MIDI Channel switching - Bugera 333XL

[Snowboy]

Hey all, it's my first post here so bare with me

 

I could not find anything when I was looking for a solution so I thought it would worth posting in case someone wants to do the same mods I did to achieve the channel switching of a 333XL using a MIDI controller.

 

The 333XL footswitch (FS) sends a different pulse to the amp for each function, so I thought it was easier to just add a second ON/OFF capability to the OEM footswitch than making a high-tech board that would replicate the right pulses.

 

The PC board inside the FS has 4 push swiches, each of them can be triggered with a MIDI controlled relay directly on their pins assuming the MIDI box can talk to the FS PC board.

 

The switches activate when its lower pin contacts the upper one (when looking at the black part of the picture). All upper ones are ground and continuous, so 1 wire on an upper pin can be used for all switches (Green), that's what I did.

 

I soldered 1 wire to one of the lower pins (any will work) of each switch using a different color for each (Orange, Brown, Blue, White). You can solder it directy, no need to get in the same hole as the switch's pin. [ATTACH=CONFIG]n31771582[/ATTACH]

 

Then adding 4 x ¼" TS (mono) female connectors to the metal housing (could have used 2 x TRS instead, and thinking about it it's better cable-wise, but had these already) and solder all grounds (sleeve) to the Green wire. Solder each color wire on its channel Tip connector.

 

I removed the PC board to drill so I make sure I don't destroy the PC board doing a stupid move.

 

Make sure you make the holes low enough to clear the PC board.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n31771581[/ATTACH]

 

Now you can trigger any channel by shorting the 2 contacts of each ¼" cable and you keep the functionning FS buttons and LED too which for me is really convenient.

 

Add a MIDI switcher that supports ¼" TS or TRS cables following what you chose and you are good to go. I bought a Sound Sculpture FootSim linked to a BOSS GT100 but any combination would work.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n31771583[/ATTACH]

 

So your FS connector is normally connected to the amp and the MIDI switcher is connected in the FS.

 

Hope it helps.

[WRGKMC]

I read your post 3 times and I'm still not clear on why you modded the foot switch to begin with.

I believe you have assumed we all might know why you had to, but for the life of me I haven't got a clue what your objective is.

[Snowboy]

Bugera 333XL doesn't have MiDI capabilities to change between channels and its footswitch is not doing open/close operation to change them like most amps do.

 

So connecting a MiDI switcher is not possible "out of the box" because you cannot replace the footswitch with a cable plugged in the amp as the FS is sending a pulse when you select a channel, other amps just open/close a circuit or need a momentary closing of the circuit to toggle.

 

The mod allows the usage of 1/4 cables connected to a MiDi switcher controlled by a multi effects unit.

 

I don't use the amp modeling on my GT100 so I wanted the amp channels to switch accordingly to the patch I chose and this mod permits it.

 

Do a search for 333XL midi channel switching and you will find lots of people wanting to do it, thus my thread.

 

If you need more info, don't hesitate

[WRGKMC]

That explains it then. I was scratching my head trying to figure out why you were going through all of that hassle.

[edimec]

I cant see the pics !!!!!!!