Best way to get Wah, Volume and Whammy from one expression pedal in all scenes

S

Seven2Eleven

Inspired
I'd like to be able to have a wah, volume and whammy pedal available through one expression pedal in all scenes, preferably with auto engage for the wah at least.

The best solution I could come up with was using an external midi foot switch to change the channels of the wah, pitch and volume blocks. One press of the switch would set the wah to channel A (with auto engage on) and simultaneously set the volume and pitch to channel B (with auto engage off). A second press of the switch would then do the same thing for the Volume, and then a 3rd press for the pitch.

Are there any other solutions that wouldn't require any external gear? Control switches in the FM9 can't change channels, only bypass states, which then doesn't allow for auto engage.
 
I do this with most of my presets and can share my approach. Basically at the beginning of my chain I have three rows in parallel. One goes to a wah (with auto-engage), the other to a volume block, the other to pitch. These merge to a multiplexer block which is set up to have channel A take the first row (wah), channel B the second row (volume) and channel C the third row (pitch). I set this multiplexer to Scene Ignore so that whichever channel/function I am on stays the same though scene changes.

My default Scenes view is modified to access this functionality. The first four switches are set to toggle between two scenes each, the fifth switch is designated for toggling the channel of the multiplexer, and the sixth switch is set up as tap tempo.

With the multiplexer toggling, I have it defaulted to the wah channel. If I single press it, it changes to channel B with volume. If I want to access the pitch block, I long press it and it changes to channel C. A single press from that will return it to channel A and the wah.

The only downside with this if you are using a single pedal is the difference in toe position. I have my autoengage wah to be bypassed when the toe is down so toggling between volume and wah is seemless when the toe is all the way down. The problem is with pitch if you are doing something like a classic whammy since when you switch to this it will be in the octave up position. You can tweak the whammy functionality to deal with this (e.g. invert it so that heal down is the octave up and toe down is unison), but it is a downside.

Hope that is helpful.
 
TheloniusJ said:
I do this with most of my presets and can share my approach. Basically at the beginning of my chain I have three rows in parallel. One goes to a wah (with auto-engage), the other to a volume block, the other to pitch. These merge to a multiplexer block which is set up to have channel A take the first row (wah), channel B the second row (volume) and channel C the third row (pitch). I set this multiplexer to Scene Ignore so that whichever channel/function I am on stays the same though scene changes.

My default Scenes view is modified to access this functionality. The first four switches are set to toggle between two scenes each, the fifth switch is designated for toggling the channel of the multiplexer, and the sixth switch is set up as tap tempo.

With the multiplexer toggling, I have it defaulted to the wah channel. If I single press it, it changes to channel B with volume. If I want to access the pitch block, I long press it and it changes to channel C. A single press from that will return it to channel A and the wah.

The only downside with this if you are using a single pedal is the difference in toe position. I have my autoengage wah to be bypassed when the toe is down so toggling between volume and wah is seemless when the toe is all the way down. The problem is with pitch if you are doing something like a classic whammy since when you switch to this it will be in the octave up position. You can tweak the whammy functionality to deal with this (e.g. invert it so that heal down is the octave up and toe down is unison), but it is a downside.

Hope that is helpful.
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The only issue I see with that approach is that all 3 blocks have to be in the same spot in the overall signal chain. I put wah and pitch at the beginning of my chain but volume I want towards the end (after gain, before delay and reverb).
 
Seven2Eleven said:
The only issue I see with that approach is that all 3 blocks have to be in the same spot in the overall signal chain. I put wah and pitch at the beginning of my chain but volume I want towards the end (after gain, before delay and reverb).
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There is actually an approach to handle this situation using sends if I recall. I don't recall the details, but I'll see if I can dig up the thread where that is discussed.
 
TheloniusJ said:
There is actually an approach to handle this situation using sends if I recall. I don't recall the details, but I'll see if I can dig up the thread where that is discussed.
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That's clever. I think I can picture how that would work. You would need at least 2 sends and 2 returns though if I'm understanding it correctly. (Some one check my work)

Place a send block after my gain blocks, send 1 goes to return 1 block placed before the Volume block. Then the volume feeds into a send 2 block. Send 2 block goes to a return block right before the delays and reverbs.

The problem with that however is that I'm already using one send and return pair just to extend the grid. I might be able to rework it though. The other thing is CPU. I don't know how much CPU a send/return pair uses but my main kitchen sink preset is already close to max on my FM9 turbo.
 
