Recipe: MIDI Captain Foot Pedal + Visibox

RecipesHow To

Jun 9

MIDI Captain Pedal with Visibox configuration

Introduction

Visibox is an audiovisual performance environment that allows you to control and synchronize videos, images, cameras, and audio files during live performances. You can use it as a player for your beats and backing tracks. But it can be used to add a visual dimension to your performance. This guide will show you how to use Visibox with a MIDI Captain foot controller to control your visuals.

While there seem to be a lot of different MIDI-oriented control pedals on the market, many of them are designed specifically to change patches on guitar multi-effects systems such as the Kemper Profiler. These pedals cannot send MIDI note data or CC messages. Meanwhile, many of the more programmable, more flexible MIDI pedals on the market, are either very bulky or very expensive.

The MIDI Captain

Introduced in December of 2022, the MIDI Captain from Paint Audio is a simple, rugged, and affordable foot controller that sends MIDI messages either via USB or a conventional 5-pin MIDI port. It’s got 10 buttons and can be configured in “geek mode” with myriad possibilities. It can be powered via USB, batteries, or a standard 9v guitar pedal adapter. Paint has released a steady stream of firmware updates for this pedal and it seems to get better and better. It also costs about USD$150. In short, it’s nearly perfect for controlling Visibox during live performances.

Pros

Affordable
Relatively compact
Lots of buttons
Can send MIDI notes and CC messages
Can be powered via USB, batteries, or a standard 9v guitar pedal adapter
Regular firmware updates
Lots of configuration options

Cons

Can be difficult and confusing to program
Documentation is often confusing and poorly translated
As of this writing (June 2024), there are 5 different firmware versions available for the MIDI Captain, each with different features.
As of this writing, it’s not possible to control the lights on the MIDI Captain from Visibox. So you can’t use the lights to indicate which Clips are available and which are playing.

Other MIDI Captain pedals

There are several other MIDI Captain pedals available from Paint Audio. This recipe is specifically for the 10-button versions (the gold, blue, and “STD” black models). There are also 6 (Mini), 4 (Nano), 2 (Duo), and 1-button (One) versions available. These smaller versions all rely on the “SuperMode” firmware used below. So it should be pretty easy to adapt this recipe to those versions. But the download files included below are specifically for the 10-button versions.

What You’ll Need

A computer running macOS or Windows
A video projector or monitor
A MIDI Captain foot controller
Visibox

Step 1: Configure Your MIDI Captain

For this recipe, we’ll configure the MIDI Captain to send MIDI note messages when you press the buttons. This is the simplest way to control Visibox.

Connect the MIDI Captain to your computer using a USB cable. While the MIDI Captain can also connect via a wireless connection, the USB connection is likely more reliable for performance situations. It also has the advantage of powering the MIDI Captain from the computer.
If needed, download and install the “SuperMode FW 4.0” firmware from the MIDI Captain product page. This is the most recent version of the firmware as of June 2024.
Mount the MIDI Captain as a USB drive on your computer. You can do this by first connecting a USB cable while the unit is turned off. Then, hold down the upper left button on the MIDI Captain while turning it on. The MIDI Captain will appear as a drive on your computer - usually called “MIDICAPTAIN”.
Download this file and unzip it on your computer.
Drag the vbx.bmp file to the “wallpapers” folder on the MIDI Captain.
You can use the page0.txt file as-is, or you can edit it if needed. This file contains the configuration for the MIDI Captain.
- page0 means this will be the first configuration page. You can change the name of the file to page1.txt (or something else) if you want to use a different page.
- page0 is the file that contains the global settings (that affect all pages) for the pedal. So if you want to change the brightness of the LEDs or the screen, you can do that here.
- You can also change the colors of the LEDs here. The colors are in Hex RGB format. We have the Clip buttons set to blue. The song increment/decrement buttons are set to red.
- You can also change the setting of the encoder wheel here. We have it set up to control the volume of the audio in Visibox.
Drag the page0.txt file (or whatever you renamed it to) to the “supersetup” folder on the MIDI Captain and replace the existing file.
Unmount the MIDICAPTAIN drive from your computer.
Turn the MIDI Captain off and on again. It should now look similar to the image below. The screen will show “MIDI Captain” and the LEDs will be blue. The screen will also show the current page number (0) and the battery level. The Clip buttons will be blue and the Previous/Next Song buttons will be red. The screen should also say “VSBX” at the top. If it does not, something may have gone wrong with the configuration. Repeat the steps above.

