Building the Dream TONEX Pedalboard (Here's My Secret Weapon!)

Alright. I think I've done it... This might be the ultimate TONEX setup! In this video, we take a look at my new epic TONEX pedalboard build. And we check out the one accessory that every TONEX user should know about. Could this be the piece you've been missing? Let's check it out...

Related links

Blackstar Live Logic: https://blackstaramps.com/live-logic
​TONEX Pedal Manual: https://tinyurl.com/4bd6khm6

Video Transcript

So, over the last little while, I've been dreaming up what might just be the ultimate TONEX rig. I've just finished installing the final piece of the puzzle onto my pedal board. And it really brings everything else together. Now, it's a pedal you might not expect. It's not something I've really seen anyone using with the TONEX platform and it also highlights one huge reason why you might want to stick with the original TONEX pedal over the brand new TONEX One. So, let's check it out…

Okay, so here you have it. This is the epic TONEX rig that I've just finished putting together. Down here is my main studio pedalboard with some of my favorite overdrives and such. Up here is the main TONEX portion of the rig. I've designed this so it can be used in conjunction with the bigger board down here or as an independent fly rig. Now, for those of you who are wanting a full rig rundown let me know in the comments section, and if enough people are interested, I'll be more than happy to do a follow-up video going through exactly what I'm using here and how everything's connected up.

In today's video, I just wanted to focus in on this little pedalboard up the top here, and more specifically on this pedal right here. This is the Blackstar Live Logic MIDI Control. So, what exactly is a MIDI controller and why should you care about it? Well, a MIDI controller like this allows us to take virtually any parameter from within our TONEX pedal and map it to an external foot switch so that we can access things on the fly without having to scroll through menus or bank through different presets.

For example, you might have a couple of your favorite clean sounds, a couple of your favorite crunch sounds, and a couple of your favorite lead sounds all mapped to these switches across the front of your pedalboard to access as you're playing. Now, as I teased in the intro, it's worth noting that this type of setup with an external controller is something you currently can't do with the brand new TONEX One pedal. And for me, the functionality that something like this gives you is a massive reason why you might want to stick with the original TONEX pedal over the new TONEX One. Even though the TX1 is admittedly a fair bit smaller and cheaper.

Now, it's worth noting when the Live Logic MIDI Controller was first released, it was very much marketed as a controller for your DAW—recording software like Ableton Live or Logic Pro. And perhaps because of that, it's not something that I've really seen used a whole lot in rigs like this with products like the TONEX. But in my opinion, it's an excellent solution for something like this. I spent a lot of time looking around for the perfect MIDI controller for this rig, and while there are a lot of excellent options out there, I found that a number of them were smaller and didn't quite have the functionality that I needed. Or they went the other way. They we’re bigger or more expensive and kind of did more than I really needed a controller like this to do. I feel like this really hits that sweet spot in terms of being big enough to have enough flexibility for pretty much anything you would need. It's really well built, it's easy to use, and it's also relatively affordable when you compare it against some of the other popular options people use for this type of thing.

Now, one tip to keep in mind if you are contemplating getting an external controller for your TONEX is that you can actually use a controller like this in conjunction with the foot switches that you already have access to on the pedal itself. So, for example, here in the studio, I have each of these foot switches set up to give me a different flavor of amplifier. So, amp one is a vintage Fender sound, amp two is a vintage Vox sound, amp three is a vintage Marshall sound, and so on. And then, on the Tonex, I have these foot switches set up to give me different gain stages within whatever flavor of amplifier I have selected. So, for example, preset A would be my clean sound, preset B would be my edge of breakup sound, and preset C would be my overdriven sound.

Now, you're just hearing that through my vocal mic—I don't have mics here on the cab—this isn't really a sound demo of sorts, but hopefully that gives you the idea. So, there's a quick overview of how I'm using this switcher in my rig. I know one of the big reservations people have about using MIDI is the assumption that it's really, really complicated to set up. And I totally get it. The first-ever MIDI switcher I purchased came with a manual so confusing that I never really got that switcher to do anything but its most basic functionality.

