Auto engage-beyond wah and whammy

Shreddy Better

Shreddy Better

Inspired
I was working on a riff which only uses the wah on specific notes and got to thinking: what if only those specific notes were echo'ed in time while the rest of the riff was un-effected. The wah was on expression 1 with autoengage, so I added a delay block with delay spillover when the effect is turned off, put one of the parameters on expression 1 but flat-lined it's response to the setting used normally, put it on autoengage and bypass, and voila, only the wah note echoes. One can do this to add effects only to a whammy (add wah and flanger to effect only the "bend" and have that echo off into the back ground while leaving the main riff untouched). One can pair it, or triple it etc, with anything. How about having the whammy octave sound something else at the top of the expression pedal throw: shunt a parallel volume block that only opens up at the top to the throw, have it feed a delay to give it sustain, feed that into a synth block with some crystals on it. voila, main riff unaffected but press the expression pedal and one get's whammy with echo with the top note giving some sparkle at the end.
so many options, and all without a pile of patch cables or the need for lots of feet. :D
 
Try 2 pitch blocks in parallel, auto engage, set them on advanced whammy and set the intervals for faux pedal steel bends, put a volume block after one and set the curve so that it only lets the note through at the top of the curve, set an auto-engage delay after them. One has a pedal steel effect that brings in the second pitch at the top of the throw. Even put another volume block in front of both pitch blocks, and run a parallel direct line through, now one has a pedal steel player backing you up with volume swell double bends whenever you hit the expression pedal, echo'ing off into the background without getting in the way of your normal playing.
so many options, so little time.
 
Try auto engaging an enhancer to the above ideas, or a panner to move things around in the stereo field and further distance the expression stuff from your regular playing: it's like having a guitar overdub at your feet.
 
You can also assign the exp pedal to a block's bypass modifier, and use the curve to create your own custom "auto-engage." Have it turn on/off anywhere between heel and toe, turn on only in the middle, on at both heel and toe and off in the middle. And, for delay and similar FX you can have the pedal control input gain.

A simple combination I've found useful, for a clean patch, I have the pedal assigned to chorus bypass so that it's off at toe down. Delay is also set to bypass at toe down, and I have it assigned to it's input gain. Bypass mode is mute FX in. In use, toe down is clean no FX, heel down is chorus only - at that point the delay input is "0". Rocking forward adds more delay, till you get to toe down and delay bypasses while the trails continue.
 
Shreddy Better said:
Try 2 pitch blocks in parallel, auto engage, set them on advanced whammy and set the intervals for faux pedal steel bends, put a volume block after one and set the curve so that it only lets the note through at the top of the curve, set an auto-engage delay after them. One has a pedal steel effect that brings in the second pitch at the top of the throw. Even put another volume block in front of both pitch blocks, and run a parallel direct line through, now one has a pedal steel player backing you up with volume swell double bends whenever you hit the expression pedal, echo'ing off into the background without getting in the way of your normal playing.
so many options, so little time.
Click to expand...

Why not make a WIKI of these tips? Sounds very interesting, I have to check up this one. Thanks!!!

/Mike
 
Try one (-5 to -3) and the other (+4 to +5) either auto-engaged or with a volume block in front to weeping pedal steel effects. Just tried that last night, the results made me laugh :lol: in a good way.
 
Ever since I got the MFC, I have wanted to take full advantage of expression pedals and the like so I've been delving into some of the recesses of the Ultra as of late. I am constantly amazed at what this machine can do in the routing dept. Most of the hype is on how well it models real amps and rightly so, but on the effects side, it is just as powerful and innovative. It can truly be whatever anyone wants it to be, truly personalized to everyone's unique needs and tastes. Try that with any of the other modeler effectors out there that just force feed ya what they got. I've had my Ultra for over a year now, but have really just got to know it, and the truth is, there is so much more I don't know, so many unique sounds that can be pulled from it given time and patience. :D
Still, as Spock once said "Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end"; one can expand from this and say "Tone is the beginning of music, not the end", but the axe-fx is the best way to get to that critical first step, and can be a source of inspiration for the next step, and the next. :roll: but I digress (better get back to work here).

question for those on the forum: I'm 45, how many of you are mid-life crisis Frac'ers :lol:
 
Guess one has to be an old fart to afford this "luxury" piece of gear.

but hey, isn't Andy Summers like 70 or something. Lots of musical life left in us yet :lol:
 
The only processor I´m aware of that has far better routing possibilities and control over effects than Axe Standard/Ultra is the (discontinued) Nord Modular G2 (virtual modular synth/effect). Talk about feeling that your life is far too short to discover/experiment with all the possibilities in it... (especially if you aren´t a synth guy to start with).

But it, in comparision, doesn´t have any kind of Amp modeling, and you can´t do any editing/programming without a computer connected. And most importantly, there is unfortunately a gap (of silence) when switching presets. So best is to use them both, now does that mean that the time left in your life to spend with these toys is even shorter? Answer is yes. :(

There are several ways that the Axe control modifiers can be improved that others have already pointed out, for example "run" parameter on ADSR as suggested by Javajunkie. Others have had good ideas about improvements of the sequencer. I´m longing/hoping that there someday will be some kind of envelope followers possible to place anywhere within the grid. I haven´t payed much attention to the auto-engage feature before, at least not more than knowing what it is there for (or so I thought). Your post is a bit of a eye-opener on it. So thank you for sharing your discoveries!

Oh, and between you´re both far ahead me... (I´m 31) :D

/Mike
 
Shreddy Better said:
Guess one has to be an old fart to afford this "luxury" piece of gear.

but hey, isn't Andy Summers like 70 or something. Lots of musical life left in us yet :lol:
Click to expand...

:)

If your fingers still have some life in the left, upload them pedal presets, will you?
 
:cry: I'm one of those people who can't get axe-edit to talk to my axe'fx at all, and than it freezes up.

The ideas are out there though. :(
 
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