Here’s what the configuration does:

MIDI Captain Configuration

The blue buttons on the left side control the Clips (1-8) in the current Song. The red buttons on the right side control the Song increment and decrement. Incrementing or decrementing will also stop any playing Clip, so these buttons also function as “Stop.” The encoder wheel controls the volume of the audio in Visibox.

Note that the readout on the screen is not very helpful. It shows the MIDI note number that is being sent when you press a button. This is useful for debugging, but not much else.

Step 2: Configure Visibox

(If necessary,) download and install Visibox from the Spaceage website. There’s a free 14-day trial available if you want to try it out.
That’s about it! Visibox should automatically recognize the MIDI Captain when you plug it in. The configuration we set up in the MIDI Captain will send the MIDI notes that Visibox listens to by default.
(Optional.) You can change the MIDI notes that Visibox listens to by going to the “Settings” menu and selecting “MIDI Map.” This YouTube video shows you how to change the MIDI notes that Visibox listens to.

Tips For Using Visibox With The MIDI Captain

If you’re putting the MIDI Caption on an existing pedal board, you can connect it to your 9V power supply. With batteries installed and the USB cable connected, the MIDI Captain will automatically switch to whichever power source is available.
Configuring the MIDI Captain can be confusing and frustrating. Changing the configuration files is essentially the same as updating the firmware. So if you make a mistake, you can “brick” the pedal. This isn’t too much of a problem, because the pedal will show up as a USB drive on your computer. You can just replace the configuration files with the ones you downloaded above. But it can be a bit nerve-wracking.
Visibox offers a feature to send MIDI notes to control the LEDs on a supported controller. This lights up the LEDs on the controller to indicate which Clips are available and which are playing. As of this writing, the MIDI Captain does not support any kind of MIDI input, so this feature is not supported. This is a bit of a bummer, but it’s not a deal-breaker. You can always use the Preview section of the Visibox Controller window to get a quick indication of which Clips are available and what’s playing.
Paint Audio sells Label Caps for the MIDI Captain. These are little plastic caps that you can put over the buttons to label them. This can be very helpful for remembering which button does what. You can also use a label maker or a piece of tape to label the buttons.
Be careful not to long-press the Prev/Next buttons. The SuperMode firmware uses these buttons to increment and decrement the configuration pages. If you're concerned about this, you can remove all of the pageX.txt configuration files from the supersetup folder except for page0.txt. This will prevent the MIDI Captain from changing pages.

Questions & Answers

There is a package that comes bundled with a wireless MIDI dongle. Do I need this?

No. The MIDI Captain can connect to your computer via USB. This is likely more reliable than a wireless connection. It also has the advantage of powering the MIDI Captain from the computer.

There is a package that comes bundled with an expression pedal. Do I need this?

Not really. You could use this pedal for controlling volume level or Song selection in Visibox. But the encoder wheel on the MIDI Captain can do the same thing. The expression pedal is likely more useful for controlling guitar effects.

How would I adapt the configuration for the 6, 4, 2, or 1-button version of the MIDI Captain?

The configuration file included in this recipe is for the 10-button version of the MIDI Captain. You can adapt it for the 6 or 4-button versions by changing the key assignments in the page0.txt file. Instead of having key assignments from key0 to key9, you would have key assignments from 0 to 5, 0 to 3.

For what it's worth, the 2 and 1-button versions may be of limited use with Visibox. While it's possible to get more functionality out of a single button through the short and long press functions, this functionality may be more frustrating than useful. See below.

Can I assign different functions for short press and long press?

The MIDI Captain SuperMode supports adding different functions for short and long presses on each button. However, my first inclination is to avoid this. In addition to the possibility of losing your balance on stage and accidentally long-pressing, when you meant to short-press (or vice versa), the MIDI Captain has to wait to determine whether you’re going to short-press or long-press. Therefore, the best way to utilize short and long presses is to effectively have NO function upon pressing the button down and then having the different short/long functions occur when you release the button. This makes the pedal feel less responsive. But it’s possible.

Conclusion

The MIDI Captain is a great foot controller for controlling Visibox. It’s affordable, well-designed, and flexible. It’s not perfect, but it’s pretty close. If you’re a singer, guitar, or bass player with your hands full on stage, this is a great way to control your on-stage visuals without depending on someone at the front of the house. Visibox makes it easy to make videos and other visuals a part of your live performance. And the MIDI Captain makes it easy to control those visuals. Together, they make a great team.