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Onboard expression pedal Dead Zone


duncann
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Does anyone else find it kind of annoying that there is a large dead zone with the onboard expression pedal?

 

To see what I mean, just assign any parameter with a lot of values from min to max to either EXP 1 or EXP 2. Put the pedal in the heel position, start moving the pedal with your hand and watch closely to how much travel the pedal has before the value starts changing. I measured this from the top of the pedal (at the highest point when the pedal is in the heel position) to the top of Helix's housing, and it's 13mm, give or take a millimeter.

 

I realize this may be by design, and if so, perhaps they could add a global option to make use of the entire physical sweep range of the pedal. Also, if this is the case, does anyone know the reason for a dead zone? The pod's expression pedal never had this problem, or feature, depending on how you look at it.

 

Or maybe the auto-calibration feature is broken, or there may be something wrong with my specific device. Wondering if other's are like this.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

This 'might' help.  Not sure our issues are the same but this worked great for me.  I too was surprised at how far I had to press the volume pedal before something happened.  Swells were very difficult.  It seemed an all or nothing situation.  I don't remember off the top of my head which is which, but try switching the volume pedal parameter from "linear" to "Logarithmic" - or visa_versa.  One is great for swells and the other is not.  I assume there's a similar setting for exp pedals as well.  I haven't hooked one up to my Helix yet so I've not even looked.

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Does anyone else find it kind of annoying that there is a large dead zone with the onboard expression pedal?

 

To see what I mean, just assign any parameter with a lot of values from min to max to either EXP 1 or EXP 2. Put the pedal in the heel position, start moving the pedal with your hand and watch closely to how much travel the pedal has before the value starts changing. I measured this from the top of the pedal (at the highest point when the pedal is in the heel position) to the top of Helix's housing, and it's 13mm, give or take a millimeter.

 

I realize this may be by design, and if so, perhaps they could add a global option to make use of the entire physical sweep range of the pedal. Also, if this is the case, does anyone know the reason for a dead zone? The pod's expression pedal never had this problem, or feature, depending on how you look at it.

 

Or maybe the auto-calibration feature is broken, or there may be something wrong with my specific device. Wondering if other's are like this.

Greetings!

 

If you feel there may be a problem with your device, please feel free to open up a support ticket. From there they can determine exactly what you are dealing with and hopefully resolve the issue. They may ask you for a video in order to get a better idea of how large this "dead zone" is. 

 

http://line6.com/support/tickets/

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This 'might' help.  Not sure our issues are the same but this worked great for me.  I too was surprised at how far I had to press the volume pedal before something happened.  Swells were very difficult.  It seemed an all or nothing situation.  I don't remember off the top of my head which is which, but try switching the volume pedal parameter from "linear" to "Logarithmic" - or visa_versa.  One is great for swells and the other is not.  I assume there's a similar setting for exp pedals as well.  I haven't hooked one up to my Helix yet so I've not even looked.

 

Thanks for the suggestion. Changing the curve to logarithmic is tons better for volume control, at least before the amp, haven't tried after the amp. Logarithmic really should be the default - it's not. Unfortunately, that's the only place I've found for changing the pedal curve. So it's only for volume, nothing else. A global curve for the pedal might be useful. But the dead zone is present for either curve anyway. I think it's just something to get used to, or use an external pedal. My EP1-L6 doesn't have this problem.

 

And seeing at least one other person having the same problem makes me think there's nothing wrong with my specific Helix. That's good I suppose. Another thing that makes me think it's intentional is the Line 6 EX-1 behaves the same way, at least from what I've read on the forums.

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  • 3 weeks later...

To duncann

I find Logarithmic the more useful setting but positioning the volume pedal at the end of the blocks (last thing before the output) gets the pedal to work as I would expect a volume pedal to work.

 

It still will exhibit the dead zone behavior though, regardless of where the block is and what curve is selected. One could: 1. Get used to it. 2. Midi control the pedal from the DAW. 3. Use an external pedal. 4. Hope Line 6 makes a global option to disable the dead zone. But some things, like a wah, I don't like to control except manually, because it becomes a part of the play style, which limits me to either option 1 or 3, and option 4 isn't very useful.

 

I don't have much occasion to position it at the end, since I just do DAW stuff, and things like that are easily enough controlled, and even automated, at that point.

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  • 8 months later...

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