pro Tools LE for FBV MkII device

The next step is to make a few settings within Pro Tools to allow it to receive the MMC commands

from your FBV MkII device. Launch Pro Tools and open or create a new session, then make the

following settings:

• Go to the Setup menu and select Peripherals.

• In the Peripherals dialog, choose the Machine Control screen and make the following settings:

• For MIDI Machine Control (Master) - check the Enable box, click on the menu to the right

and from the “Predefined” sub-menu, choose your connected FBV MkII device, and set the

ID to 125. Keep the Preroll set to 90 frames.

• For MIDI Machine Control (Slave) - check the Enable box, and keep the ID set to 126.

• Exit the Peripherals dialog.

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FBV MkII Advanced User Guide: Controlling 3rd Party Software

Next, we need to access the small “Pro Tools” menu on the Transport.

In the Pro Tools - Transport sub-menu,

select “Pro Tools” so that it is checked.

Now, in the Pro Tools - Online sub-

menu, select “MMC” so that it is

checked.

...And that is it! Now just try pressing your FBV’s A, B, C & D buttons and you should see it control

the Pro Tools transport accordingly.

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