welcome to the pirate midi Bridge MIDI
controller tutorial Series in this first
video we're going to cover the basic
navigation and construction of the
bridge six so you'll see here I have in
front of me two fantastic sturdy midi
controllers on the right is the bridge
six on the left is the bridge 4 named
very creatively by the number of
switches they have they each have foot
switches an OLED screen and some RGB
LEDs two per switch the bridge
Power Requirement
controller uses approximately 200
milliamps of current draw which you'll
need to know if you're putting this on a
paddle board the first thing you'll
Entering the Menu
probably want to do when you take it out
of the box is plug it in and play around
to do that there's just a couple of
things you need to know the main thing
is that to get into the menu you hold
the two left switches like I'm doing
here
and you get into the menu
the menus are pretty self-explanatory
the UI generally shows in each corner
and next to each switch the controls
that are available to you right now so
Navigating the Menu
here I'm going to be scrolling through
the menu selections
with these switches and on the bridge
four it's the same the only difference
is that on the bridge 4 to select the
middle option you just have to press the
two switches at the same time like this
so now we're in the switches menu to
exit
press the two top switches together
which is the same as on the bridge six
where you press the center switch too
exit
if you are a few levels deep in the menu
like this there will often be an exit
icon and you can press and hold that
middle switch to go completely out of
the menu to the main screen on the main
User Interface
screen you'll see that by default we are
in the extended UI mode that means that
you have a bank name the foot switch
names and these lines for these boxes
which show the flexi Port modes so those
little boxes will show icons and graphs
depending on which flexi Port mode
you're using
Bank Navigation
the same is true for the bridge four
except that you have some extra space in
the middle here so you have some icons
that help you remember how to bank up
and Bank down
which brings me to how you Bank up and
Bank down on the bridge six you press
switch two and three together to bank up
like this
press switches one and two together to
bank down like this and the banks are
circular so you can go down to bank 99
and up to bank zero same is true for the
bridge four of course
Editing Messages
all the settings of the bridge midi
controllers can be changed on the device
if you're on stage and you need to get
something there's no need for you to get
your computer out you can change
anything you need to on the go let's
enter the menu and I'll show you one of
the important things which is changing a
midi message we'll choose the switch
that we want to change the message of
let's say switch to
we don't want to change the config of
the switch we want to go through to the
messages
we want to change the messages
we want to go
to the message stack for this one we're
going to go to toggle on
and we're going to press edit
when you're editing a midi message there
are two screens to be aware of so we
have on here the type of message which
you can change obviously we're using
switches one and three the channel the
number the value Etc but the second
screen shows which outputs you want to
send that message to so the bridge 6 has
MIDI Outputs
four different possible midi outputs we
have the din 5 midi out the USB midi out
and the two flexi ports which can be
configured to do four different types of
TRS MIDI
and if you have different devices
connected up to each of these outputs
you can actually isolate one message to
only be sent to that device by changing
the midi outputs of this message
so I've now turned off the midi outputs
to flexi Port 2 the din 5 and the USB
and this message and only this message
will be sent to flexiport one if I have
an immediate mode so we'll save that
and exit the menu
Add or Delete Messages
another thing you might want to do is
add or delete messages on the go so
let's enter the menu again
we'll choose our switch
to two again go to messages
and choose our message stack you can see
we have add or delete on switches four
and six if I add a message
it just adds another message to the
stack you can see here it now says run
message two of two
[Music]
so we can change the type I'm going to
change it to a program change I want to
send this on Channel 4 and I want to
send program change number four
and I'm just gonna save that because I
don't care which of the midi outputs it
goes to see I scroll there I'm leaving
them all on and they are all on by
default so any message that you add it
will by default get sent and only if you
are very particular about where you want
that message to not go if it's causing
problems then you can go in and turn
that off so let's save that message and
as you can see now we have that message
saved here which is next to our control
change message from earlier and we can
add another message or we can delete
that message let's delete that message
now we'll exit the menu
and we're back to where we started two
other messages you might want to know
how to add as soon as you open your box
are expression messages and Bank
messages expression pedals can send two
Expression Messages
different sets of messages within each
Bank each expression pedal can send up
to 16 messages simultaneously but
there's also a global message stack
which can send 16 extra midi messages
and they are persistent across every
bank and they don't change I'll show you
where to find them
expression pedals very easy
when you enter the expression pedals
menu you'll notice that there are four
expression pedal options expression
pedal one a one B two a and 2B
if you're not using our expression
doubler device you'll just use either
expression pedal 1A or expression pedal
2A depending on whether you're using
flexi Port 1 or flexi Port 2. let's use
flexiport one for this example and now
you'll see in the expression messages we
have Bank messages
which we can enter and there are no
messages there and adding a message here
is exactly the same as I showed earlier
there's just a limited number of options
you can assign to an expression pedal
because the nature of the difference of
the type of message of course now we'll
exit that and I'll show you where to
find the global expression messages we
go to
the global menu
and then we go to
Global expression pedals 1A and it's
exactly the same thing we add a message
using footswitch4 we can save it edit it
exit the menu
and that's how you add expression messages
Bank Messages
the other type of message of course is a
bank message a bank message is sent when
you enter that bank so when you're
changing Banks you might want to send
out some midi commands so that your gear
goes into a default state that you want
for that set
so
let's add some Bank messages for Bank
zero
go to bank messages and it's exactly the
same as the other types you can add all
the different kinds of messages here
smart messages included
and then when you enter this Bank
control change of channel one number
zero value zero will be sent to all the
midi outputs that's just the default
message that I've added there you can
make that do whatever you like
Boot Messages
one other kind of message that you'll
probably want to know about is the power
on message this is very similar to the
bank change messages except it sends
those messages when the device powers on
so that if you need to get your gear
into a default State when you turn
everything on your Bridge can handle
that instead of you I think that covers
Outro
just about everything for adding
messages and basic navigation on the
bridge 6 and the bridge 4. if you have
any questions please ask them down in
the comments or contact us on our
Discord server or via Facebook thank you
