Cross-Over (Crossover or Splitter) pedals

[BurningSkies]

This thread has been silent for one year now. How is everybody using their crossovers? Is there anything new on the market?

I honestly don't know what's new. I do think that the EQ2 by Source Audio can be a viable option now. I had talked to those guys a while back about some small tweaks to the programming that would allow you to use it to crossover/split, so that may be a good viable option for people who want to try or do this.

I still retain all three of the crossover pedals I bought along the way and it still is my preferred method, but for my gigging/live board I moved to a loop & MIDI setup with a Boss ES-5 and with that move no longer have the ability to crossover like I did. I still use the others on my 'home' board depending on what I'm playing with.

 

[Rick Brienzo]

I just recieved a Byte Heaven single cross and have not tried it out yet. Will report back.

 

[IronSpatula]

I honestly don't know what's new. I do think that the EQ2 by Source Audio can be a viable option now. I had talked to those guys a while back about some small tweaks to the programming that would allow you to use it to crossover/split, so that may be a good viable option for people who want to try or do this.

I still retain all three of the crossover pedals I bought along the way and it still is my preferred method, but for my gigging/live board I moved to a loop & MIDI setup with a Boss ES-5 and with that move no longer have the ability to crossover like I did. I still use the others on my 'home' board depending on what I'm playing with.

I was actually thinking just yesterday about how to make a programmable board based on a crossover and using the ES-5's MIDI capability and (admittedly limited) ability to combine parallel signal paths with its onboard mixer.

If the EQ2 can indeed be used as a crossover/splitter, that would seem like the way to go because the crossover point and levels could be programmed on a per-patch basis and switched via MIDI from the ES.

On a basic level, what I imagine doing would be having the EQ2 before the ES, sending the high out through the loops of the ES for drive, delay, etc, and sending the low side through compression (something MIDI capable would be ideal, and I can imagine the two channels of an Ultrawave being very useful in this scenario) and mixing back into the ES near the end. For patches where effects are wanted on the full range signal, the EQ2 could just send a full range signal through the loops instead.

Could this actually work or am I missing something?

 

[BurningSkies]

I was actually thinking just yesterday about how to make a programmable board based on a crossover and using the ES-5's MIDI capability and (admittedly limited) ability to combine parallel signal paths with its onboard mixer.

If the EQ2 can indeed be used as a crossover/splitter, that would seem like the way to go because the crossover point and levels could be programmed on a per-patch basis and switched via MIDI from the ES.

On a basic level, what I imagine doing would be having the EQ2 before the ES, sending the high out through the loops of the ES for drive, delay, etc, and sending the low side through compression (something MIDI capable would be ideal, and I can imagine the two channels of an Ultrawave being very useful in this scenario) and mixing back into the ES near the end. For patches where effects are wanted on the full range signal, the EQ2 could just send a full range signal through the loops instead.

Could this actually work or am I missing something?

I'd have to sit and think about this...if the routing is possible...Because if you're switching things in and out of the signal paths after the EQ2 the real issue is getting the other effects where you want them and back into either the EQ2 or ES for summing. The ES can do parallel chains which may be a big part of the battle (two parallel chains, where the signals have been split at a crossover point would work) but more brainpower than I have today to apply an answer. Either you need to 'inject' the effects after the EQ2 or you have to have two inputs back into the ES. That may be more of a thing for the ES8, which I think has stereo options?

 

[IronSpatula]

I'd have to sit and think about this...if the routing is possible...Because if you're switching things in and out of the signal paths after the EQ2 the real issue is getting the other effects where you want them and back into either the EQ2 or ES for summing. The ES can do parallel chains which may be a big part of the battle (two parallel chains, where the signals have been split at a crossover point would work) but more brainpower than I have today to apply an answer. Either you need to 'inject' the effects after the EQ2 or you have to have two inputs back into the ES. That may be more of a thing for the ES8, which I think has stereo options?

Yes, you could totally do that in the stereo loops of the ES-8 and then sum to a mono out. Didn't even think of that, though it seems lik. The 8 would have a lot more flexibility in general too.

For the ES-5 application, I was thinking of keeping the the low output separate from the ES loops and using midi to adjust any settings. But you're right, you would need an extra in to the ES. So probably I'd end up "burning" a loop by just using its return as an input to put the dry/low signal in parallel with the high/effected signal. Or to keep all the loops available for processing, I could sum the signal outside the ES, with the ES still controlling the levels of each side via midi and/or the internal buffers.

 

[31HZ]

I just re-acquired my old X&M pedal for a board I am building.

Surprised that this thread didn't have more legs; I can't imagine using ganky dirt without a cross-over pedal.

 

[Smurf-o-Deth]

I'm using an OBNE Signal Blender with an EQ2 for crossover-type stuff currently. My board is under construction, but the setup is doing what I want it to do. In practice, it's not so far off from the KMA Tyler, but with more flexibility and precision.

 

[31HZ]

I'm looking for a JohnK Cross-Mix, if anyone has one to sell.

