the foot pedal’s position WILL save, but if the pedal is attached it will automatically revert to the pedal’s current position. so let’s say that you put the expression pedal toe-up and save the preset, if you disconnect the expression pedal and load the preset it will act as though the pedal was connected and in the toe-up position. however, if the expression pedal is connected and toe-down, when you load the preset it will react to the pedal’s current position.

the largest overlap between the MS and the HOG is obviously in the original/+1/-1 sliders and the ability to stack voices, although the HOG can’t really nail the MS groove and the MS is too much it’s own beast to encroach on the HOG’s territory. the MS is all analog, so the octaves not only sound different but react differently and require a different playing style altogether. with the HOG, if you want to, you can essentially just stack some voices and play the same riffs you used to play before you got the thing. there’s no real ‘style limitation’ because the tracking is super fast, pretty clean, and totally polyphonic. you can get some neat synth sounds with the HOG, but comparing it to the MS is comparing lions and tigers: they do similar things, but there’s no way anyone who is at all familiar with either would confuse one for the other.

i’m taking a break from writing a paper so i sincerely hope this all makes sense, ive been planning sentences basically since i woke up and im starting to snap a little, in the linguistic sense.

If you get an expression pedal that lets you use your own cable it can be any length. The one that comes with it is Plenty long though, so there should be no issues really. It’s gotta use a Stereo TRS cable 1/4″

The preset saves everything but the input gain slider, including EP setting and the push button selections and if the Envelope switch is engaged or not. The only way you can save the presets is with the official pedal (or the 2880 controller pedal, as they are the same and are cross-compatible). There really isn’t a cheap or smaller alternative to the preset switch controller. The thing uses a microcontroller with EHXs own software to interact with their pedals.

The MIDI input does exactly what the Expression pedal does. The only difference is that it determines “toe position” with a midi pitch wheel signal. So if you have the expression pedal setting to Octave bend, a MIDI signal will create sounds accordingly, likewise with the Step Bend, or even Freeze + Gliss! If you make a repeating sequence with a MIDI controller with the Filter or Octave bend settings you can get some very incredible synth like step modulation square wave style. It’s very versatile, although it requires quite a bit of setup.

Sorry, not much experience with the Micro Synth.

I hope my responses filled in any gaps that may have been left by other posters.