Verne-Bunsen Posted January 30, 2017 Share Posted January 30, 2017 I was initially very excited about the addition of the expression pedal position as a means of controlling block bypass state, but for wah specifically it has proven difficult to make work. I love it for vibe, I love it for tremolo, not loving it for wah. I've tried bypass at both heel-down and toe-down, I've set the span very narrow at 0% or 99%, but regardless when I get to rocking the wah it's just a constant on-off-on-off-on-off because it engages the bypass as soon as you meet the position limit. The "wait" parameter seems only to apply to turning the effect back on. Trying to never hit the toe-down or heel-down limit while you're actually using the wah is not really practical in my book. Beyond that, what have you guys come up with? I'm back to assigning a footswitch. For reference, my Helix is the floor version and I am using external expression pedals (homebrew). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
duncann Posted January 31, 2017 Share Posted January 31, 2017 I tried this new function a while a back, and just tried it again now. I kind of agree that it's a bit fidgety, and would take some practice to get used to. You can increase the wait value to something longer and it works ok. The wait value works for both on and off for me here. Not sure why it doesn't for you. I wonder if they could further refine this function by slowly applying the mix of the wah, from zero to whatever the user set it at, for the duration of the wait value. Likewise for deactivation. A quick fade in and fade out, rather than a jolt. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thurston9 Posted January 31, 2017 Share Posted January 31, 2017 I have trouble too, I use the toe switch instead. I'd love if it worked like the G-system, but I don't think that's going to happen. Toe switch works fine for me in the meantime. FWIW, the G-system auto engage works like this: If the pedal is moved (moved at all, regardless of where it starts) the wah engages. When you stop moving it, it disengages, but only after a time that you can specify (for example, after a second, or a half a second, etc) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thurston9 Posted January 31, 2017 Share Posted January 31, 2017 I tried this new function a while a back, and just tried it again now. I kind of agree that it's a bit fidgety, and would take some practice to get used to. You can increase the wait value to something longer and it works ok. The wait value works for both on and off for me here. Not sure why it doesn't for you. I wonder if they could further refine this function by slowly applying the mix of the wah, from zero to whatever the user set it at, for the duration of the wait value. Likewise for deactivation. A quick fade in and fade out, rather than a jolt. Wait value? Hmmm I'll have to check this out a little closer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spikey Posted January 31, 2017 Share Posted January 31, 2017 The jolt wouldn't be there when engaged if the frequency/pitch of the wah when it engages (at a certain percentage" of toe down) could be set, and if it is at the same pitch (freq adjustment) as your guitar tone is at. Also if the curve of the pedal's reaction (from heel down to toe down) is "adjustable" (from a straight line too almost an S curve) , as that helps 10 fold on this too and sounds as if the wah magically came from nowhere and all of a sudden it's just there, as it should be! Of course the Axe FX editor is the only one that allows this kind of multi adjustment so far. One can only hope that some of the dev's programming Helix has seen this wah setup inside the Fractal editor in action, and knows just how ahead of time and wonderful it really is (and worth the time and trouble of adding it). That said, here is something I came up abt 10 months ago, settings wise that "almost does the same with the mentioned above limitations. You do lose a bit of the lows when at "Heel down", but it acts kinda the same way in that it shuts off the wah at heel down, and re-engages when you rock toward toe-down. I'm using a Mission SP1-L6 Controller, and so YMMV... , , , , , , , Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
duncann Posted January 31, 2017 Share Posted January 31, 2017 Wait value? Hmmm I'll have to check this out a little closer. Have the wah selected, then menu, bypass assign, change EXP Toe (the default) to an expression controller, and the wait parameter appears, adjustable from 0 to 1 second. You can also assign the position percentage for when the auto engage starts to occur. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
duncann Posted January 31, 2017 Share Posted January 31, 2017 The jolt wouldn't be there when engaged if the frequency/pitch of the wah when it engages (at a certain percentage" of toe down) could be set, and if it is at the same pitch (freq adjustment) as your guitar tone is at. Also if the curve of the pedal's reaction (from heel down to toe down) is "adjustable" (from a straight line too almost an S curve) , as that helps 10 fold on this too and sounds as if the wah magically came from nowhere and all of a sudden it's just there, as it should be! Of course the Axe FX editor is the only one that allows this kind of multi adjustment so far. One can only hope that some of the dev's programming Helix has seen this wah setup inside the Fractal editor in action, and knows just how ahead of time and wonderful it really is (and worth the time and trouble of adding it). User adjustable curves for the expression controllers would be a great addition to Helix. For studio use, you could in effect do this in a DAW by sending out some midi to Helix. In Reaper, ReaControlMIDI works great for this. It allows you draw envelops to control a parameter on Helix. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phil_m Posted January 31, 2017 Share Posted January 31, 2017 I can't say I've had any issue with it. I think for a wah, it works best if you give yourself a little buffer in the pedal position. The default of 5% seems to work well enough for me. For the Wait parameter, I like it a little bit longer than the default. 500ms seems to do the trick. If the Wait parameter is coming into play when turning the pedal on, it means you have it set up backwards. That parameter is designed with the idea that the resting state of the pedal is heel down, like most switchless wahs. The idea is that you can rock back past that position while using the wah without it being deactivated and activated again. If you do let it rest in the "dead zone" for the amount of time you have selected, it will be turned off. If you want to use it as a toe down resting position, you can, but you need to reverse the polarity of the pedal in the Global Settings menu. That will make the Wait parameter work correctly for that scenario. If you do that, you also need to reverse the max and min settings for the wah position parameter in the Controller Assign screen (unless you want a reverse wah, of course!). 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Verne-Bunsen Posted January 31, 2017 Author Share Posted January 31, 2017 Great input all around, thanks for the replies! ...The wait value works for both on and off for me here. Not sure why it doesn't for you... Yeah, as it stands I can set the "wait" parameter to 1000ms and it toggles off as soon as it makes limits, then takes forever to come back on. Phil_M had some enlightening input on this below... I have trouble too, I use the toe switch instead. I'd love if it worked like the G-system, but I don't think that's going to happen. Toe switch works fine for me in the meantime. FWIW, the G-system auto engage works like this: If the pedal is moved (moved at all, regardless of where it starts) the wah engages. When you stop moving it, it disengages, but only after a time that you can specify (for example, after a second, or a half a second, etc) I'd like to use the toe switch, but I'm not crazy about the way the onboard expression pedal "feels" for wah. I modded an old wah pedal to be an expression pedal and it feels much better to me. I love the onboard pedal for Whammy though and use it with the toe switch for that. The G-system auto engage sounds golden! ...here is something I came up abt 10 months ago, settings wise that "almost does the same with the mentioned above limitations. You do lose a bit of the lows when at "Heel down", but it acts kinda the same way in that it shuts off the wah at heel down, and re-engages when you rock toward toe-down... I remember you posting this a while back and I tried it then. It's a clever approach! I can't say I've had any issue with it. I think for a wah, it works best if you give yourself a little buffer in the pedal position. The default of 5% seems to work well enough for me. For the Wait parameter, I like it a little bit longer than the default. 500ms seems to do the trick. If the Wait parameter is coming into play when turning the pedal on, it means you have it set up backwards. That parameter is designed with the idea that the resting state of the pedal is heel down, like most switchless wahs. The idea is that you can rock back past that position while using the wah without it being deactivated and activated again. If you do let it rest in the "dead zone" for the amount of time you have selected, it will be turned off. If you want to use it as a toe down resting position, you can, but you need to reverse the polarity of the pedal in the Global Settings menu. That will make the Wait parameter work correctly for that scenario. If you do that, you also need to reverse the max and min settings for the wah position parameter in the Controller Assign screen (unless you want a reverse wah, of course!). You might have nailed it. I like toe down to bypass for wah (didn't like how it sounded coming in and out at the bottom, ear is used to what it's used to I guess...) and I just manually toggled the bypass state of the block to get it working right. What you describe makes a lot of sense. I will try what you've recommended here. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lawrence_Arps Posted January 31, 2017 Share Posted January 31, 2017 Im fascinated by this.....I know that there have been a couple of auto-on wahs over the years, but the vast majority (and all the classic) wahs are a toe switch. In addition, every wah /vol I have ever seen is a toe switch...(...ah...mmm I lied... the big old silver Morley pedals had a switch beside the pedal....) anyway...I dont get this issue. I did find that in my room at home the carpet is a bit soft - but as soon as I put Helix on a board or in a case the wah switch was exactly like a "real'" one. What I dont get with the auto on is that you completely lose the expression pedal for any other use?. Are all of you who use auto on simply choosing to have no other pedal controlled parameters? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Verne-Bunsen Posted January 31, 2017 Author Share Posted January 31, 2017 It's not so much an issue with the onboard expression pedal as it is with external epression pedals, as the onboard has the integrated toe switch. Helix (at least the Floor version) can't receive bypass toggling input from an external pedals toe switch, so you have to either toggle the block you are controlling on/off with a Helix footswitch or take advantage of the auto-on. Or utilize a clever workaround like Spikey's. