How many expression pedals are you using?

henryrobinett

henryrobinett

Fractal Fanatic
I've only very, very recently started using expression pedals. I've never been a pedal user. I went rack effects and used an old foot pedal to change patches until I just got lazy and used two or three basic settings: clean, crunch and over drive with my old Boogie Quad.

But now with the Axe Fx II I'm excited about taking advantage of its possibilities. I'm hooked up with three. And I have a fourth possible, but that just seems overkill. I don't yet have a pedalboard. There are several songs where three pedals is useful. But I can also imagine a fourth one for certain songs. But come on. I'm not doing arena rock.

What are you guys doing? How many pedals and how do you divide their responsibilities?
 
I was playing raw most of the time before I got the Axe. A good old Marshall combo amp, a wahwah classic, a distortion pedal, a volume pedal and a digital delay and that's it. Nothing fancy.

Now that I upgraded to digital stuff; I - at first - was overwhelmed by the possibilities, but you get over it pretty quickly, I gotta say. I wouldn't want to live without it anymore.
Even for the extremely small and simple rig I had I was already disgusted by the amount of cable work that needs to be done. The best moment I had was when one of my patchcables suddenly screwed up during a live as I accidentally stepped on it and everything went silent. Now all I need is plug in the guitar directly to the Axe (probably thinking of getting a wireless system aswell) and there I go. This is a giant leap forward for someone as clumsy as me...

As for the pedals, I use the MFC board with one single connected expression pedal and an additional boss fs-5u footswitch. I always keep a spare ethernet cable around in case it breaks (Never trust ethernet cables; they are definitely not as robust as your standard audio cable). So in the end there's only three cables in my rig (plus the 2 XLR outputs).
The external footswitch is used for tap tempo, as I feel it much more comfortable for tapping in than using the mfc. Sometimes I hand it over to our singer so that she can tap in the tempo if needed (you can have tap tempo both on your mfc and on an external switch, which is nice), as I am not that good in doing to much foot work when I'm playing (Try to keep it down to a minimum; just changing the patches and working one expression pedal).

My expression pedal is usually bound to whatever I need in the specific patch. Most of the time it's a output volume. For solos, I use it for whammy or wahwah, depending on the song I'm playing.
In one patch I also use it to feed the input gain of an ambience effect chain. Fade it in on the bass note, fade it out again and play over it... Too bad most of the time the audience thinks its playback... :/

Other than that I would probably buy another expression pedal somewhen, but until now, I never had a reason to.
 
Right now, my MIDI foot controller allows only one, with which I usually do many things at once. Looking to be able to use two or three, but not more. Typical usage would be Pedal 1 = gain control for mid to high gain presets, and effect mix of delay, reverb or modulation for clean presets, and Pedal 2 = wha or whammy. I would use volume control only if I had a third pedal
 
Three: volume, wah and synth volume (I use the Axe to mix in the guitar synth signal). The first two are part of the FCB1010
 
One at present - its Wah/Whammy. i dont use a vol pedal - though I have a vol boost on an IA switch.

If my pedalboard was bigger Id be tempted with more. Probably a vol pedal set with min/max (rather than completyely off at heal down) and another to control amp gain (again min/max not off/max). i have an amp gain boost on an IA as well - and using the guitar vol does work - BUT directly controllling the gain would be better as there would be no tonal difference from a lower guitar OP. it would also free up 2 IA switches - which would help. I have Pitch (for detuning) and a second delay "hidden" under the front row of switches - and I could move those to a normal IA. I have Tap Tempo and Tuner hidden there as well - but thats not an issue.
 
my voodoo lab gcp only has two exp inputs so am using one for wah and the other for delayed signal.
this is on all my patches.
i am using an IA for chorus on/off but will likely change this by hooking up an expression pedal to the axe fx to feed in a modulated short delay...
 
Since you can assign the exp pedal to do different things on each patch, you only need as many pedals as you require for you most controlled patch.

I have two. The Fremen patches only use one.

While its easier to remember the one on the left is always wah and one on far right volume , for me part of the journey was to have less physical stuff.
 
Just one. In most presets it controls Wah or Whammy (switched through an IA on my MFC). In other presets: delay feedback, pitch, shimmer, etc. etc.
I've used more than one, but it gets cumbersome and chaotic...
 
Roland said:
Three: volume, wah and synth volume (I use the Axe to mix in the guitar synth signal). The first two are part of the FCB1010
Click to expand...

