I modded an EV-1 to feel like a regular Wah pedal. Full details inside!

ZenRigs Man

Fractal Fanatic
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Hey folks! Hope you're all well.

A couple of months ago I received 3 Fractal EV1's to replace the expression pedals on my board. I LOVE the EV1's, they feel fantastic, look awesome and are super responsive for controlling stuff on the Axe FX.

As much as I tried, however, I couldn't get used to the long sweep of the pedal for Wah usage. I have one EV1 dedicated just to wah use and didn't want to switch back to a Mission pedal (which worked great, but then my board would not look as sexy, which is a really important consideration), so, being the saddo that I am, I started thinking about how to I could tweak things to make it feel like a regular Wah / Mission type pedal and came up with a really simple and obvious hack to achieve it.

So what I wanted was for the EV-1 to have a similar physical feel and sweep to my trusty old Teese Wizard Wah

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I took a few measurements and found that on toe-down, the gap at the back of the EV-1 was 35.5mm and 13mm on the Teese. With the extra length of the EV-1, this made the sweep even bigger than just the gap at the rear.

What I did was to work out how much total sweep I wanted on the EV-1 to make it feel as close to the Teese as possible, and worked this out by stuffing some of my KickTags labels at either end (hey, they're multi-function!) until the amount of movement seemed about the same. It seemed I needed to restrict movement by about 15mm at each end to make it feel like the Teese.

I then went to my box of goodies in the garage and found a selection of self-adhesive black rubber feet. Of these, I found a bunch that were 13.5mm (ish) in height.

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I then stuck these to the 'stopper' circle on the front of the EV-1 (i.e. the bit where the rubber stopper of the pedal hits the chassis) and also at the rear of the EV-1 at the appropriate place there.

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I stepped on it and the range of movement was pretty much spot on with the Teese!

Next step was to recalibrate the EV-1 on the MFC, for the new restricted range of motion. Having done that, I tried out a patch, jumped on the EV-1 and .... aaaaaahhhhh! LOVELY! Felt JUST like the Teese Wah, but it was an EV-1. Magic!

I jammed on it for a while and, you know what... having gotten used to the longer throw of the EV-1, I felt the range of movement was a little too shallow for me now, so I swapped out the rubber feet at the front end of the pedal for some that were smaller in height.

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Followed by a recalibration of the pedal range on the MFC again and that was it - my perfect feeling expression pedal for Wah. Feels just like a wah pedal now - allows me to jump on it without having my foot angled too far back (I know, I know, first world problems) and allows quicker quack-quack style Wah-ing without too much movement.

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Nice and simple mod - my board remains looking super sexy with a trio of EV-1s, which all feel fab, and I have a Wah that feels exactly as I want it to.

Hope this is of use to some of you!!

Sukh
 
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Very cool idea! I was a bit nervous seeing the thread title that you had gone deep into the inner workings of the EV1 and done something invasive, however this mod is really nice cos it can be reversed easily.

I had the same findings as you, I love the EV1 for everything else except wah, so I bought myself a Mission SP1 which is my dedicated wah and the EV1 does pretty much everything else. :cool:
 
Nice one! I did a very similar thing to a Boss FV-500 to make it more comfortable for wah use, back when I had an Ultra.

BTW, this same technique also works if you have an expression pedal suffering from bad dead spots at either end of the throw. You'll lose some physical sweep distance, but you'll be able to calibrate the pedal for the entire new range, which can make it much less frustrating to use!
 
Clever idea

I switched from the EV1s to some modded pot EB VPJr's due to size issues.

At times I love the long sweep, which is similar to the EV1, just a smaller pedal overall, but sometimes a shorter sweep could be nice.

I will have to play around with adjusting it and see how that feels

Also thought I might mod it with a second string/spring to make it always come back to heel down. If I can't get fancy could just wrap a big rubber band around it too lol

Be cool to simulate a spring loaded mission for about 1/4th the price
 
Question: Couldn't you have just adjusted the modifier control for the wah block such that it hit 100% before the pedal hit the toe-down end of the physical sweep? Then the range of motion for the wah actually changing the sound would be compressed, and any motion past the point equivalent to where you've put the stoppers would have no effect on the sound. And if you want to use the same pedal for something else in another preset, where you want the full range of motion, you wouldn't have any physical limitations.

Since how you use the wah is probably driven by the sound that you hear, you might not even notice that you haven't hit the physical end of the range of motion.
 
Question: Couldn't you have just adjusted the modifier control for the wah block such that it hit 100% before the pedal hit the toe-down end of the physical sweep? Then the range of motion for the wah actually changing the sound would be compressed, and any motion past the point equivalent to where you've put the stoppers would have no effect on the sound. And if you want to use the same pedal for something else in another preset, where you want the full range of motion, you wouldn't have any physical limitations.

Since how you use the wah is probably driven by the sound that you hear, you might not even notice that you haven't hit the physical end of the range of motion.
Could have done dude, but it just wouldn't have 'felt' the same to me. This is perfect for me :)
 
Question: Couldn't you have just adjusted the modifier control for the wah block such that it hit 100% before the pedal hit the toe-down end of the physical sweep? Then the range of motion for the wah actually changing the sound would be compressed, and any motion past the point equivalent to where you've put the stoppers would have no effect on the sound. And if you want to use the same pedal for something else in another preset, where you want the full range of motion, you wouldn't have any physical limitations.

Since how you use the wah is probably driven by the sound that you hear, you might not even notice that you haven't hit the physical end of the range of motion.
I liked the OP idea until I read this. Good idea!
 
Exactly, and your idea is a good one! For me, that would limit the pedals other uses. But no matter what you use an ev1 for, the heel down (for me) is a very awkward angle
 
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Exactly, and your idea is a good one! For me, that would limit the pedals other uses. But no matter what you use an ev1 for the heel down (for me) is a very awkward angle

Yes, it definitely does limit it for other uses for sure, but for me this is for a dedicated wah use - I have 2 other EV1s for regular expression duties.

As u say, the heel down angle was too steep for me for wah riding, which is another reason for going the route I did as opposed to modifying the range via modifiers.
 
Have to admit I cringed at the title of this thread. Modding a fractal ev1?!!?!??!?

But after further reading. Love it m8! Thanks for this knowledge!
 
Toadfish, this is brilliant! I have two EV-1's and need to do the same. My problem is I can't seem to find the square rubber feet (13.4mm height) anywhere. Do you know where you purchased them? The only ones I can find are about 3/8" in height, not enough. Thanks
 
Great idea Toadfish! I just got done adding these to one of my EV1s as well.

@ axeman...they are called 3M Bumpons and the size you mentioned are part no. SJ-5514. Just google them.
 
Toadfish, this is brilliant! I have two EV-1's and need to do the same. My problem is I can't seem to find the square rubber feet (13.4mm height) anywhere. Do you know where you purchased them? The only ones I can find are about 3/8" in height, not enough. Thanks
You could probably find almost any height rubber bumpers on a furniture parts supply website....I would think
 
Toadfish, this is brilliant! I have two EV-1's and need to do the same. My problem is I can't seem to find the square rubber feet (13.4mm height) anywhere. Do you know where you purchased them? The only ones I can find are about 3/8" in height, not enough. Thanks

Hey buddy - would have been any number of places over the years, but you'll find them on Amazon too. Good luck!
 
Thanks Sukh! I'm gonna have to try this myself tomorrow afternoon (leaving for a gig now). Cheers, brother!
 
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