It's been an interesting midi journey. Removing the loop / switch function of my Boss ES-5 has highlighted a number of facts. It's reduced my cabling and signal path length substantially. However, I loose the ES-5's buffer and has introduced a random response to lot of my patches, especially where dirt is concerned. Ironically, dirt is heavily influenced by changes in impedance. This is true with digital or analogue dirt and removing my buffer has literally made any patch with dirt sound like I'm playing a totally different bass. It sounds different and reacts differently. Without my buffers, it sounds like I'm overwhelming my dirt.
Another interesting fact is that this journey highlights certain qualities and deficiencies in different brand's Midi implementation and control. My EHX Hog 2 is quite frustrating from a Midi perspective. It's great that it is midi compliant but compared to say any Source Audio product, it's shockingly immature and limited. With Source Audio, I can map any available feature to a midi CC via a midi map in the desktop interface. My favs are setting CC #0 to toggle enable / bypass. If I send a value to this CC I can dictate what state, either enable or bypass. If I take out the value, it simply switches state. Very easy and useful. Another great CC is that I always set midi CC#15 to expression and CC#103 to patch load engaged and CC#104 to patch load bypassed. This allows me a common set of CC numbers across my pedals and reduces the need for paper notes. If I send CC104 value 12 to my C4, it calls up patch 12 but in a by passed state. A similar situation with my Eventide H9's, a very comprehensive and customisable list of options.
With the EXH hog2, if I call up a midi PC to change patch, it's always engaged. I have to send a separate Midi CC to set the pedal to bypass. This CC number is pre-set and can't be re-mapped, I have to remember CC# 85 for my EHX Hog 2. Having the external foot control for my Hog2 really helped me see what patch I'm actually calling up. it's an essential piece of kit with the Hog2. There's no desktop editor for the Hog2 with again, is irritating. It's a great pedal / panel and has a lot of unique features and sounds.
Loosing the Looper / Switcher has made patch changing far more complex. Previously, each patch on my ES-5 would only send the difference between patches. I always started on patch 1 and I would engage / bypass pedals via the loop commands. Usually all the loops are off as default so I just need to enable which loops I need for this patch. If I'm not using my delay pedal for several patches, I simply don't activate that loop and I don't need to send any commands to that pedal. So unused pedals don't need any further midi commands. I can focus on jus the used / engaged pedals. As a result, some of my patches had very few midi commands and a few midi assigns (the boss allows re-mapping of buttons for per-patch Secondary functions). Taking out the looper switcher puts a lot more over head on programming each pedal for each patch. There is substantially more pedal pre-set carry over from patch to patch than I got using the looper / switcher functions. I generally need to send a Midi command to each pedal regardless if I'm using it or not. It's a lot easier and lighter to program an ES-5 with a looper /switcher than say a MC-6 which is purely a Midi controller. Especially, if you have a big board. I guess that's why the ES-5 only has 8 Midi commands per patch vs the MC-6's 16. I have only one patch that uses all 8 Midi commands on my ES-5.
I'm finding that I'm now relying a lot more on the Source Audio Scenes on my Neuro Hub to map common patch / pedal configurations for my Source Audio ecology. I have a very common set of Modulation / Dirt / Octave patches and it's great to be able to pre-stage with a single midi PC command. I can literally configure 5 pedals in on Midi PC command. I just need to map my most commonly used patches with those 5 pedals and save them to a dedicated Scene.
Another positive in migrating to a Morningstar MC-6 is the reduced weight. When I specced this board back in 2017, I really wanted a Boss ES-8. But it's a really heavy and very physically large device. There weren't many uses of the ES-5 back then, the ES-8 was all the rage. It's 9 loops (including the Volume loop) and 2 of those loops are stereo. but the ES-5 was a lot smaller and lighter in comparison. But it's still 1.2kg and physically takes up 4 pedal spaces. That's not including the space at the back for the cabling jacks. A MC-6 is only 550g, that's nearly 1/3 weight difference and it only takes up the space of 2 pedals. It only needs 2 midi cables and a power jack. So I'm saving on cabling / patch weight too. Physically it's a much simpler implementation, although I do loose the buffers.
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