Here’s a quick teaser 😊, I cobbled together a MIDI pedal on breadboard using Raspberry Pi Pico. It’s been a while since I looked into Pico. I was playing with my Boss looper and I thought I was missing a button, so I spent couple of days figuring out how to do it.
The pedal supports TRS cable used by Boss. I’ll go into more detail soon, but a lot can be achieved using an under $5 board with just a handful of components. The end result is not ideal, this is my first time looking into MIDI and I spent only couple of days on it. It is more of a demonstration what could be done.
Here’s the schematic:
I programmed this in Micro Python, and I created actions for Click, Double-Click and Long Press – the actions are toggling between CC #1, #2 and #3 (MIDI change control messages). I setup my looper to trigger actions based on receiving these commands.
The video does not show clearly options – sorry about that, here are the settings used on my RC-500.
Hold Memory button, navigate to Assign, choose:
| Option | Value |
|---|---|
| Assign1 | On |
| Source | CC #1 (MIDI Control Change Message, Control Number 1) |
| Src Mode | Toggle |
| Target | T1 PLY/STP (play/stop track 1) |
| Assign2 | On |
| Source | CC #2 |
| Src Mode | Toggle |
| Target | T1 REVERSE |
| Source | CC #3 |
| Src Mode | Toggle |
| Target | RHYTHM STOP (I should’ve chosen RHYTHM P/S which is play/stop) |
Have a look at the short video: