iRig BlueBoard w/ an expression pedal causes a flood of unwanted MIDI data

General Discussions
1

I’m using the BlueBoard in a performance I’m putting together in Ableton Live. It’s connected to my MacBook via Bluetooth Over MIDI. The pedal buttons work fine, but I also have an expression pedal connected to the BlueBoard, and every time I move it, it sends a flood of bank select messages. Below is an excerpt of the list I captured using the MIDI Monitor app – there are seven bank messages for each individual CC increment! All these Bank Select messages make it impossible to make MIDI assignments involving the expression pedal, and the whole reason I got this pedalboard controller was because you can connect two expression pedals to it.

I’ve contacted IK Multimedia support, and they don’t even respond. And just to be clear, I have definitively isolated the issue to the BlueBoard. It happens without any other MIDI peripherals connected, and even without any other software running, aside from MIDI Monitor. I’ve even tried a few different expression pedals, just to make sure it isn’t an issue with the expression pedal. It isn’t.

Someone on a different forum suggested that I could try running MIDI Fire in the background and use it to filter out all those bank messages. This does work more or less, but then I have to change all my assignments to this virtual device that’s created by the app. It complicates the setup process and makes the session less portable. Also, I worry that doing it this way could be eating up a significant amount of CPU cycles. I’m really hoping that maybe there’s a more elegant solution.

17:57:33.927   From iRig BlueBoard Bluetooth   Control   1   Effect Control 1 (coarse)   89
17:57:33.927   From iRig BlueBoard Bluetooth   Control   1   Bank Select   0
17:57:33.927   From iRig BlueBoard Bluetooth   Control   1   Bank Select   0
17:57:33.927   From iRig BlueBoard Bluetooth   Control   1   Bank Select   0
17:57:33.927   From iRig BlueBoard Bluetooth   Control   1   Bank Select   0
17:57:33.927   From iRig BlueBoard Bluetooth   Control   1   Bank Select   0
17:57:33.927   From iRig BlueBoard Bluetooth   Control   1   Bank Select   0
17:57:33.927   From iRig BlueBoard Bluetooth   Control   1   Bank Select   0
17:57:34.168   From iRig BlueBoard Bluetooth   Control   1   Effect Control 1 (coarse)   90
17:57:34.168   From iRig BlueBoard Bluetooth   Control   1   Bank Select   0
17:57:34.168   From iRig BlueBoard Bluetooth   Control   1   Bank Select   0
17:57:34.168   From iRig BlueBoard Bluetooth   Control   1   Bank Select   0
17:57:34.168   From iRig BlueBoard Bluetooth   Control   1   Bank Select   0
17:57:34.168   From iRig BlueBoard Bluetooth   Control   1   Bank Select   0
17:57:34.168   From iRig BlueBoard Bluetooth   Control   1   Bank Select   0
17:57:34.168   From iRig BlueBoard Bluetooth   Control   1   Bank Select   0
17:57:34.212   From iRig BlueBoard Bluetooth   Control   1   Effect Control 1 (coarse)   91
17:57:34.212   From iRig BlueBoard Bluetooth   Control   1   Bank Select   0
17:57:34.212   From iRig BlueBoard Bluetooth   Control   1   Bank Select   0
17:57:34.212   From iRig BlueBoard Bluetooth   Control   1   Bank Select   0
17:57:34.212   From iRig BlueBoard Bluetooth   Control   1   Bank Select   0
17:57:34.212   From iRig BlueBoard Bluetooth   Control   1   Bank Select   0
17:57:34.212   From iRig BlueBoard Bluetooth   Control   1   Bank Select   0
17:57:34.212   From iRig BlueBoard Bluetooth   Control   1   Bank Select   0
17:57:34.887   From iRig BlueBoard Bluetooth   Control   1   Effect Control 1 (coarse)   90
17:57:34.887   From iRig BlueBoard Bluetooth   Control   1   Bank Select   0
17:57:34.887   From iRig BlueBoard Bluetooth   Control   1   Bank Select   0
17:57:34.887   From iRig BlueBoard Bluetooth   Control   1   Bank Select   0
17:57:34.887   From iRig BlueBoard Bluetooth   Control   1   Bank Select   0
17:57:34.887   From iRig BlueBoard Bluetooth   Control   1   Bank Select   0
17:57:34.887   From iRig BlueBoard Bluetooth   Control   1   Bank Select   0
17:57:34.887   From iRig BlueBoard Bluetooth   Control   1   Bank Select   0
17:57:34.900   From iRig BlueBoard Bluetooth   Control   1   Effect Control 1 (coarse)   89
17:57:34.900   From iRig BlueBoard Bluetooth   Control   1   Bank Select   0
17:57:34.900   From iRig BlueBoard Bluetooth   Control   1   Bank Select   0
17:57:34.900   From iRig BlueBoard Bluetooth   Control   1   Bank Select   0
17:57:34.900   From iRig BlueBoard Bluetooth   Control   1   Bank Select   0
17:57:34.900   From iRig BlueBoard Bluetooth   Control   1   Bank Select   0
17:57:34.900   From iRig BlueBoard Bluetooth   Control   1   Bank Select   0
17:57:34.900   From iRig BlueBoard Bluetooth   Control   1   Bank Select   0
2

I don’t know if anyone is interested in this, since I’m starting to think that I must be the only person in the entire world who’s using the blueboard on a laptop instead of an iphone, but anyway, I did find a workaround. First, I create a MIDI assignment in Live like normal, which of course assigns a bank select message to a continuous controller, and then I just hit Undo. Then the assignment changes to CC21, which is the actual expression pedal! I assume that’s because only one bank select assignment is added to the undo buffer, since all the others are just duplicates. So it only takes one undo step to go back to the correct CC21 assignment.

It is a bit of a hassle, and of course the blueboard is still sending out all these stupid bank select messages, and I think it is deeply troubling that IK Multimedia won’t even respond to my support requests, and you better believe they will never get another cent of my money… But at least I found something that works! :balloon: :tada: :balloon: