OK, so I don’t know if I’ll be able to explain this idea so that it’s completely clear, but hopefully I can.

First of all the hardware specs:

5 pots and 1 white encoder
2 push buttons like on the deluxe memory boy with a little array of leds
a bunch of preset LEDs like on SMMH, POG2, Ring Thing etc.
2 footswitches, one for bypass.
stereo ins/outs (could be reprogrammed for wet/dry, mix down, fx loops, extra expression inputs) etc
expression jack
usb jack that doubles for midi

Inside the pedal would be a DSP, dual analog filters capable of self oscillation, and dual analog active volume controls, both of which would be able to be digitally controlled by the DSP.

OK, this pedal would hook up to your computer & there would be a very user friendly program with which to program the pedal.

Inside the program you’d have access to many different EHX effects from their digital series of pedals.

Octave & harmonic generators
freeze gliss effects
pitch bends
echoes, delays, and reverbs
ring modulation
sympathetic string emulation
spectral gate
filters
multi-track looping

& a bunch of control parameter effects:
LFOs (sine wave, square wave, triangle wave)
envelope generators
Attack decay
sample and hold
tap tempo
pitch trackers

With the program you’d be able to hook up & design your own effects, and set what each knob & switch controls on the pedal.

The program would also allow you to set up your presets for the effect you’ve created & name them, so your preset names will all be on the pedal when you’re done.

There’d also be a program to allow you to print labels onto a special plastic paper that you could then cut out & attach to your pedal.

Here are some examples:

For my example, let’s say I want to make a synth pedal.

Here’s my idea for a synth pedal:

octave down effect, pitch tracking low pass filter with a slow attack, and ring modulator.

So I set up an effects chain in the program:

Input > Octave Generator > Detune > Ring Mod > Analog Volume > Analog Filter > Output.

Since this is a mono effect, I can set the extra stereo output as a dry out. Maybe I could set the extra input as a mix down in OR as an extra expression pedal jack.

OK, so then I set up my physical & digital controls.

I drag and drop the following digital control programs:

envelope generator for the volume
attack decay for the filter cut-off
pitch tracking for the filter cut-off
tap tempo to control the attack decay

OK, in order of effects:

*I set the Octave generator to generate a suboctave, and set knob 1 to control octave/dry blend
*I set the detune to detune the signal ever so slightly to thicken it up for a sort of multi-oscillator tone
*I set up knob 2 to control ring modulator blend, and I set it so that holding the left footswitch while the pedal is active tunes the ring modulator.
*I set knob 3 for cut-off frequency of the filter. I set the minimum & maximum controls from -100 to +100 hz.
* I set the pitch tracker to add the pitch value to the default cut-off frequency of the filter (so if you set cut-off frequency to 56, it’s always 56 hz more than the note you’re playing)
*I set the attack decay to have 0 decay & for knobs 4 & 5 to control attack time & amount respectively. I set the amount knob from -500 hz to +500 hz so that 12 o clock is no amount, so that the knob can control the attack direction as well as the amount.
* I set tapping the left footswitch while to tap tempo, with the tempo setting the attack time.
* I set the left pushswitch to set the tap tempo subdivisions
* lastly I have the right pushswitch, to which I can do expression mode. I put the expression modes as freeze gliss, ring modulator pitch, pitch bend, wah, & volume.

I could hook up the pedal & make the changes to the programs live & tweak it while playing to set up everything right, set up & name presets, then name all the controls & presets & print out a control sheet to put on the pedal.

Basically, the idea takes all of EHX’s digital pedals & turns them into a digital modular synthesizer that you can hook up & assign controls to in an easy to use GUI program & make your own new effects with.

The GUI program could also have a scripting language to do slightly more advanced things.

Some ideas of stuff us users could do with this idea:
multi-tap delay with regeneration (like binson echorec)
pitch tracking flerb
envelope controlled chorus/flange

For those of you that didn’t go TL/DR, what do you think?