Gamechanger Bigsby pedal - FA approaches?

aervin

aervin

Member
I just saw the marketing material for the Bigsby pedal. Wondering how we might try to approximate the effect with an expression pedal?

The band sounds great and the Focus homage is fantastic :)

 
Well, I think a pitch block Virtual Capo.

Assign an expression pedal to the Shift with Min at 0 and Max at maybe +2.

Although a seem to recall an issue with the Virtual Capo when Shift is at 0, so you might need to auto engage the effect... Or try Chromatic and use only 1 voice with Mix at 100%.
 
vetteboy79 said:
I kept waiting for that to kick in - fun arrangement for sure! I dig the pedal idea, that's an interesting challenge to create a pitch shifter that can go both up and down smoothly.
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I guess I didn't watch enough of the video to hear the pitch go up, so my previous suggestion won't cover that.
 
I thought a modifier on the virtual capo would be good, but the "action" of the pedal is spring loaded (or so it appears). we'd need a curve to match.
 
a longer release length on a pitch modifier could go a long way

I'm out of town for an American holiday weekend, otherwise I would experiment myself.
 
unix-guy said:
There are spring loaded pedals... I have 2. ;)
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IT looks like that pedal is spring loaded in the middle, letting you step on the bottom to dive down, and roll up on the top to go up. You'd need a spring loaded pedal that returns to center to accurately replicate this. 1:42 shows it.

To do this, I think I'd take a stiff pedal that will hold it's position midway well, Like the Fractal expression pedals. Then I'd give it a generous dead zone in the middle with the expression curve. Set it so everything from like 35%-65% is at 0 on your pitch, then everything below lowers your pitch, and everyting above raises it. This isn't perfect, but I'm creating a healthy dead zone so my clumbsy meat limb can somwhat consistently return it to 0 pitch change manually, since I don't have springs to do it for me automatically.
 
IronSean said:
IT looks like that pedal is spring loaded in the middle, letting you step on the bottom to dive down, and roll up on the top to go up. You'd need a spring loaded pedal that returns to center to accurately replicate this
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Exactly...

I pedal with a center zero config would be pretty cool. You could do things like a Steinberger TransTrem, too.

Edit:

Actually center zero wouldn't work. You'd need a center 50...
 
Virtual Capo and Chromatic shifters operate in distinct steps (half steps actually), so you can't get a smooth bend from those except on the detune parameter. That however only has a narrow +/- 50 cent range.

Advance Whammy at 100% wet will give you smooth bends with much more range. Set your Start and Stop parameters accordingly and bend away.
 
Totally Off Topic - But the guitar player looks like a young Rick Mayall.
That combined with the look on the keyboard players face roughly 18 seconds in has me waiting for Ade Edmondson to enter the scene and trash everything....
Sorry I'll show myself out....
 
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