ZPI overview videos

[Dave]

ZPI introduction - Part 1 (May 2018 firmware)

This is an overview of the hardware with a simple footswitch program applied.   
(Footswitch programming is very flexible and easily changed.)

(Duration: 3m16s)

https://youtu.be/3JIlYsQfbdE

Transcription:

This is an introduction to the Zoom Pedal Interface which is a usb midi floor controller.  It can be used as a general purpose controller, but it’s optimised for Zoom pedals – the G5,G3.G3x, B3, the MS-50g, MS-60b, MS-70cdr and the b1on and g1on and the X versions of those.
Here I have a 12 switch controller.  With the latest hardware improvements, there is an LED as well for every switch.  If you already have a base unit, don’t worry, it still will work with the new add-on units.

[0:55]
As before, there are 4 expression pedal jacks, 3 usb ports (and if more usb ports are needed, a usb hub can be used) and an ethernet interface.
I have an ms50g and an ms60b connected, so it’s driving 2 pedals, but we easily could drive more if needed
There is wireless built in and I’ve already connected to a laptop running a vnc viewer and in part 2 I’ll start looking at the user interface.

[1:29]
The footswitches are programmed quite simply at the moment.  There is a master tap tempo switch that automatically has its LED flashing at tempo; 

[1:38]
a momentary tuner switch which turns on the tuner of both pedals when down.

[1:48]
The other upper switches turn on or off the 4 effect positions in the ms60b chain and the lower switches control the 6 effects of the 50g, with the LEDs indicating whether each effect is on or off.

[2:03]
Both pedals are displaying the first effect in their chain, so you can see the effect of the footswitches on that effect, and how the LED follows the state of that effect.  Similarly, even though you can’t see it, the other effects in the chain are being turned on and off by the other footswitches.

[2:26]
This is a very simple example of footswitch programming – very simple to do – and if you want to, you can make some very intricate mappings that do multiple things, you can program both press and release, and you can program to cycle through actions with successive presses.  This is completely flexible and can be changed at any time by loading a different footswitch mapping – you can define a map, save it and recall it, including by using a footswitch.
There are no limits to the number of maps or to the number of actions a footswitch can perform.

[3:02]
Let’s go to the laptop.  In part 2 I’ll go to a screen capture and start looking at the user interface

[Dave]

ZPI introduction - Part 2 - user interface (May 2018 firmware)


The ZPI graphical user interface can be viewed on any iOS, Android, Windows, Mac or Linux device by wireless or wired connection, or on an HDMI display.
Part 2 gives an overview of the graphical user interface.

(Duration: 2m33s)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4ZNz1ZHxF4



Transcription:


We’ve looked at the pedal, now let’s look at the user interface.  The graphical interface can be viewed on an iphone or ipad, or android phone or tablet, or on a laptop or desktop running macos or windows or linux.  This uses a standard virtual network computing interface, connected by either wireless or wired ethernet to a local area network.  It’s also possible to connect directly to an hdmi display and use a usb mouse and keyboard.

Here is what we see on the display.  I’ve now connected one pedal each of the MS series, the 1 series and the G series, to show some differences.  I also have some other devices connected – I’ll mention these as we come to them.

Along the top of the display is the main control strip.  This includes several buttons which call up a secondary control strip below this.

Then, there is a MIDI I/O section which has an interface to control any connected midi device – you are not limited to controlling just Zoom pedals.  The otg_midi interface always appears – this is the built in midi controller interface.  More on this later.

Below that are the Zoom pedal control interfaces, which can be expanded to show effect details. You can do that by clicking on the pedal name, which then also retracts the display, or by clicking on the scroll indicator above the thumbnail, which also moves that effect to below the cursor.

Clicking on the effect thumbnails will toggle the effect on and off.  In the expanded view, the parameters of each effect can be altered using mouse or touchscreen, or assigned to an expression pedal or programmed to a footswitch.  There is no limitation on the number of expression pedal assignments, or on which parameters can be assigned to a footswitch, or to the number of changes that can be made by operating a footswitch.

Next, I’ll look a little closer at these individual pedal controls