Use the multiplexer and run all the effects you want in parallel. The Multiplexer will switch which effect is in the signal path.
 
RoshRoslin said:
Use the multiplexer and run all the effects you want in parallel. The Multiplexer will switch which effect is in the signal path.
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See what I said above about the multiplexer. The problem is that wah, pitch and volume all have to be roughly in the same spot on the grid and feed into the multiplexer. I want wah and pitch at the beginning but volume towards the end of my chain.
@TheloniusJ mentioned there's a possible solution to that using sends. I'm trying to picture how that would work. In my head, there would need to be a send block right after my gain stages that feeds into a return block before the volume. But then there would need to be a send after the volume as well that goes to a return block before the delays and reverbs. However, if there's a send after the volume block, how would the multiplexer hear it?
 
A control switch could be made to cycle through 3 sequencer steps with seq. assigned as bypass modifier for pitch & volume blocks, plus row select modifier for a multiplexer to switch between wah/shunt paths.

Or if configuring an exclusive Control Switch group doesn't conflict with other ways you're using multiple CS, you could have 3 CS where each one corresponds to one block. Or (Exclusive group not required for this) one CS could toggle between 2 blocks while the other always selects the third one when activated. That might require an extra block or two for the "take other two out of the signal path" part.
 
Bakerman said:
A control switch could be made to cycle through 3 sequencer steps with seq. assigned as bypass modifier for pitch & volume blocks, plus row select modifier for a multiplexer to switch between wah/shunt paths.

Or if configuring an exclusive Control Switch group doesn't conflict with other ways you're using multiple CS, you could have 3 CS where each one corresponds to one block. Or (Exclusive group not required for this) one CS could toggle between 2 blocks while the other always selects the third one when activated. That might require an extra block or two for the "take other two out of the signal path" part.
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That's an interesting approach. I'll mess around with it this weekend!
 
This does not exactly respond to your query but after multiple tentatives to have these kind of solutions work I ended up getting sick of these solutions and use 2 expression pedals, just to have my head free of any considerations for scenes or channels I'm in. Using pitch almost never and never together with wah I use the second pedal either for wah or pitch or whatever independent effect control I might need in a certain situation.
 
lauke-lux said:
This does not exactly respond to your query but after multiple tentatives to have these kind of solutions work I ended up getting sick of these solutions and use 2 expression pedals, just to have my head free of any considerations for scenes or channels I'm in. Using pitch almost never and never together with wah I use the second pedal either for wah or pitch or whatever independent effect control I might need in a certain situation.
Click to expand...
The problem with being overly clever with a solution is that we then have to remember WTF it was we did and how it worked. I had some situations I'd "clevered" my way through, and then six months later decided I'd been backed into a corner by the complexity and tore it out of the presets and took the straightforward route.

It wasn't as cool but I can glance at it and know exactly how it works.
 
Greg Ferguson said:
The problem with being overly clever with a solution is that we then have to remember WTF it was we did and how it worked. I had some situations I'd "clevered" my way through, and then six months later decided I'd been backed into a corner by the complexity and tore it out of the presets and took the straightforward route.

It wasn't as cool but I can glance at it and know exactly how it works.
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I decided to have 500grams (about 1lbs) more in the bag and just only have to concentrate on playing wirhout too much tap dancing. Still interesting to read all what can be done and how creative some users can be. The FAS units are really incredible. Great thread.
 
Bakerman said:
You're using various scenes with multiple channel changes there though. Seven2Eleven was asking about a method to switch between 3 pedal functions while staying on any one scene.
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Oh, guess I shouldn't have done so many drugs in the 80s😩. I think I saw a cooper carter video on how he set it up independent of scenes. I will see if I can find
 
rnjscooter said:
Found it. He only did it with 2 functions but I imagine you can set it up for as many as you want
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Incrementing through Multiplexer channels works if the blocks are all at the same point in the chain. Still not quite what OP's looking for, requiring some additional setup like I described in post #9.
 
Bakerman said:
Incrementing through Multiplexer channels works if the blocks are all at the same point in the chain. Still not quite what OP's looking for, requiring some additional setup like I described in post #9.
Click to expand...
Yeah, everyone keeps suggesting the multiplexer. I should have specified in my OP that I know about the multiplexer. I want volume in a separate point in the signal path so the normal multiplexer solution wouldn't work for me. @TheloniusJ mentioned that there could be a way to make the multiplexer work with send and return blocks though.

So far @Bakerman has the best solution for what I want.

Would the control switches and step sequencer have a lot of cpu overhead?
 
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