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Verne-Bunsen Posted January 31, 2017 Author Share Posted January 31, 2017 That worked perfectly! You've also got to invert your bypass limit because, even though position indicator still shows 100% at toe down, it's thinking 0%. So for bypass at toe down, I've got the limit set at 0%. Still futzing with it, but its behavior makes way more sense now. Thanks! Interestingly, snapshots do not handle its bypass state the same as my other external expression pedal, which is weird. My other external controls a vibe and is bypassed at heel down. If it's on, it's on in all the snapshots. If it's off, it's off in all the snap shots. However the wah is not so. If I turn it on in one snapshot then it is still off in the others. It gets a bit messy if I switch snapshots in that state since the treadle is out of the bypass limit. Returning the treadle to toe down (bypass) then turns it ON. Taking it off of toe down then turns it OFF. You have to go back to the snapshot where it was turned on, turn it off, then you can go back and it will behave normally in the other snapshots. It's weird and if it was like that before I never noticed. Seems like I've read threads with odd behavior like that from the onboard expression pedal when being used as exp 1 and 2, but not with externals. I haven't gone back and un-did everything to see if it persists, but it's something I'll continue looking at. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnonguitar Posted January 31, 2017 Share Posted January 31, 2017 Yeah i really struggle to know how they messed this up. Is it more difficult than it seems? If there is movement on the wah it engages immediately. Starting in any position. When movement stops the wah disengages after a user defined period. Done Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rewolf48 Posted January 31, 2017 Share Posted January 31, 2017 Wouldn't fit with my style at all - a pause in movement and the Wah switches off? I can see that being an additional option perhaps in future but not one that I would use. Put it on ideascale if it sin't there already. I don't see that they messed anything up - this functionality wasn't designed exclusively for Wah but as an ability to switch in anything using an expression pedal - you can introduce any number of effects as the pedal is moved Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bowkore Posted November 22, 2017 Share Posted November 22, 2017 sorry to bring up this thread but im just trying to figure this out too. Seems annoying that it goes on and off. Why couldnt it just be when the expression pedals is moved the wah engages? Then when it stops moving wah disengages after the selected period? Seems a bit silly Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
talwilkins Posted November 22, 2017 Share Posted November 22, 2017 sorry to bring up this thread but im just trying to figure this out too. Seems annoying that it goes on and off. Why couldnt it just be when the expression pedals is moved the wah engages? Then when it stops moving wah disengages after the selected period? Seems a bit silly Then you would have to keep it moving all the time. Some people let it stay at a certain position for shorter and longer times. My problem is that even though I have it timed out at 1 second it often disengages also when I am nowher near 1 second in the heel down position. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
themetallikid Posted November 22, 2017 Share Posted November 22, 2017 I can't say I've had any issue with it. I think for a wah, it works best if you give yourself a little buffer in the pedal position. The default of 5% seems to work well enough for me. For the Wait parameter, I like it a little bit longer than the default. 500ms seems to do the trick. If the Wait parameter is coming into play when turning the pedal on, it means you have it set up backwards. That parameter is designed with the idea that the resting state of the pedal is heel down, like most switchless wahs. The idea is that you can rock back past that position while using the wah without it being deactivated and activated again. If you do let it rest in the "dead zone" for the amount of time you have selected, it will be turned off. If you want to use it as a toe down resting position, you can, but you need to reverse the polarity of the pedal in the Global Settings menu. That will make the Wait parameter work correctly for that scenario. If you do that, you also need to reverse the max and min settings for the wah position parameter in the Controller Assign screen (unless you want a reverse wah, of course!). I did not know this....I have been using mine as a toe down start point, and will consider this on my next tweak session. It seems to be a harsh turning on of the effect when using the regular settings this way. Was thinking of switching to a heel down starting position, but maybe this will do the trick. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Verne-Bunsen Posted November 27, 2017 Author Share Posted November 27, 2017 This may or may not be of interest to you, but here is a thread where I describe a workaround allowing the use of the toe switch on an external expression pedal by using both Helix EXP jacks: http://line6.com/support/topic/26725-toe-switching-with-an-external-exp-pedal/ I've gone back to using the onboard expression pedal and toe switch for wah and two externals for other stuff, but I really liked this approach when I was using it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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