whammy and volume with one exp pedal

A

accuser

Member
I know this has been discussed before, but I'm not finding a way to do what I specifically want and was hoping the collective 🧠 may be able to help.

I like to have my volume block towards the end of my chain. I am looking for a way to use a whammy in the beginning of my chain using the same exp pedal.

Typically, when I use a Wah, I use a MUX block with a control switch that engages the input the wah is on and bypasses my volume pedal. Then I have the wah autoengage when I move the pedal to the toe up position. This works really well because I typically put volume at max (toe down, wah is bypassed), then the control switch engages the input of the wah and when I move to toe up, the wah kicks on and I do my thing. This works extremely well because I don't typically have the wah in the toe down position for long enough to disengage the wah.

With a whammy, thats a different story. I may want the toe to be down for a longer period of time (thinking Gilmour style).

Any way to accomplish this?
 
Dont mean to hijack this but...I have an extension of this problem. I use a Mission SP1 expression pedal - which has a toe switch. I configured it to toggle between VOL and WAH. But now I want it to also toggle the PITCH block. Without changing scene or preset. 3 in 1...is it possible? :D

Otherwise I dont know of any other way than what you are already doing. I would get a pedal with a toe down toggle switch. I can atleast confirm it works for 2 blocks :)
 
I created a scene controller that was able to bypass the VOL and activate the WAH and vise versa. (In my case reverb level or wah). The expression pedal is working for both blocks, but since they only one of them is active it only effects the sound as desired. So that way you can enable it per scene or you can assign it to a button.

I suppose you can also use something like that if you have a toe switch.
 
accuser said:
I know this has been discussed before, but I'm not finding a way to do what I specifically want and was hoping the collective 🧠 may be able to help.

I like to have my volume block towards the end of my chain. I am looking for a way to use a whammy in the beginning of my chain using the same exp pedal.

Typically, when I use a Wah, I use a MUX block with a control switch that engages the input the wah is on and bypasses my volume pedal. Then I have the wah autoengage when I move the pedal to the toe up position. This works really well because I typically put volume at max (toe down, wah is bypassed), then the control switch engages the input of the wah and when I move to toe up, the wah kicks on and I do my thing. This works extremely well because I don't typically have the wah in the toe down position for long enough to disengage the wah.

With a whammy, thats a different story. I may want the toe to be down for a longer period of time (thinking Gilmour style).

Any way to accomplish this?
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Just for clarity, the expression pedal you are using does not have a toe switch (like the first respondent), but you are looking at using auto-engage with the pitch block also. Correct?

I do something similar to you with a MUX block functioning to change the front of the chain routing between wah, volume, and a pitch block (whammy). As you pointed out the big problem is that do do this the way you need it to behave, you need to auto-engage to function at the toe-down position. This works great with wah, but with a whammy effect usually not so much. I haven't really found a good way to address this unless I do almost an inverse pedal behavior (e.g. heel down brings the pitch up), but this gets confusing to me.

I guess the second part of the question sounds like you want the pedal to control a whammy at the beginning of the chain and the volume at the end. I've done this also, and used channels to control this behavior. Basically, I assign a channel specific modifier on both blocks and use scenes to control which one is actually active (by doing a channel switch for each in the scene). Not sure this is the best way to do it, but it worked for me. Of course for whammy, you are still stuck with the toe position issue, which I don't know how to address.
 
Check this out, from @Cooper Carter



You can download the patch too ... I recently set this up on my FM3, and it works great. I tweaked it a little, with Wah on one scene and Whammy on another. Just watch out for the scene revert function - this may need some tweaking. Embedded in this is the "auto on" for whammy and wah.

Hope this helps ..
 
Modifier damping could delay your pitch-engage method, leaving a moment to move the pedal back after you press the switch. Then maybe do the same on the volume bypass control, in case you end a whammy section at heel-down and want to get back to volume control mode.

There's also a way to have the pitch block bypassed at toe-down only when you first switch to whammy mode, then auto-engage and stay on from the point you move the pedal, until you switch back to volume control mode. This would require a stopped LFO B output as the Control modifier (or a separate modifier for autoengage purposes only, but this isn't entirely necessary) with switch & pedal controlling the LFO's Depth & B Phase in a particular way and makes use of the autoengage on/off thresholds differing by 5%.
 
Correct - no toe switch. The "perfect whammy" is exactly how I have it setup - just with the volume block at the end and using a controller to bypass volume and engage the channel for the whammy. Issue is that when I do that the whammy is immediately engaged as the toe is down on the exp pedal.
Bakerman said:
Modifier damping could delay your pitch-engage method, leaving a moment to move the pedal back after you press the switch. Then maybe do the same on the volume bypass control, in case you end a whammy section at heel-down and want to get back to volume control mode.

