So, who's got expression pedal strategies?

S

squealie

Experienced
I'm looking for ideas on kitchen-sink patches that use the expression pedal to do multiple duties. Scenes, or whatnot.

Wah in one case, Whammy in another case, plex-delay-mix in another. These are easy to achieve when you've got multiple pedals with a switches..but I'm sure you industrious fellows have figured this out for one pedal with no switch. Help?


Sorry if this is a common question. I've been following the forum since 2009 and haven't seen this discussed much.
 
It all depends if you need to use those effects simultaneously. You can assign the pedal to control lots of stuff in different blocks at the same time and only engage one of the effects at a time. The pedal will still change all of the attached parameters, but you'll only hear the one that's active. For example, you can attach the pedal to rate for chorus, flanger, phaser, tremolo, and rotary all at the same time, but you typically only use one of those blocks at a time. That means you'll only hear the rate change in the active block.

You can also use channels to enable or disable modifiers as needed. The default for a modifier is to be active in all channels of a block. You can set this to be active in only one specific channel instead. When you want to use the pedal for something else, change the block channels accordingly. This also works for auto engage.
 
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what controller do you use? with controllers like rjm gt series you can assign 16 different parameters/midi commands to 1 pedal and select which one to use via a programmed foot switch.
 
Using FC-12.

So far, my best ideas are using the multiplexer to separate the wah from the whammy. And then using a dance-step to enable other 'expressables' either with scenes or individual bypass.
 
If you don't use the wah and whammy at the same time, you can do what I do:

Mission SP-1 with latching switch
Wah and pitch NOT auto engaging
Wah bypass set to the SP-1 switch
Pitch bypass set to a switch on FM9 (or in your case FC-12)

With this solution, the pitch control changes while I am using the wah, but you don't hear it since the effect is bypassed.
 
I use a single expression pedal to "morph" from my clean/rhythm tone to the lead tone. With judicious use of the modifier curve, that single expression pedal gradually adds in delay in the first half of the sweep, then the second half gradually shifts from the clean amp block to the lead amp block. I've been doing that for years, and that feature alone literally blows the minds of all my musician friends in the audience. Such a simple thing, really, but it beautifully displays the versatility of Fractal gear. Oh, by the way, I use a II XL and can only imagine how much more the III can do.

My other expression pedals are sometimes assigned to gradually dial in some ambiance, chorus, talk-box, simulated feedback, etc. In fact, whenever I can get away with it, I'll use an expression pedal to gradually add or morph things, rather than the sudden change that would result from pressing a switch on the floor board. Then, of course, there's wah and volume (I always put a volume block just before delays and reverbs do that there's trails)
 
I have a strategy of keeping things incredibly simple to control at a gig. Many of us will have been in the situation when you start a song and the sound is horribly trebly because you forgot to turn the Wah off. My strategy is to use auto-on, and only have the treadle attached to the Wah. The last thing I want is to be dancing around the pedals trying to turn off an effect which I can’t see in front of me.
 
Dpoirier said:
I use a single expression pedal to "morph" from my clean/rhythm tone to the lead tone. With judicious use of the modifier curve, that single expression pedal gradually adds in delay in the first half of the sweep, then the second half gradually shifts from the clean amp block to the lead amp block. I've been doing that for years, and that feature alone literally blows the minds of all my musician friends in the audience. Such a simple thing, really, but it beautifully displays the versatility of Fractal gear. Oh, by the way, I use a II XL and can only imagine how much more the III can do.

My other expression pedals are sometimes assigned to gradually dial in some ambiance, chorus, talk-box, simulated feedback, etc. In fact, whenever I can get away with it, I'll use an expression pedal to gradually add or morph things, rather than the sudden change that would result from pressing a switch on the floor board. Then, of course, there's wah and volume (I always put a volume block just before delays and reverbs do that there's trails)
Click to expand...

Bon jour, mon frère d'une autre mère....

I also do a LOT with my expression pedals. My current "high water mark" is a preset template where I have Dry clean, chorus, a continuous blend between Chorus and Rotary, Rotary, and High-gain Solo with Delay all on one pedal as you go from heel to toe. All are easy to target with the way I have the modifier curves set up on the various parts.... :)
 
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My go-to is volume control where as I taper it off, delay hold is triggered (and/or reverb mix or duration is increased). It kicks in when volume is low enough for the delay trails to not be obnoxious.

I've also had switches where instead of those, it goes straight to a wah or pitch effect, but I've kinda' gone away from that for simplicity.

If I want dead silence (no trails) I turn on the tuner or use a scene with delay bypassed to begin with.
 
In addition to the excellent suggestions above, it may be an option to create a switch specifically to ‘change the function of the XPDL’. For example I have a preset where the default is that XPDL controls wah (auto-engage) but when I press the one switch the XPDL now controls a delay parameter. I think I used channels to do it, but I’d have to check.
 
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squealie said:
Using FC-12.

So far, my best ideas are using the multiplexer to separate the wah from the whammy. And then using a dance-step to enable other 'expressables' either with scenes or individual bypass.
Click to expand...
You don’t need to do that, assign channels to the blocks you want to control, and then use the scenes to change block channels all at once. For example in scene one I use my pedal to control wah on block A of the wah, on a different scene I use block B of the pitch to be a whammy.
 
marc0810 said:
You don’t need to do that, assign channels to the blocks you want to control, and then use the scenes to change block channels all at once. For example in scene one I use my pedal to control wah on block A of the wah, on a different scene I use block B of the pitch to be a whammy.
Click to expand...
Does that work with auto-engage? Perhaps it’s different between AxeFXIII and the other units, but my recollection was that I couldn’t get it to work if using auto-engage for one (or more?) of the blocks, so I used the multiplexer to just ‘take the wah out of the chain’ when switching to other mode (in my case, volume control for swells …).
 
Yes it does, I use auto engage on all my wah blocks and have no problem. What you have to do is make sure the blocks don’t share a channel if you want to control them separately. When I am home tonight I’ll try to post some pics of how I have mine setup
 
So if you click on the channel in the modifier window you can assign it to different channels, so as long as you keep the things you want to control on different channels per scene, you can use one pedal for different things…ie scene one it’s set to channel A to control wah, switch to scene 2 leave wah on channel A and on channel b have your next effect and set up the modifier for channel B
 

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