Wish Separate Auto engage & disengage parameters

notalemming

Fractal Fanatic
This would be really helpful when using auto engage for the wah block. I like having a fast setting to engage it but that means it's easy to turn it off accidentally if you rock the expression pedal back to far. Could we have a separate setting to disengage so you could set that at a slower setting? Thanks!
 
We kind of have that now. The "Speed" settings only apply when disengaging the block.
 
We kind of have that now. The "Speed" settings only apply when disengaging the block.
That's not what the latest manual seems to indicate:

Auto-Engage – Determines whether or not the block will automatically engage or bypass. FAST, MEDIUM and SLOW settings determine how quickly the effect turns ON/OFF once Auto-Engage is triggered. Use SLOW settings to “relax” auto-engage, so your effect doesn’t switch off too suddenly while you’re still using it.

The three POSITION (“POS”) options trigger the effect based on OFF VALUE (see below).

The three SPEED (“SPD”) options engage the effect when the controller is moved quickly.

Set to “OFF” to disable Auto-Engage.
 
Whoa. What? Really? That's...not how I've ever understood it to work based on the manual. I thought it was symmetric for engage and disengage.
In my wah, I keep Speed at Medium. This prevents the wah dropping out during brief excursions to the bottom of the sweep. But the wah engages right now if I sweep it upwards.
 
hmm, i think the concept of "speed" is being confused here, and possibly not accurate in the manual.

there are 2 types of AE - Position and Speed.

Position monitors the % travel of the pedal only. so if OFF value is 5%, if it's under 5, it's off, and if it's over - even just at 6% - it's on.

sometimes people park a pedal in the middle of a Wah range as an effect. but if your pedal is loose it may creep down and eventually go Heel Down. if set to Position AE, once it passes 5%, the Wah would turn off. people may not want this, as it accidentally became lower and lower.

to combat this, Speed type AE was made so in addition to the 5%, the pedal has to move "swiftly" to register the on or off. in the creeping pedal situation, because it moved slowly down, the Wah wouldn't turn off at all since it didn't move "swiftly" to indicate intent of moving it. (the Wah would also change tone, but it wouldn't turn off.)

in addition to that, there are 3 "rate" settings, i'll call them. Fast, Medium, and Slow. these determine how quickly the effect turns off once you hit that threshold. with Fast, when you get below 5%, it almost immediately turns the wah off. with slow, i think you have about 1 second or so where the wah is still on, and then it turns off if you stay under 5%.

that's all those "rate" settings do. i'm pretty sure that when set to Slow, the wah doesn't take 1 second to turn on.

I have with no success to get a quick engage & a slow disengage. If anyone has any specific settings to accomplish this, I'm all ears!
so all that said, i don't understand how you could have a "slow" engage. which means if you set the Rate to Slow, the engage should be immediate, and the disengage should be slow. again, i've never had the Wah turn on "slowly" only quickly ever.

can you record some audio showing this?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Rex
hmm, i think the concept of "speed" is being confused here, and possibly not accurate in the manual.

there are 2 types of AE - Position and Speed.

Position monitors the % travel of the pedal only. so if OFF value is 5%, if it's under 5, it's off, and if it's over - even just at 6% - it's on.

sometimes people park a pedal in the middle of a Wah range as an effect. but if your pedal is loose it may creep down and eventually go Heel Down. if set to Position AE, once it passes 5%, the Wah would turn off. people may not want this, as it accidentally became lower and lower.

to combat this, Speed type AE was made so in addition to the 5%, the pedal has to move "swiftly" to register the on or off. in the creeping pedal situation, because it moved slowly down, the Wah wouldn't turn off at all since it didn't move "swiftly" to indicate intent of moving it. (the Wah would also change tone, but it wouldn't turn off.)

in addition to that, there are 3 "rate" settings, i'll call them. Fast, Medium, and Slow. these determine how quickly the effect turns off once you hit that threshold. with Fast, when you get below 5%, it almost immediately turns the wah off. with slow, i think you have about 1 second or so where the wah is still on, and then it turns off if you stay under 5%.

that's all those "rate" settings do. i'm pretty sure that when set to Slow, the wah doesn't take 1 second to turn on.


so all that said, i don't understand how you could have a "slow" engage. which means if you set the Rate to Slow, the engage should be immediate, and the disengage should be slow. again, i've never had the Wah turn on "slowly" only quickly ever.

can you record some audio showing this?
I'm not having slow engage. I want the existing quick engage but to be able to set the disengage separately to a slower value so I don't accidentally turn it off while in use.
 
