Expression Pedal Idea?

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letsgocoyote
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Expression Pedal Idea?

Post by letsgocoyote »

Ive never used expression pedals before, and Im not sure wha tpeople normal use them for (delay time, feedbacl?)

but i thought of an expression pedal idea and i dont know if its been done.

but instead of a rockerwah type pedal... what about a little auto-modulater expression pedal, that sweeps with the range of expression controlled by a rate knob?

has this been done? if not would it be cool?

cuz i think I have an idea how to accomplish this
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Re: Expression Pedal Idea?

Post by letsgocoyote »

So is an expression pedal jsut a variable resistor normally? What sthe normal value to use?

I may try and make one... yet i have no pedals that take expression, so i dont know if i could test it!
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Re: Expression Pedal Idea?

Post by the raytownian »

Is it esentially some sort of LFO?... Unless it's an input that uses CV, that may not work... (I honestly have NO clue)

But I really want a little box w/ wave-shape and frequency knobs that can plug into and EXP-in to control it.
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Re: Expression Pedal Idea?

Post by aen »

I think the Moog expression pedal is 50 or 100k.
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Re: Expression Pedal Idea?

Post by aen »

In the Moogerfooger manual I had for a bit it said you could use any expression pedal as long as the pots value was 50 or 100k, like the Moog made one. It's hard to tell with the gear Ive hooked mine up to, but I think it's 100k. It's an older model, not the fancy new one with all kinds of knobs and gauges and arm rests on it.

I dont know if that's the norm, but it worked with my DL-4, but thats not much of an expression pedal type device.
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Re: Expression Pedal Idea?

Post by aen »

devi ever wrote:http://www.moogmusic.com/moogerfooger/?section=product&product_id=61

http://www.moogmusic.com/controllers/?s ... t_id=21114

... but no, not in a small kinda simple way. I've been wanting to do just such a thing for the past year. Just haven't had time to work out the design. Should be stupid simple though.

:idk:

I'll gladly build and market it with royalties to who ever wants to design it if anyone is interested.

:yay:


I had an idea- If you had an oscillator (which I do!) driving an LED coupled with a photo eye (ala PEEP- this construction is called a photocoupler or vactrol, or optosomething or other) you could easily control the rate of the oscillator with an expression pedal. The Photo eye would create resistance, which the pedal would read. One could actually rig up another expression pedal to control the depth of the resultiing resistance. Or a pedal. I kind of did this on the hurricane.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ip5Gg74DuqE[/youtube]

Imagine the rate knob is an expression pedal, and instead of imposing resistance on a feedback loop, it is imposed on your expression pedal capable device.

It oculd proably all be crammed into a 1290NoSpace (artifact size box)

it wouldnt match up perfectly with all pedals, but it would work. Mind, this is all theory right now. The trick would be finding the right Photo eyes, if you could find one that went from 0ohms to 100k ohms, thatd be about right...

[/droppin' science]
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Re: Expression Pedal Idea?

Post by letsgocoyote »

Actually thats exactly how I planned to accomplish this 'auto-expression' pedal. Oscillitor with a pulsing LED controlling an LDR.

main reason i have come up with this is it is actually jsut a building block to a modulated filter pedal i am going to build and I realized it could likely be seperated as a seperate device for use as an expression pedal.

i've talked to devi abotu it in more detail by email. ill let you guys know how it turns out.

currently what I believe is it could have a Rate knob, as well as Depth/Adjustment knob which would allow you to taylor the range of the expression for both artistic purposes as well as to adjust to to suit a particular pedals expression range. and of course the expression pedal input to control rate also has crossed my mind.

as soon as Small Bear ships my crap!!!!
i need to be building an envelope filter too!
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Re: Expression Pedal Idea?

Post by CliffBass »

I've got a bass murf and moog's old expression pedal the ep-1. The ep-1 is definetly lacking in quality, just a pot in a plastic box that moves like the worlds cheapest wah pedal...
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Re: Expression Pedal Idea?

Post by aen »

CliffBass wrote:I've got a bass murf and moog's old expression pedal the ep-1. The ep-1 is definetly lacking in quality, just a pot in a plastic box that moves like the worlds cheapest wah pedal...



yeah- thats the one Ive got, too. Tell yo what, Ill send you mine, and you send me the murf then you'll be twice as expressive!
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Re: Expression Pedal Idea?

Post by CliffBass »

yeah- thats the one Ive got, too. Tell yo what, Ill send you mine, and you send me the murf then you'll be twice as expressive![/quote]

As good as that sounds Aen, I'm going to have to turn it down. But you get an A for effort! :thumb:
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Re: Expression Pedal Idea?

Post by letsgocoyote »

Dev-


I emailed you about a possible prototype.
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Re: Expression Pedal Idea?

Post by K2000 »

Expression pedals are the future IMO. Uh that sounds really pretentious. I mean that expression-capable effects pedals are a pretty fresh idea whose time has come IMO. There are so many (delay, flange, phase, whatever) pedals an d a lot of redundancy IMO. User control on the fly is where it's at.... everybody wants that, even if they don't know it yet. That's "added value" to any pedal, even if the user chooses not to use that capability, in the end.

Then there is also the question of what kind of controller is the most versatile. I know there is already some type of wah/volume that controls parameters when moving both up and down, AND left/right. Why limit the expression to "just" a wah type function (although a wah controller is certainly fine for many applications).

(I know that DE has the Synth Mangler with joystick controllers but that seems to be for tabletop applications. But you're on the right track there, for sure).

IMO.
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Re: Expression Pedal Idea?

Post by letsgocoyote »

in the year 2064 we will be contrlling effects parameters wiht nanorobots and sensors and our choral plangers will adjust their rate and depth and feedback gobblededogook based on what we ate for breakfast.
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Re: Expression Pedal Idea?

Post by K2000 »

What about a wah pedal that's synced up to your blink rate.
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Re: Expression Pedal Idea?

Post by hasblueshoes »

K2000 wrote:What about a wah pedal that's synced up to your blink rate.


I'm waiting on someone to build one hooked to a gyroscope I can put inside the guitar. That would be pretty sweet.

In the meantime I'm waiting for an analog delay with the rate and repeats controlled by a joystick.
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