@ruairiau thanks for the answers and also the suggestion regarding the volume pedal.
I am a little surprised the answer for #2 is to pull the midi cable…would be nice if there was a solution to the problem better than that integrated into the beat buddy…it seems like an obvious feature for solo and duo acts etc.
Yeah I’m not sure what to do about the clock sync either. Admittedly my testing was limited, so I could be wrong. I don’t want to have to plug/unplug the cable at a gig.
Maybe the play/pause will stop the clock sync. I’ll test it out next time.
I use the boomerang with beat buddy. Its low-tech I know but if playing a song without BB I pull the midi cable out otherwise timing will be off. When in use I also just connect to BB midi to the “In” on the Boomerang. I found this works fine, keeps everything synched, allows you to stop and start BB and Rang at the same time. When I have connected both IN and OUT things get a little weird.
If there are other Rang and BB users out there any tips appreciated!
I built a simple Midi Stomp on/off box. I bought a DIY project box from radio shack. I bought a simple on/off button and mounted it on the project box. I then cut the midi cable open and selected one of the smaller midi cables inside to cut in 1/2. I then attached each 1/2 to each side of the on and off button. I closed up the project box and Velcroed it onto my effects board. I have to say it is awesome. There are some songs where I want to have the Boomerang synch with MBB and there as some songs where i want to use free mode to record thumps from the guitar for the beat or long ambient delayed types of loops etc…and when I had it attached to MBB via midi (without the break in signal) it would try to synch it. This is a good solution to give you the flexibility of choosing to be either synched or not.
@emacnevin would you mind posting a picture of your homemade Midi stomp on/off box? Also would be great if you could tell or link the exact products from Radio Shack. Would love to try and build one of those!
Also buy a Midi cable if needed.
Drill hole in top center to the mount button.
Use a razor knife and carefully cut about a 2 inch splice to open the midi cable cord cover thus exposing the smaller plastic colored covered midi pin cords. Careful when splicing the outer cover to not accidentally cut any of the smaller internal cords.
Pick any one of the smaller cords inside and cut only 1 of the smaller cords in 1/2. Next remove/splice the smaller plastic colored cord cover to expose a small amount of wire on each of the ends of the cord to solder onto any one of the 2 pins on the bottom of the button.
Now you have completed a simple on/off circuit. You will be able to test it before closing the box. If it works you will see the blinking light on the boomerang stop blinking when you push the button on/off.
The last step is to screw the bottom onto the box. You will see when you try to do this the cord is in the way. What I did was I used my drill to simply file a half circle on each length side of the plastic box so the cord would eventually clear and so the cord would be flush. When I filed the half circles enough I then screwed the bottom onto the box so it would properly close.
I then mounted on my board. I dont have a close up pic of the inside of my midid on/off box because the cables are run under my board etc… but I attached a picture of the button and my board.
It is a hacker solution for sure and some may have a better way but for under 5 bucks this solution works well.
pins 2(shield) 4 and 5 are the only pins used with midi I think…so I think you have to make sure you put either (wire) pin 4 or 5 to the cutoff switch for this to work…I don’t think adding wires 1, 2 or 3 would work… I may be wrong though…