I'm not having slow engage. I want the existing quick engage but to be able to set the disengage separately to a slower value so I don't accidentally turn it off while in use.
then set it to Pos Slow or Spd Slow.

was this thread made without trying those ^?
 
This isn’t a direct answer, but your issue prompted two solutions for my particular situation.

Originally, likely back on the Ultra, I changed the slope of the wah so that all the travel I needed was away from the toe switch that engaged it. These controls are still there so you could move the useful travel away from your trouble spot until a better solution happens along.

Once auto-engage came along (an ingenious solution to so many problems) it quickly became obvious that heel down happened with no effort, but toe down took a more conscious effort for me. Ever since, my on setting has been 93-95% (toe down) and Med speed, and I have no issues with inadvertently shutting off the wah. Again, not a fix but maybe it’ll be a stopgap for you.
 
In my wah, I keep Speed at Medium. This prevents the wah dropping out during brief excursions to the bottom of the sweep. But the wah engages right now if I sweep it upwards.

hmm, i think the concept of "speed" is being confused here, and possibly not accurate in the manual.

there are 2 types of AE - Position and Speed.
Ah. Chris is on to it. There's the how and why of how change is detected and the rate at which the change is acted upon. Though, those things should still be symmetric for engage and disengage. If not, this should be more clearly documented.

It's been so long since I've played with these parameters. But this:
that's all those "rate" settings do. i'm pretty sure that when set to Slow, the wah doesn't take 1 second to turn on.
so all that said, i don't understand how you could have a "slow" engage. which means if you set the Rate to Slow, the engage should be immediate, and the disengage should be slow. again, i've never had the Wah turn on "slowly" only quickly ever.

can you record some audio showing this?
Rings true with me too and now I'm doubting reality. Need to test....
 
in my experience, there is no way to make the "engage" part of AE act "slowly." it's always immediate once you cross the Speed threshold (not RATE, read my posts above for clarity) or the Position threshold.

engage is always immediate. disengage depends on the Fast, Med, Slow selection.

if someone can demonstrate a "slow engage" then we can spitball more, but that shouldn't happen.
 
if someone can demonstrate a "slow engage" then we can spitball more, but that shouldn't happen.
Not once did I say slow engage is the problem. Fast disengage is the problem. And yes, I have tried all 6 settings ever since auto engage has been available on the original Axe II MKI.
No one expects the Spanish Inquisition, and no one wants to wait for an effect to engage. ;)
Our chief weapon is surprise, fear and surprise; two chief weapons, fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency! Er, among our chief weapons are: fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, and near fanatical devotion to the Axe! Um, I'll come in again...”

Engage speed was never an issue, only disengage speed. I played around with it some more today & slow speed seems to work best although it is really slow to disengage but at least it doesn't disengage during normal wah use. Can I modify my wish to include a speed in-between med & slow or better yet, the ability to define a specific speed that works best for the individual rather than 3 preset speeds.
 
Not once did I say slow engage is the problem. Fast disengage is the problem. And yes, I have tried all 6 settings ever since auto engage has been available on the original Axe II MKI.

hmm...
I like having a fast setting to engage it but that means it's easy to turn it off accidentally if you rock the expression pedal back to far. Could we have a separate setting to disengage so you could set that at a slower setting?
if "slow engage" isn't a problem, then why do you need a separate disengage setting? your original post implies that the engage of the wah can be changed. in my experience, it's always immediate.

have you tried either Position or Speed auto-engage set to SLOW? it should already do exactly what you want. it seems you haven't tried this at all.
 
Back
Top Bottom