Give it some expression?

[Scionreality]

I was standing in GC looking at the racked diplays of (Boss) effects.

I was looking at a delay with a feedback loop and thought, "It would be nice if I could control the feedback with an expression pedal. Or the delay time."

I looked at a pitch shifter and thought, "I wish I could just control the pitch sweep with mah feets."

And so on.

My question: does an effect pedal have to have a dedicated expression pedal circuit? Or can I just get like a Roland EV-5, plug it into any old effect, and enjoy wacky noise control? That sounds too simple to be true, and I'm too simple to have figured it out by now.

Help a guy out?

Thanks guys/gals.

 

[GingerConor]

oh, how i wish it was that simple!!!lol

i dont this it works liek that, not with affecting the other effects ya know?

 

[Oreomeister365]

Hahah, or you could make some whacky device the turns the knobs physically when you press a pedal.

 

[Scionreality]

Haha, the Rube Goldberg Pedal Board. I have to coax a chicken into laying an egg into a funnel at the beginning of every show.

 

[JanusZarate]

Yeah, it has to have a dedicated expression pedal feature. Otherwise, you'd have nothing to plug the expression pedal into, and the pedal wouldn't "know" what to control.

A lot of Boss pedals can use expression pedals, but for those that don't... there's a world of similar effects in other brands that CAN use expression pedals (especially if you explore the boutique market).

There's also a product called the Tone In Progress (T.I.P.) Third Hand, which attaches to a normal pedal knob and allows you to move that particular knob with its special expression pedal. I'm not sure how well it works, as I've never used one... but it's the easiest solution for most pedals, since you don't have to do any modifications. This is as close as you'll get to what Oreomeister was joking about.

Regarding pitch shifters... there's the Digitech Whammy if you want a classic manually-adjustable pitch shift effect - it is pretty much the standard in manual pitch shifting. In terms of Boss... the PS-5 can control pitch shift sweeps by expression pedal, but it's limited in terms of what ranges are possible. The old Boss PS-3, however, is fully flexible in terms of setting the start and stop points for pitch shifting and harmonies.

For delay... there are a lot of boutique pedals that can do what you're looking for. Or, you can always stick the delay in a feedback loop pedal that has expression pedal capability (like the Barge Concepts VFB-X).

 

[ehque]

OR you could replace a passive pot with a jack that goes into a volume pedal. That would work too, i think. Only works for passive pots, and you've got to match the resistor value.

 

[Scionreality]

Thanks, bass peeps!

 

[DavidMP]

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I've never tried it

 

[JanusZarate]

Yep, that's the Third Hand I mentioned.

Unless I've missed a post here about it, I have yet to hear of any TBer who has tried one out.