Wah turning on by itself

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Deny Watanabe

Member
I'm using the Mooer Expline, with the following settings changed from default:
Damping 50ms
PC Reset ON
Off Value 20%
Fast Pos

I have calibrated the pedal more often than I would like, and this happens even right after calibrating. During calibration, the position indicator in the AX8 follows the pedal position smoothly and exactly as expected, no jumps or range issues.

The problem is, not only does it keep engaging by itself (even with the pedal at 0%), it also changes the tone to something that is outside of the wah range and just sounds either muffled or shrill. Does anyone have a similar experience? I'm about to give up on using expression pedals with my AX8.
Mooer-Expline-1.jpg
 
I had the same issue and behaviour with a Boss FV 500 H that used to work fine at the beginning and suddenly started to malfunction (jumps, and out of range sounds). Calibrating and changing cable never solved this. And yet this pedal works fine with other gear. I now have a Fractal EV-1 that works perfect.
 
Used to have this problem a lot. The problem is usually a cable or a pot with dead spots or needs cleaning. Also if using auto engage set the off percentage up a little bit to give some room for error. You could also try using auto engage on a different effect to make sure your wah block is not malfunctioning. Also try a wah block autoengage in a newly created preset to make sure you don’t have a corrupt preset.
 
I just had this happen a week ago, and it is the first time ever on an Axe FX rig (the III in this case). Mine is on auto-engage at 93% if I recall correctly, and came on at the high end in the middle of a song and wouldn’t go off. I was singing so I just quit playing until I could reach down and unplug it. Sound returned to normal, so it is definitely a pedal or cable issue. I haven’t unloaded gear to test yet but will report what I find. Mission pedal, btw.
 
Based on your replies, it seems to me that the averaging algorithm for expression pedal sampled values could use some improvement. Using only very high end expression pedals and/or having them work correctly only while they're fairly new is not a good option for me.
 
Deny Watanabe said:
Based on your replies, it seems to me that the averaging algorithm for expression pedal sampled values could use some improvement. Using only very high end expression pedals and/or having them work correctly only while they're fairly new is not a good option for me.
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Averaging isn't going to solve the problem of a pedal positioned at a dead spot of a pot. It will only eliminate spikes while the pedal is moved.
 
ChristThePhone said:
Averaging isn't going to solve the problem of a pedal positioned at a dead spot of a pot. It will only eliminate spikes while the pedal is moved.
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I meant the [existing] averaging algorithm needs improvement, because I believe one already exists, not that one needs to be created. What strikes me as odd is that a dead spot would theoretically mean 0V is measured at the center pin, but that is being interpreted as a non-zero value.
 
Deny Watanabe said:
I meant the [existing] averaging algorithm needs improvement, because I believe one already exists, not that one needs to be created. What strikes me as odd is that a dead spot would theoretically mean 0V is measured at the center pin, but that is being interpreted as a non-zero value.
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No, a dead spot will rather mean the wiper has no contact at all and so the ADC input would be floating. In case of the AX8 that's the same as no external controller connected.
 
ChristThePhone said:
No, a dead spot will rather mean the wiper has no contact at all and so the ADC input would be floating. In case of the AX8 that's the same as no external controller connected.
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Sounds about right, when I tried to turn autoengage off by pulling the controller plug in the middle of a gig, the exact same behavior ensued. So, no fix for this then?
When you say "floating" I assume picking up static radio waves, electromagnetic noise, most likely 60Hz hum and the software would then set the exp parameter to whatever DC value it could get from that?
 
Deny Watanabe said:
... So, no fix for this then?
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Sure there is. Get a new pedal / pot.

Deny Watanabe said:
When you say "floating" I assume picking up static radio waves, electromagnetic noise, most likely 60Hz hum and the software would then set the exp parameter to whatever DC value it could get from that?
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The AX8 external controller input neither has a high enough impedance nor enough gain to pickup radio waves. However, without access to schematics all I can do is guess. My assumption is that the ADC input is somehow tied to the reference voltage so not connecting an external controller will make the ADC read the max value.
 
Have had the same problem the last six months and I had to unplug the wah. I just stopped using it and haven't looked into it yet. it's a mission spring loaded sp2 (the one with the switch). Using an SP1 for volume and no issues with it.
 
ChristThePhone said:
Sure there is. Get a new pedal / pot.

The AX8 external controller input neither has a high enough impedance nor enough gain to pickup radio waves. However, without access to schematics all I can do is guess. My assumption is that the ADC input is somehow tied to the reference voltage so not connecting an external controller will make the ADC read the max value.
Click to expand...

Like I've said, if the AX8 is going to be this picky about expressions pedals I just won't use one with mine. I wish it could default to zero so autoengage would be turned off when it couldn't read a value, which BTW wouldn't be much of an issue while the pedal is in use.
 
I have this problem fairly often when I switch to a new preset. It'll load the preset w/ the wah on even though I have the pedal in the heel down position where it should be off. The wah always loads with the sound muffled as if I've moved it to the heel down. I've never been able to figure out why it happens when it does...
 
I've had this happen with no pedal plugged in. I've removed the wah block from my patches as I didn't use it very often anyways. But still, it's a weird one. If I looked at the controller screen, the little ball was jumping around the bottom of the line. Very strange.
 
SteveFireland said:
I've had this happen with no pedal plugged in. I've removed the wah block from my patches as I didn't use it very often anyways. But still, it's a weird one. If I looked at the controller screen, the little ball was jumping around the bottom of the line. Very strange.
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I have also removed the wah block from my main patch, replaced it with a physical pedal, a 95Q. To my surprise, all of the weird tone issues I had been experiencing lately seem to have gone away after doing that.
 
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