G Major 2, GC Pro & Marshall 6100LM

[xmacvicar]

Hey Voodoo peeps,

Please let me start this off by saying I've been playing guitar for 16 years but now only finally exploring this stuff. As a kid I only ever had practise amps and basic pedals. Lately, I have been buying up the guitars and gear that I always dreamed of having. Today I just purchased a G Major 2, Ground Control Pro and I currently use a Marshall 6100LM head/cab. Luckily this head is capable of switching channels via Midi so I believe it will integrate into this system quite well. I have some questions I wanted to ask and they are more 'big broad sweeping' questions as opposed to nitty gritty technical ones. Here goes:

1. I play in a cover band and we get together about 3 times a month. We are pounding out hard rock tunes and I'm looking to recreate tones faithfully. That being said, this will be used in a 'live jam' scenario the most. What is the consensus on which mode provides optimal compatibility; using the GC Pro in the 10 bank mode or the 4 bank/preset mode with the Instant Access switches?

2. Regarding switching my Marshall channels via the GC Pro; I know I will be able to incorporate channel switches into presets so that the GC Pro will do this automatically for me depending on the preset, but if I want to assign the GC Pro to handle the channel switching like a Marshall channel switcher, would I have to eat up 3 of the instant access switches? (1 for Clean channel, 1 for Crunch Channel, 1 for Lead channel?)

3. Just thinking out loud about how I would use this... on the GC Pro I would use the 1,2, 3, 4 presets as the MAIN sounds (1 - clean, 2 - crunch, 3 - lead, 4 - lead plus something else) and then use the other banks to program actual songs? For example, the next bank of presets would be songs in our cover band setlist, so on and so forth.. any other ways of how you guys would handle this?

4. Regarding the Instant Access switches - is it best to just treat them like stomp boxes? One would be "delay", one would be "reverb", etc. What happens if I call up a preset that doesn't have reverb in it, does that IA switch become useless for that patch?

Thats all I can think about for now! Please help a noob! hahaha

[xmacvicar]

I understand that the IA switches are global....so in this sense, if I have a preset that has a certain type of Reverb, and another preset with a totally differnet type of reverb, does the IA Reverb switch only turn the reverb ON and OFF in these scenarios? Is that what is meant by global?

[JohnClark]

Opps I did these out of order, sorry about that.

I think some of your questions are answered here in your other post... http://www.voodoolab.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=4199

The Marshall 6100 only responds to MIDI Program Change messages, so it will have to be controlled via the Ground Control Pro presets. For control like the footswitch, you will have to dedicate three Ground control Pro presets to control only the amp but leave everything else alone.

The Instant Access buttons are in fact global. For instance, if you program an Instant Access button to control the Reverb Block on your G-Major 2, then it will only turn the Reverb on or off regardless of what Ground control Pro preset you are on. However whatever reverb type you selected within your G-Major 2 patch will be controlled as the Reverb Block.

I hope that helps!

[nyteowl]

Ahh...John posted while I was composing...

You never mentioned what pedals you're looking to control with the IA switches, if any, or if you want to use them to turn individual FX Blocks on or off from within G-Major 2 preset. Also, do you want/need to use different amp channels with a particular FX preset?

1. My personal preference has always been to use 4 Presets/Bank mode, getting my starting tone from a Preset, and then adding/subtracting FX as needed during the song via IA buttons. That may or may not work for you.

2. A quick look at the 6100LM manual indicates a need to dedicate 3 IA Buttons for channel switching.

3. How often will you be using those "MAIN" sounds without having to change to a Preset, if at all? What I would suggest is using the 8 IA buttons to control your three Main amp tones and outboard effects stomp-box style, and using the bottom row of buttons to call up G-Major 2 Presets that you've programmed in advance for the songs your band plays.

4. See 3.

5. Regarding that Reverb question, the IA switch will control ONLY the Reverb used in the currently selected patch. If you want to control a Reverb parameter (i.e., Pre-Delay, Level, etc.) you would want to use an expression pedal for that. See pages 19 & 20 of your G-Major 2 manual, and Page 8 of your Ground Control Manual.

Hope this helps...

[xmacvicar]

Thanks for the replies both of you!

There is conflicting information here; John you say the marshall channels can only be controlled via presets, nyteowl you say they can be controlled via IA switches....confused

If the 6100LM channels can only be controlled via presets, that kinda sucks. That is a limitation I wasn't expecting. Because if I am just jamming spontaneously with the band, I can't switch between channels if I am up a few banks using some sounds. I will have to scroll back down to the first bank and use main preset switch 1, 2, 3 to switch channels. That seems counter intuitive.

[xmacvicar]

Or that means for every single possible preset, I have to arrange it logically so that respective presets 1,2,3& 4 correspond to amp channels; 1 (clean), 2 (crunch), 3 (crunch + fx), 4 (lead + fx) for example

[JohnClark]

The manual I found...

http://www.drtube.com/schematics/marsha ... 201998.pdf

...says that the amp responds only to Program Change messages. Is this the correct manual for the amp you have?

[xmacvicar]

Yes thats it John...thanks for digging deep for me.

With this being said, I guess I will have to use the 'a bank for a song' type setup because going between soft/clean parts to loud/distorted parts will require switching between, preset 1 - 2, etc.

Also, since the Marshall only reads midi program changes on channel 1, I will set the marshall as a device in the GC Pro on channel one, then use channel 2 for the G Major 2 (which I will also have to change in the G Major 2 itself) is this correct?

[nyteowl]

My bad. John dug a little deeper into that manual than I did, but then he's the man!!

Yep, looks like it's gonna be the "bank per song" setup, and you will have to configure both the Marshall and the GM2 as devices on your GCPro, making sure the GM2 is set to the same MIDI channel as you set its corresponding Device number to on the GCPro.