tonex pedal vs hx stomp Polar // ToneX One USB, MIDI, and Wireless Controllers

tonex pedal vs hx stomp Polar // ToneX One USB, MIDI, and Wireless ControllersToneX, ToneX One, and GP 5 MIDI Control Take full control of your ToneX, ToneX One, or GP 5 pedal with MIDIno complicated setup required. Just connect your pedal's USB to this small, powerful box using USB C, and youre ready to go. It powers the pedal and sends MIDI messages to switch presets, tweak settings, and more. Truly plug and play. How It Works Each unit features an ESP32 wireless module, a custom 9V center negative power circuit, USB C for

ToneX, ToneX One, and GP-5 MIDI Control

Take full control of your ToneX, ToneX One, or GP-5 pedal with MIDI—no complicated setup required. Just connect your pedal's USB to this small, powerful box using USB-C, and you’re ready to go. It powers the pedal and sends MIDI messages to switch presets, tweak settings, and more. Truly plug and play.

How It Works

Each unit features an ESP32 wireless module, a custom 9V center-negative power circuit, USB-C for connecting the pedal, a 3.5mm TRS (Type A) MIDI input, and a 3.5mm TRS (Type A) MIDI Thru. You can also control your pedal wirelessly via Bluetooth or WiFi using a compatible MIDI controller or app.

Polar Pico, Mini, Plus, and Max

Our Polar controllers come in four sizes—Pico, Mini, Plus, and Max. All four models offer the same core features and connections, including USB, wired MIDI input, and wireless MIDI. The difference lies in the user interface options, so you can choose the layout that best fits your rig. See the table below for a side-by-side comparison.

Our version 2 hardware - released in January 2026 - makes these devices even more space efficient and adds our brand new optical switching technology to models with footswitches. This means almost endless life for your footswitches with no mechanical switches to wear out.

Supporting the Creator & Other Important Details

The open source firmware for these devices was created by Greg Smith, who has generously supported the production and sale of these products. Your purchase also helps financially support his open source project and continued maintenance of the project. 10% of all sales revenue is sent directly to Greg.

Disclaimer: The ToneX One doesn’t officially support MIDI control, so this product works by translating USB messages—just like the ToneX app sends—and triggering them via MIDI using onboard code. It works reliably today, and the same approach is used by others in the community.

However, a future firmware update from IK Multimedia could break this functionality. The open-source project powering this controller has kept pace with changes so far, but we can’t guarantee future compatibility. Because this relies on a third-party project, PIRATE MIDI can’t offer returns or refunds if future ToneX updates make this control method stop working.

The same process is used for the Valeton GP-5 and the ToneX pedal. Non-MIDI protocols are reverse engineered to allow deeper MIDI control.