RANDALL MIDI PROBLEM-BOSS GT8 AMP CONTROL-IS IT COMPATIBLE??

[read774]

Hello and welcome to the next installment of the many problems i seem to have encountered in the last 8 months since i purchased my randall T2 head.
Ive owned lots of different amps, marshall dsl's, jsx's, laneys, gigged several times through engl and mesa heads but thought my quest to find MY sound was over when i went to see firewind in sunny Wolverhampton a few years back and heard Gus G playing the T2. His rhythm sound was immense powerful and fat so i thought this is the amp for me.
I managed to purchase a second hand one which had several initial problems, which i believed were solved having spent over ?200 on repairs. Now i seem to have only one problem...i use the midi function with my boss gt8 through the effects loop for the effects only, and sometimes i have this happen..i turn the boss on, then my amp, and sometimes the amp synchs in with the boss and my MIDI is fully functioning, and sometimes it doesnt. all i get when it doesnt work is the green clean channel, then i have to connect the supplied randall T2 midi switch pedal to the rear and jump on two switches to get the appropriate sound, which is fine and it works ok, but its a pain in the arse when you've coughed up the cash for your equipment to do a specific job to be done and it doesnt happen!!

I was considering going out and buying a new T2 as i love the sound, but i have my concerns about doing so. I have been told by someone who used to be quite high up in Randall UK that lots of people have stopped supplying Randall in the UK as the sound of the amps is exceptional but the build quality is poor....He told me alot of the UK distributors had problems with the amps they sold and alot came back with problems. I dont know whether this is sour grapes or what but i would like to know what others think, and if any of you have ever had a similar problem to the one i'm experiencing. I dont want to spend good money on an amp that has known reliability issues or has a poor customer back up in the UK.

I thought that i could get by the MIDI issue by channel switching the T2 with the amp control on the boss, but it doesnt seem to be working.The manual shows a standard jack to jack connection but the T2 has a 7 pin connection. I used to own a TC G Major which channel switched my old Peavey JSX, using a jack plug to DIN cable that was made for me. Ive tried to use this cable with the boss and the randall but it doesnt work so unless the DIN connections for the Randall are different to the Peavey ones i'm guessing that the boss will not channel switch the Randall.

It would be nice to have the Randall fully working as i love this amp..any help or suggestions to any of the above would be greatly appreciated...thanks, ben.

 

[El_Thwatez]

Hi,

I am in the UK and I got lucky, my first T2 was an ex demo and the mosfet was blown - amp cut out every half hour - sucked! But then I got it replaced directly by the suppliers repairman and he gave me a properly rebuilt one with nicer bits (literally gutted and rebuilt) - sounds a bit meatier and is definitely reliable, but I feel your pain and it only annoys me because you are the 4th person I know that has a V2/T2 that is buggered!

With regards to the channel switching, it will only switch by midi, I am not sure where you have seen that it will switch by other means. However, if it works with the randall pedal (Which is just a generic midi pedal) then the chances are it is one of the following problems:

midi lead is damaged (this causes exactly what you are describing)

The output of your boss pedal is damaged

The Boss control changes that are going to the amp are wrong. If you are setting the channel setup you want via the store setting button on the head, you may find the boss doesn't like it. Try manually programming the floorboard to send your preferable settings.

Let us know if this sheds any light on your problem!

 

[teetoo]

i have a very similar problem with my T2.
the supplied pedal channel switches fine with the amp but theres a loud popping sound when i change channels.
im running a pod X3LIVE in the T2s loop and via the midi thru and was under the impression that the T2 midi pedal would be able to change patches on the X3L.this is not the case.so what i want to know is A do i have it hooked up wrong? B the T2s midi pedal will not do this anyway or C the midi pedal and X3L will not read one another or do i need to change things with the X3L to get them to read one another? :evil:

 

[El_Thwatez]

It is possible to use the midi-thru with that pedal. You need to look in T2/V2 manual and find out what different midi signals the amp responds to, then set your patches/changes on the POD to trigger on receipt of those signals. This is a bit backwards but the reason for this is to find out what midi signals the pedal is actually sending, I imagine your problem is actually because the foot pedal is sending something to an unallocated note.

Alternatively, if the POD has a learn mode on it you could use that...

What are you trying to use the pod as, preamp or FX unit? Whichever, using a non-programmeable 4 button footswitch doesn't really give you alot to work with, it would be better to get a midi floorboard that is programmeable. Then you could potentially use the floorboards different footswitches to independently control the amp and FX unit or mixed.

 

[read774]

Cheers for that, i paid out for some top notch midi leads instead and the problem is solved, thanks alot for all your help....much appreciated!!

Check out my band on www.cloven-hoof.co.uk.

 

[teetoo]

El_Thwatez, the X3L is in the T2S loop just for fx and very slight eqing.i use reverb and chorus and delay etc etc mainly for the t2s clean channel.my midi cables are also top quality and not on the cheap side

 

[El_Thwatez]

Teetoo, I said nothing about your midi cables :? . Have you tried what has been suggested below?