The great thing about the Live Logic control is that it comes with a free piece of software that makes setting something like this up really easy and intuitive. So, for the second part of this demo, I thought it might be useful for me to jump over to the computer and show you just how easy it is to set something like this up for yourself. So, let's check it out…

Okay, so here we are looking at the Live Logic app. Again, this is a free download that you can access via the Blackstar website, and I'll leave a link in the description showing where you can find this online. Now, to use this, we just need to make sure we have the pedal connected to our computer using the USB cable that's included with the pedal when you buy it. We also need to make sure the pedal is switched on, and then any changes we make within the software here we can simply save to the pedal.

So, the way that this works is I simply come over and select the foot switch that I want to use. I want to make sure that the message type down here is switched to the PC setting, and then all I need to do is tell the software what preset number I want that foot switch to select from the TONEX pedal. So, using the way I have this set up, for example, I want the six switches across the front of the Live Logic controller to switch between the first six banks on the TONEX pedal. So, all I need to do is make sure that each foot switch is set to the first preset of the corresponding bank.

Now, the first preset of the first bank on the TONEX pedal is program number zero, which this defaults to. So, I'll come up and select foot switch 2 and make sure that this is set to the first preset of the next bank. So, I'll skip over presets one and two and make sure that this is set to preset three. Then again, I'll come over to the next foot switch and do the same. I'll skip over presets four and five and make sure this is set to six, and then I will just follow that pattern, setting this to nine, this to twelve, and this to fifteen. Again, by using the Live Logic controller to select the first preset, I can then use the TONEX pedal itself to switch between the other two presets in that bank.

And once I have this mapped to the exact presets that I want to control, I just come up to the "Send Values" tab up here, and then once I've clicked on this tab, the presets that I've mapped out here will all be saved to the pedal. And that's all I need to worry about. I don't need to toggle through any of the other tabs or adjust any of the other settings or do anything else. I just need to make sure that on the back of the pedal, this is set to the custom mode that we've just mapped out. And then when I connect the MIDI output here to the MIDI input of the TONEX pedal using a MIDI cable, it should all just work. It's a beautiful thing.

Now, for me and for a lot of people out there, I imagine a simple setup like this is all you need a pedal like this to do. With this setup, combining the MIDI controller with the TONEX pedal itself, I have almost instant access to up to eighteen different presets within the flick of one or two foot switches, which for a lot of people is probably more presets than you'd ever need. However, for the more MIDI adventurous among you out there, as I alluded to earlier, you can use a controller like this to change almost any parameter on the TONEX pedal. To do that, we need to access the options available via the CC tab down here. This will let us do things like toggle the reverb on and off, or perhaps the noise gate or the compressor. Or maybe we want to switch between different gain stages in the same tone model, for example. It can really get as advanced as we want to go.

Now, going into every possible combination you could potentially set up between the TONEX pedal and the Live Logic control is kind of beyond the scope of this little demo. But for those of you who are interested, check out the MIDI specifications section in the TONEX manual. I'll leave a link in the description below. I believe you'll find this on pages 29 and 30. This gives you a long list of all of the parameters you can control with an external MIDI controller, as well as all of the MIDI values and the other information you'll need to set this up. But again, I'll leave that for the more MIDI curious among you to explore for yourselves.

Hopefully, this was just able to showcase just how simple setting something like this up can be. If you're just wanting a simple switcher to expand the functionality of your pedal and to give you instant access to your favorite presets on the fly, then you really don't need experience with MIDI or a degree in computer science or coding to set something like this up. So, if you're looking for an external MIDI controller for your TONEX and you want something that's well built, that gives you a bunch of flexibility, that's very easy to use and simple to set up, and that also happens to be relatively affordable, then I would absolutely recommend checking this out!

That was my look at the Live Logic MIDI controller by Blackstar. Well, there you have it. We're almost at the end of the video. Thank you for sticking around. As always, it's really important for me to let you know that the Live Logic MIDI control was sent to me to check out and to demo for you, but this was not a sponsored advertisement or a paid promotion—no money has changed hands. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

As always, if you did like the pedal and you want to check it out, then I will certainly leave some links in the description. If you like this video and you want to see more content like this, then please consider subscribing to the channel. And finally, before you go, I would love to invite you to head over to the website GuitarIQ.com to check out some of the books and other learning resources that we have waiting for you over there covering things like fretboard memorization, chord theory, warm-ups and workouts, and a whole lot more. That is GuitarIQ.com.
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Well, that's it from me. Thanks for watching, and I'll see you in the next video!