Internal Footswitches

[one1ton]

Hi!

I am new to This incredible project and I have to say This is awesome! I have been able to turn my TonexOne into a gigable Pedalboard almost effortlessly and on a very reasonable budget! Thank you for the incredible work!

I have some questions regarding the JC3248W535C that I have chosen for my project:

First off the Connector that the internal footswitches are assigned to has 8 pins, of which only 4 are used. Right now I use those in the default setting (switching between presets and as a secondary function switching between banks when pairs 1&2 or 3&4 are pressed simultaneously). Right now I am thinking of maybe adding more switches for tap-tempo, maybe Tuner/mute since the TonexOne way of pressing the switch for 6 seconds is impractical so additional internal footswitches would be very welcome. Would it technically be possible to adress the remaining four pins for additional switches? Or maybe for switching LEDs for the first Four Switches? If this is not possible: can the secondary switch functions be changed? I do not need two pairs of Bank switches, i can cycle through the 5 banks only using 3&4 so if pressing 1&2 would temporarily change switch 1 function from selecting Preset 1 to Tap Tempo and switch 2 to Tuner/Mute that would be perfect for me!

The JC3248W535C also has an Audio Connector, could this be also of some use? Maybe an extra Headphone/in ear out? Or an aux in/out?

One more question regarding the TonexOne Tuner: can this somehow be displayed on the Controller screen? Maybe Even showing the Pitch? TonexOne seems to tune to half steps but does not show actual pitches/notes so it can happen that you tune your guitar perfectly but a half step too low. Having a Tuner Display would be a great help.

Below you can see my current setup which I have just been able to use in a live set yesterday. Worked perfectly and sounded great!

Thanks once again for your great work!

Regards, Tony

[madejm]

Hi, this is exactly what I'm implementing on my fork of the project. An "ALTERNATIVE MODE" footswitch that changes functionality of the preset switches.
For example: FS 1-3 selects presets/banks, FS 4 is "ALT MODE"; after clicking it, the 1-3 switches handle effects instead of presets, and clicking again goes back to presets.
I have a few improvements I would like to finish first, then I'll create a Pull Request with the ALT Mode.

I don't know about the other internal pins of JC3248W535C, but adding the expander card is pretty easy.

About tuner:
No, unfortunately Tonex One does not send any data about the tuning via usb. It sends a state message that the pedal is in tuner mode, but that's it. Even enabling the tuner mode from the controller is not possible.

Nice setup, did you think about integrating a stereo di-box inside this enclosure?

[one1ton]

Hi! Looking forward to your implementation of the ALT-mode! Would be Even more Perfect if there was an Option for a separate ALT-Switch since it’s 4 presets per Bank… I don‘t want to add an expander Card Right now, since I just need one or two extra Footswitches I would actually favor an onboard Extension.
Thanks for your comments on my setup, i thought about Integration of a DI, maybe that will happen next, at the Moment I have a leftover Lehle DC-Filter in there since it provides me with a stereo Jack that I can actually reach with a cable. My First goal was to have a maximum solution at Minimum cost. So apart from the Controller it‘s all leftover parts, which is also Why I asked for the activation of the additional pins: I Happen to still have some leftover switches… 😎

[one1ton]

One additional question: in the Footswitch section of the Webinterface I always see all footswitches regardless of configuration (1x2, 1x3, 1x4...) and all of them show the same values (disabled/MIDI PATCH BANK/000/000) Is this by design? Are these values the values sent to the controller or are these values sent to external MIDI devices when using the extra MIDI-Board?

[madejm]

Those values are for effect switching, but are only usable with switches not used by preset switching - by default all are not set.
In your example you could use configuration 1x3, and set footswitch 4 to "Tap Tempo".

[Builty]

Hi. It should be possible to add extra GPIO footswitches. On the JC3248W that connector has the 4 footswitches, and then GPIO16 and 46 for Midi RX/TX, and has GPIO9 and 14 as unused. It would need custom code however.

As Madejm said too, its very easy to add the GPIO expander over I2C to gain another 16 footswitches, without needing any custom code to be done. The JC3248W supports this via GPIO17/18 on the 4 pin connector P4.

In terms of leds, the latest version has some led support which was done for the Pirate Midi v2 devices. It uses a single pin to drive multiple serial Leds (like the WS2812.) These are easier to use than wiring individual leds to GPIO, and give a heap of RGB leds off a single GPIO pin.
Check these Kconfig defines that the pirate plus v2 uses:
CONFIG_TONEX_CONTROLLER_LED_CONTROL_BOOT_FLASH=y
CONFIG_TONEX_CONTROLLER_LED_NUMBER=2
CONFIG_TONEX_CONTROLLER_LED_COLOUR_ORDER_GRB=y
CONFIG_TONEX_CONTROLLER_LED_SK6812=y

The code that drives these is not super flexible at the moment, but if you set the footswitches to toggle effects then the leds will reflect the state, with a different colour per effect type.
I have had quite a few requests for led support, and I do plan to expand the flexibility and do some wiring examples etc.

The Tuner would be handy for sure. I do have an idea but I don't know if its possible. I was thinking about using the USB interface to receive audio data from the pedal, and then running code on the ESP32S3 to do a tuner. I'm not sure however what the memory and processor requirements would be, and both a limited on embedded devices like these.

Your pedal looks fantastic!

[one1ton]

Hi! Thank you for your reply and thanks for your comments on my pedal. I enjoyed working on the project and I plan on expanding features as they come. I have a background in IT but I am not much of a electronics tinkerer/programmer, however I am happy to contribute to testing things and reporting back if needed. I can already report that in my case your solution has already even shown to be road proof!

Regarding the unused ports vs the additional footswitch controller: my thought behind my request stems from wanting to make the initial assembly as easy as possible for guys like me. Generally I do think the option for a fifth or sixth footswitch for controllers with unused ports would be a great bonus feature for this project since the Tonex Bank/Preset system works best with four dedicated switches (four preset switches and bank switching as a secondary function is just perfect) and features like tap tempo and/or switching Effects on and off would be great to have „out of the box“ without the need for additional hardware. Even for accessing alternate functions one extra dedicated footswitch would be optimal. (Although I personally would also happily accept abandoning „bank down“ switching (FS 1&2) for enabling and disabling „ALT“-Functions with the 1x4-config)

The LEDs are great news, I will be happy to test and report back. Where would they be connected say on the JC3248w?

I see that the tuner issue is quite a challenge, the actual note showing on the display would of course be great to have (found that out the hard way during a live gig - my fault for not bringing an extra tuner…) but I am already very happy with this project so everything that might come in the future will be a great bonus! Many thanks!!!

[Builty]

I agree about the extra foot switches. Early on in development some of the devices didnt have enough pins, but thats not a good reason to prevent other platforms from gaining some more. I will work on this.

At the moment there is no allocated pin for leds for any platform except the Pirate Midi v2 models, but yes I do plan to work more in this area and make it more useful.

[one1ton]

That sounds great, thanks a lot!! Let me know when you have a beta, I will be happy to test it ☺️