Interesting; I am looking into mixing in my GR55, would you mind sharing your rig/routing?

I use 2 pedals; Pedal 1 for morhing from clean to chrunch, chrunch to higain etc. Pedal 2 with spring return for Wah/Whammy/Formant or with an organ preset the rotary speed.
 
henryrobinett said:
What are you guys doing? How many pedals and how do you divide their responsibilities?
Click to expand...

Plugged into my MFC I have 3 Mission EP-1 pedals. Pedal 1 is dedicated wah. This pedal has the spring in it (or whatever they use) to always return the pedal to the heel down position. With this pedal, as with the other two, I use auto-engage.

Pedal 2 is wired to the input gain of the delay block which is parallel to my main grid row. Mix set to 100% so this allows me to dial in the right amount of delay in real-time.

Pedal 3 is wired to the gain of the drive block. This is really cool because in the heel down position the drive block is off. With a push of the toe I can engage the drive and have complete control of the amount of gain pushing the amp. This is very handy because you are not locked into one gain setting for a preset.
 
Right now I'm trying to decide what works best. I'm using the Liquid Foot LF+12+ with 3 pedals. I have a 4th for consideration. I had my first rehearsal using them a couple of days ago. I've set them up in song mode, so I'll call up a "song" which or me at the time is just a sequence of presets under a heading like "Jazz" or rhythm or actual songs. So my expression pedals changes related to each patch or preset. So far I like having one pedal control volume, another control the amount of gain to a drive block and another special effects like pitch or ring modulation, or maybe delay gain.

I'm using two Boss FV-500Ls and a Mission SP-1. But I also have an old Ernie Ball Volume pedal that with a Y cable, seems to work just great. I'd consider using this as a dedicated volume pedal. But I can't get over the fact of this being overkill in the pedal department. That's an awful lot of pedals for a jazz guy. And I don't have a pedal board!

What are you guys using for boards? Pedal Train? I never liked boards before. I like having things sprawled the way I want them. But the ergonomic convenience of having everything set up ready to be plugged in is attractive.
 
Right now I'm using 5 expression pedals and 4 switches. A bit excessive I know, but it's nice to have options. I would probably use more if I could.:D

  • exp 1 Input volume

  • exp 2 Wah/Wammy

  • exp 3 FX mix (more or less delay/chorus etc)

  • exp 4 Modulation Rate (for Leslie, Tremelo rate change)

  • exp 5 Output (needed when I use Ebow)

  • Switch 1 Boost

  • switch 2 Turns on Delay 2 for dotted 8th songs

  • switch 3 Turns on 2nd Overdrive momentarily

  • switch 4 Changes per preset and not used all the time.


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SInce yesterday I'm running four :roll

1 Volume (a vol pan block before delay and rev
2 Morphing between clean/dirt in some patches or amp gain in other
3 delay or rev mix
4 wha/whammy or pitch mix

As I actually use FV500L I'm looking for a new pedalboard large enough to allow MFC and four pedals together (about 860 mm / 34") any suggestion (OT)
 
henryrobinett said:
I'm using two Boss FV-500Ls and a Mission SP-1. But I also have an old Ernie Ball Volume pedal that with a Y cable, seems to work just great. I'd consider using this as a dedicated volume pedal. But I can't get over the fact of this being overkill in the pedal department. That's an awful lot of pedals for a jazz guy. And I don't have a pedal board!

What are you guys using for boards? Pedal Train? I never liked boards before. I like having things sprawled the way I want them. But the ergonomic convenience of having everything set up ready to be plugged in is attractive.
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ahh.. now this opens up the rest of my rig..

for volume pedal requirements I use a volume pedal with the guitar jacked in
doing this via an XP seems needless.. I'd rather spend the modifiers and CPU on somethnig more fun

for wah I use a Dunlop Crybaby
I love the tone and again, I'd rather spend the modifiers and CPU on somethnig more fun
also.. I've never quite managed to get the wah block to sound like my real one..

so my 'floor' setup is

FS-6 [XS1 and XS2 switches]
MFC-101
FV-500H [XP1 pedal]

guitar -> vol pedal -> wah -> Axe-II
 
Just two. Wah and volume, though I can live without the volume. AndWah for that matter. I just need to create an autowah for one song at this point. Beauty of the mfc etc, you can keep changing to suit you. I keep trying to simplify. Now it is 15 presets, boost and tuner. If I need a pedalboard-reveal button and there they are.
 
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