Valeton GP‑5 USB MIDI Control with Morningstar MC6 PRO: Simple Guide

If you love the Valeton GP‑5 for its tones, compact size, and price-to-power ratio, you’ve probably also hit its biggest limitation: not enough footswitches to quickly access presets and toggle effects on and off. Pair it with the Morningstar MC6 PRO MIDI foot controller and you unlock hands‑free control over presets and individual effect blocks.

This article shows you exactly how to connect and configure the MC6 PRO to control the GP‑5 over USB MIDI, plus tips to keep your effect toggle switches in sync with presets for real-time visual feedback.

Morningstar MC6 PRO unleashes the full potential of the tiny and cost-effective Valeton GP-5

Why GP‑5 Needs a MIDI Foot Controller

The GP-5 has a lot going for it, but adequate visual feedback and footswitches are not among those things. With all the power it has — coupled with its MIDI capability — the GP-5 stands to benefit hugely from a MIDI foot controller. Here's why:

• Instant Preset Recall: Jump to any preset immediately, and engage the right tone.
  

• Preset Scrolling: Freely scroll up and down through GP-5 presets.
  

• Individual Effect Block Control: Toggle the GP-5's effect blocks — NR, preamp, distortion, modulation, delay, reverb and EQ — or stack them, with a single press.
  

• Real-time Visual Feedback: Quickly see which presets and effects are active at a glance, with the ability to engage with them directly via the their respective footswitches.
  

• Dedicated Tuner Access: Having a switch that allows you to engage the GP-5 Tuner any time is such a great and underrated quality-of-life convenience.

  
  

Direct tuner access is always so convenient

Plug‑and‑Play Compatibility: USB Host to USB (no extra adaptors or boxes needed)

The GP-5 receives MIDI via its USB-C port, which can make it tricky for some MIDI controllers to communicate with it, but it's a piece of cake for the MC6 PRO (and any Morningstar PRO controller).

All you need to establish MIDI communication between the GP-5 and MC6 PRO is:

Connect a USB-C cable from the MC6 PRO's USB Host port to the GP-5 USB port.

That’s it — you now have direct USB‑MIDI communication between the MC6 PRO and GP‑5.

MIDI Channel: The GP‑5 receives MIDI on MIDI Channel 1 by default (and it’s currently not changeable). On the MC6 PRO, set all your GP-5 MIDI messages to be sent via MIDI Channel 1.

Instantly recall any GP-5 preset of your choice

Recall GP‑5 Presets

The GP‑5 responds to Control Change (CC) messages for preset recall, which is a little unusual. Most devices respond to Program Change (PC) messages for preset recall, but using CC messages instead has no downside to it.

On the GP-5, preset numbers correspond directly with CC#0 and the corresponding CC value, which is a refreshing touch. No need to deal with PC#0 recalling preset 1 and the ensuing offset. CC#0 with value 1 recalls preset 1 and so on. It's really simple.

All GP-5 MIDI Functions are found in the Morningstar Editor

The Morningstar MIDI Dictionary contains all the MIDI messages you need to control the Valeton GP-5. This includes patch/bank scrolling, individual effect block control, tuner access and more.

With this, you never need refer to the GP-5 MIDI chart. Simply select the function you want to control from a dropdown list.

Valeton GP-5 MIDI commands ready for use in the MIDI Dictionary

Scroll through GP‑5 Patches & Banks

The GP‑5 has dedicated CC messages for scrolling up and down through patches and banks. Of course, these 'Patch +', 'Patch -', 'Bank +' and 'Bank -' functions are also found in the MIDI Dictionary so you can set them up really easily.

Freely scroll through GP-5 banks and presets with MC6 PRO

Quick Tip: Assign Press and Long Press to scroll through presets, and Double Tap to scroll through banks.

Program Press and Long Press to scroll through patches with single presses and switch holds. Program Double Tap to bank up and down (jump by 10 patches).

Toggle GP‑5 Effects

Like most multi‑effects units, GP-5 receives Control Change (CC) messages to bypass/engage individual effect blocks:

• CC number identifies the block (drive, mod, delay, reverb, amp, etc.).

• Value controls state: 0 = bypass, 127 = engage

Toggle individual effect blocks with just a tap

Keep Effect Switch States Matching with GP‑5 Presets

When you recall a GP‑5 preset, you would want the MC6 PRO’s effect toggle switch labels to accurately reflect the GP‑5 preset's individual effect on/off states — so you always see what’s live before before adding or removing an effect.

To achieve this, you simply need to add a Set Toggle message to each of your MC6 PRO switches that recalls a specific GP-5 preset. This message will be used to set the toggle states of the individual effect toggle switches on the next page within the same bank.

This message engages the toggle state of switch D (the preset switch itself) and switches G and J (which control the PRE and Delay effect blocks).

TL;DR

• Connect: MC6 PRO USB Host → GP‑5 USB.

• Channel: GP‑5 listens on MIDI Ch. 1 only.

• Presets: Use Control Change messages to recall/scroll through patches.

• Effects: Use Control Change messages to toggle blocks.

• Sync Effect Switches: Use Set Toggle message from MC6 PRO.