It is possible to use the midi-thru with that pedal. You need to look in T2/V2 manual and find out what different midi signals the amp responds to, then set your patches/changes on the POD to trigger on receipt of those signals. This is a bit backwards but the reason for this is to find out what midi signals the pedal is actually sending, I imagine your problem is actually because the foot pedal is sending something to an unallocated note.

Alternatively, if the POD has a learn mode on it you could use that...

 

[teetoo]

Teetoo, I said nothing about your midi cables :? . Have you tried what has been suggested below?

It is possible to use the midi-thru with that pedal. You need to look in T2/V2 manual and find out what different midi signals the amp responds to, then set your patches/changes on the POD to trigger on receipt of those signals. This is a bit backwards but the reason for this is to find out what midi signals the pedal is actually sending, I imagine your problem is actually because the foot pedal is sending something to an unallocated note.

Alternatively, if the POD has a learn mode on it you could use that...

i wasnt suggesting you had.i was adding that i have ruled out a crappy midi cable.as far as a learn mode on the pod,no it does not.as for the other suggestion yes have tried no change so will pull the pod out all together and run various stomp boxs in its place to do what i am after,or i may go back to running my mesa that i know does what i want .im a little dissapointed really the t2 is a great head but cant do too much with it.this is my second one and i have had a drama one way or another with them

 

[El_Thwatez]

can u make the pedal change the patches on your pod if its directly hooked up to the pod?

 

[teetoo]

thats one thing i have yet to try.
forgive my noobness, what your saying is connect the T2 pedal to the X3L via the 7pin cable?

 

[El_Thwatez]

Hi,

Yeah thats exactly what I mean. I don't know whether the POD takes a 7 pin midi lead so you may need to look into this. I know that the 2 extra pins are because the pedal is powered by the MIDI.

 

[teetoo]

yea the pod is a standard 5 pin,so that may be a little hard

 

[El_Thwatez]

have you got any other way of midi control you could try out?

Just thinking about it, when you say POD X3L you mean the live? as in the floorboard? You could operate it the toher way round so the POD is the controller for the amp as well as the FX unit with a bit of research.

 

[teetoo]

yes it is the X3LIVE i have.i had given that some thought and would need to pull the x3 manual out to have another read but i spent a fair amount of money to get the T2 thinking it would do what i was lead to beleave it should.i guess look at it like this,it came with a midi pedal that should be able to do this[and probably can,it could all be me yet]so why not utalise[?] its capabilitys to the max?.
my whole goal has been to use the amp for all tones[clean,dirty] and use the x3 just for fx.the alternative is to pull the x3 and go back to all my pedals and i have a lot but that would mean lots of tap dancing.thats the reason i want the x3 in the loop and changing via the t2 pedal.1 button at a time,not change this then kick that and that turn that off change that one etc etc.im looking at a gcx switching system to do all the pedals but im still researching,i guess it would still need a midi board of some kind to trigger?

i just rememberd i have a gt6 i dont use.should see if that changes via the T2 pedal.at least ill know if its the x3 or not.

 

[El_Thwatez]

dude I think you put your expectations waaay too high on it man. However I have a v-amp 2 from a long time ago which is basically a pod rip off, so let me have a crack at doing what you're trying to do and ill get back to you on it...

There is no reason what you want to do can't be done, but you gotta remember, its a cheap *** 4 button unprogrammable midi . what I was getting at is that u can use the pod live in the fx loop but use the footswitcg on it to do all the switching if u get me

 

[teetoo]

i understand exactly what your saying.just need to work out how to use the x3l to change channels on the t2 now.as said im looking into the gcx

 

[El_Thwatez]

Howdy,

Right, I managed to get that little Randall footboard to trigger something in the V-amp, but nothing with real meaning and the V-amp also doesn't have the ability to change around what control change does what effect, so scratch that idea.

I think the only plan now is to have a crack at what we were talking about yesterday and run the POD in the FX loop with the footswitches triggering the amp head and the FX - this should be alot easier if you can set what the footswitches do on the POD in midi-terms.

 

[teetoo]

Howdy,

Right, I managed to get that little Randall footboard to trigger something in the V-amp, but nothing with real meaning and the V-amp also doesn't have the ability to change around what control change does what effect, so scratch that idea.

I think the only plan now is to have a crack at what we were talking about yesterday and run the POD in the FX loop with the footswitches triggering the amp head and the FX - this should be alot easier if you can set what the footswitches do on the POD in midi-terms.

im on it mate,still reading the x3 how too book thats the size of an old atlas lol

 

[teetoo]

ok success at last,EL thanks for your help.
it took deleting thr T2s pedal all together.the x3l now changes the T2 as well as everything i wanted so a good outcome.

 

[El_Thwatez]

Sweet man! Glad it all works now! Thats what the midi functionality was made for :wink:

I carried on experimenting with my midi floorboard and hooked in up to a synth and now have a foot keyboard :lol: - I feel some epic symphonic death prog dooooooooom coming along!