 

[NNNN]

This thread has been super useful. The Brimstone Ouroboros looks badass and I'd like to try one at some point, but in the meantime I ordered a KMA Tyler Deluxe, which probably has better features (three phase switches lol).

 

[yberwaffe]

Interesting stuff indeed.

SA's new Atlas compressor can do channel split so it might do the trick.
Does anybody tried the Atlas crossover functionality ?

 

[IronSpatula]

Interesting stuff indeed.

SA's new Atlas compressor can do channel split so it might do the trick.
Does anybody tried the Atlas crossover functionality ?

No but when I saw it had a multi-band mode and two outs this was the first thing I thought of.

Maybe I will grab one after I sell off some other stuff...

 

[NNNN]

The luddite in me can't get on board with SA, no matter how good the pedals are. My loss, I know.

The KMA Tyler had been great. I didn't realize there was a pedal with all that crossover functionality, so it was a no-brainer when I found it. It's a splitter, a low pass filter, a high pass filter, and a mixer all in one. Since there's more of a crossover range than a crossover frequency, you can overlap the high path and the low path, which I think is very useful. You can also leave a gap between them, but it seems be doing some work behind the scenes to keep that from becoming a mess.

So far so good. I wish I had a fuzz pedal that did what I want from B string to G string, but until then, this is working out well.

 

[Derek Williams]

The luddite in me can't get on board with SA, no matter how good the pedals are. My loss, I know.

The KMA Tyler had been great. I didn't realize there was a pedal with all that crossover functionality, so it was a no-brainer when I found it. It's a splitter, a low pass filter, a high pass filter, and a mixer all in one. Since there's more of a crossover range than a crossover frequency, you can overlap the high path and the low path, which I think is very useful. You can also leave a gap between them, but it seems be doing some work behind the scenes to keep that from becoming a mess.

So far so good. I wish I had a fuzz pedal that did what I want from B string to G string, but until then, this is working out well.

The HPF and LPF aren't a steep cliff at the chosen frequency, it's a slope, which is why if you leave a gap you will still get some audible content in there.

 

[NNNN]

Despite knowing that, I'm sure you're right. Don't know why I figured there must be something more complicated going on. I remember elsewhere that there was some concern about creating a frequency gap, but in practice it's not a real problem.

 

[heavyfunkmachin]

Quick update: I've been able to do this with the line 6 hx stomp, but it is not ideal for me routing wise, so I'm searching for an analogue option…

one option note mentioned here is the pro-cessor, but hpf and LPF are fixed and somewhat away, so I don't know if it would really work.

I really can't undersband why something like this is not available in mass production to be honest! Like a boss LS-2 2.0 version with filters… ‍

 

[bass.slinger]

I really can't undersband why something like this is not available in mass production to be honest! Like a boss LS-2 2.0 version with filters… ‍

Byte Heaven Sugar Britches or KMA Tyler / Tyler Deluxe is the closest to analog mass production you will get.

That said, I am using the crossover on my Quad Cortex instead of any of my analog crossovers (allows me the option of using a crossover or not for an effect - also mostly eliminates phase issues with some analog pedals).

 

[sunbeast]

Byte Heaven Sugar Britches or KMA Tyler / Tyler Deluxe is the closest to analog mass production you will get.

That said, I am using the crossover on my Quad Cortex instead of any of my analog crossovers (allows me the option of using a crossover or not for an effect - also mostly eliminates phase issues with some analog pedals).

Part of the beauty of a crossover looper vs a typical FX blender IME is that phase is much less of an issue- since in most cases there is a lot less shared frequency response between the two channels. Of course how much it matters depends on the slope of the filters in the crossover and where you set them (for me generally in the middle midrange). My Omnilooper has phase switches for each channel, and one or the other way always sounds somewhat better, but the difference is relatively negligible and generally only in a fairly small midrange band compared to a typical FX blend where bass often gets phased out (enough so that I rarely worry about it unless some combo sounds really off, which has been super rare)

 

[johnk_10]

i found that a phase reverse is nice to have to invert a crossover pedal since some devices placed in the loop can have reversed phase and sound strange when crossed over (as in loss of low end). on my last crossmix (125B version) i added a phase reverse feature.

 

[31HZ]

i found that a phase reverse is nice to have to invert a crossover pedal since some devices placed in the loop can have reversed phase and sound strange when crossed over (as in loss of low end). on my last crossmix (125B version) i added a phase reverse feature.
View attachment 4858676

I have two of your first version, and I might need a third!

 

[4Mal]

I've been doing this in the HX environment a long time. Game changer for me. I do wish they would implement a variable slope on the crossover split. You can put an effects loop after the split and before the merge to support external devices and you can invert the phase and adjust the gain at the Merge.

While I have never done this I expect you can route Path A to the Left Output and Path B to the Right and mix them using an external box (SA Atlas or EQ2 come to mind).

My needs are much simpler so I don't bother. For me the HX Octaver, Chorus and a couple of the OD simulations are good enough. All but one my patches uses the crossover split. Only one that doesn't is my faux '8 string bass' patch where the Octave up seems pretty solid from A down to E on a 4 string.