There's also a way to have the pitch block bypassed at toe-down only when you first switch to whammy mode, then auto-engage and stay on from the point you move the pedal, until you switch back to volume control mode. This would require a stopped LFO B output as the Control modifier (or a separate modifier for autoengage purposes only, but this isn't entirely necessary) with switch & pedal controlling the LFO's Depth & B Phase in a particular way and makes use of the autoengage on/off thresholds differing by 5%.
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I'm going to look into the modifier damping although it may not help because the pedal is typically in toe down when I switch the mux and in that case, the whammy is already engaged.

I think the real solution is what you @Bakerman mentioned with the LFO. Do you have any example or maybe point me in the right direction for programming something like this?
 
accuser said:
I'm going to look into the modifier damping although it may not help because the pedal is typically in toe down when I switch the mux and in that case, the whammy is already engaged.

I think the real solution is what you @Bakerman mentioned with the LFO. Do you have any example or maybe point me in the right direction for programming something like this?
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The damping is what can avoid that issue with the first method. The dry signal would keep sounding long enough to move the pedal heel down after the switch press.

I'll post example presets & LFO setup details sometime in the next couple days.
 
@Bakerman worked like a charm! Damping is the way to go for sure. Used a linear taper and set it to 1500ms. Now I hit the foot switch and set the pedal where I want it. Which is perfect for the whammy because I can keep playing while toe dancing :)

Thanks man!
 
accuser said:
@Bakerman worked like a charm! Damping is the way to go for sure. Used a linear taper and set it to 1500ms. Now I hit the foot switch and set the pedal where I want it. Which is perfect for the whammy because I can keep playing while toe dancing :)

Thanks man!
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Just found this thread

When you move the pedal does it lag all the time, or just at the start? I'd like to set this up.
 
jetdriver1775 said:
Just found this thread

When you move the pedal does it lag all the time, or just at the start? I'd like to set this up.
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Think of it as a delay in activation. You have X ms until the effect turns on with the pedal at the position it’s in.

Hit the switch, move the pedal, and when the effect actually turns on, it will turn on with the “value” at the position of the pedal.

Not sure I made sense there, but yeah… it’s only at activation. Afterwards, the pedal works as expected.
 
accuser said:
Think of it as a delay in activation. You have X ms until the effect turns on with the pedal at the position it’s in.

Hit the switch, move the pedal, and when the effect actually turns on, it will turn on with the “value” at the position of the pedal.

Not sure I made sense there, but yeah… it’s only at activation. Afterwards, the pedal works as expected.
Click to expand...
That's brilliant. How would I set that delayed activation up? In FC Edit - for the switch?
 
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accuser said:
Yup. I did it in fc edit. Maybe could do it on the actual unit, but fc edit makes it super simple.
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Ok. I'm not sure that will work for the way I have things set up. I have the whammy set up on its own scene. I have wah available to auto engage on 6 scenes, except scene 6 thats for whammy, and scene 8 where i have a volume pedal available for swells.

My thought was to have a delayed activation set up on the bypass of the pitch block for the whammy scene, since I leave the pedal toe down - it would give me time to move my foot the the pedal and move it toe up before engaging the pitch block. However, I also have a channel of the pitch block set to an octave down effect, assigned to a footswitch. So that LFO delayed activation would also do weird things to that switch.

Hmmmm.
 
jetdriver1775 said:
Ok. I'm not sure that will work for the way I have things set up. I have the whammy set up on its own scene. I have wah available to auto engage on 6 scenes, except scene 6 thats for whammy, and scene 8 where i have a volume pedal available for swells.

My thought was to have a delayed activation set up on the bypass of the pitch block for the whammy scene, since I leave the pedal toe down - it would give me time to move my foot the the pedal and move it toe up before engaging the pitch block. However, I also have a channel of the pitch block set to an octave down effect, assigned to a footswitch. So that LFO delayed activation would also do weird things to that switch.

Hmmmm.
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To use the delay, you can’t have auto engage on that same effect.

I do use a switch and auto engage for a wah in another preset. Switch flips the channel on a multiplex block and bypasses my volume block, then auto engage my wah.

This works for me for wah and whammy because I consider these effects that I want to ignore scene changes. I want to activate them whenever I want rather than have a scene with each scenario. Then again, these are my kitchen sink presets. If I was doing a preset to cover a song that had wah or whammy in a particular part, I would use scenes.

As I write this I think I just came up with another way to do this and have a single pedal control three effects independently (one at a time, of course).

Gotta try it out tomorrow.
 
attached is a (fm3) preset showing how it's done.

expression pedal is on pedal 2
control switch 1 bypasses whammy and vol block (alternating so you can use the exp for both)
when switching on the whammy, the vol block is bypassed (making volume at its max)
when switching off the whammy, the vol block is enabled with a damper allowing you time to set the pedal to where you want it (max) before it is actually enabled.

let me know if you have any questions.
 

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  • testing2 - whammy.syx
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