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  • March 9, 2010 at 1:42 am #79828
    Louis
    Member

    I think it’d be cool to have a tremolo that gives you an option to deepen the modulation and speed on the fly. Perhaps an expression pedal and a switch to toggle between the depth and speed. Or maybe two expression jacks and you could use whatever expression tool you like.

    And as always I think that eventually you guys are gonna have to start having a midi sync, at least with your digital pedals, and I’m sure you could figure out a way for your analog ones too, other pedals do it.

    March 9, 2010 at 3:07 pm #108299
    Kevin Demuth
    Member

    Expression control for a tremolo would be pretty cool…

    definitely for the depth; that would be pretty handy, but i’m not so sure about for speed… it would depend on the tremolo circuit and its range of speed; something like a Pulsar – with it’s touchy rate control – would be a real pain to control with an expression pedal.

    maybe have a provision to define the slowest and fastest speeds, and then have an expression pedal work within that range.

    i’m not so sure about MIDI in (guitar) pedals – how many guitarists even know what MIDI is let alone use it?! 😆

    it perhaps wouldn’t make sense from a design/production sense – having a feature that only a small number of potential buyers would use…
    and it would (needlessly for those who don’t need MIDI sync options) bump up the price.

    March 9, 2010 at 10:30 pm #108325
    Louis
    Member

    With a Midi controller you could sync all of your digital pedLs with a single click.

    And you could change the tempo of all your modulation pedals at once.

    And if you used something like Ableton Live, you could sync it all with loops or whatever you wanted, and change it all on the fly

    you could sync your tempos with the drummer, or sync several instruments together. The possibilities are endless with midi sync

    March 10, 2010 at 9:39 am #108339
    Kevin Demuth
    Member
    Quote:
    With a Midi controller you could sync all of your digital pedLs with a single click.

    And you could change the tempo of all your modulation pedals at once.

    And if you used something like Ableton Live, you could sync it all with loops or whatever you wanted, and change it all on the fly

    you could sync your tempos with the drummer, or sync several instruments together. The possibilities are endless with midi sync

    but what if for example, you wanted your delay doing 16th notes, your tremolo doing 8th notes, and your phaser cycling every 4 bars?
    you’d need to add further controls to each pedal to allow this…

    all of these features will – as i said earlier – bump up the price; perhaps putting the pedal out of a potential buyers price range.
    … and the features would only be used by a fraction of users.
    … and you’d also need to have some kind of midi clock source too.

    March 10, 2010 at 8:57 pm #108360
    whatthewhat
    Member
    Quote:
    i actually had a dream where i was at school and my science teacher had some sort of connection where he got pedals that hadnt been released yet, and i got to see em. the 1st pedal was the mini warble which was a nano tremolo. the second was a new idea which was to be voted on for which face to use. it was a marley fuzz and it had bob marleys face on it. im pretty sure he NEVER used fuzz. the 2nd votable was ths pedal that had the words: Mr. Cyan yellow and green.

    you sir, are weird. keep it up.

    March 10, 2010 at 10:31 pm #108367
    Louis
    Member

    Actually, with midi you wouldn’t need to add features, because it’s all controlled from your laptop. You could have all your modulation pedals set to sync at whatever rate you like. It just depends on what software you use. So all that would be needed (as far as I know) would be a midi in/out

    and I know several people who already use midi sync pedals along with Ableton Live.

    Ableton is a pretty amazing program. The feature I like the most is it’s ability to do songs arrangements differently each time, so it’s good if you have any sort of jam session, or freeform type stuff. You aren’t restricted to an arrangement, but you can skip verses or repeat choruses as many times as you like. This way it allows you to feed off of your audiance.
    Also recording stuff, loops, and much much more

    But right now you pretty much have to have a person devoted to running it, I mean you can play guitar and control it, but if you want to change to the chorus and turn of you delay and switch on your overdrive you run into problems. And I love to switch pedals at different parts of songs. So it’s a bit difficult for me… hence the midi solution

    March 11, 2010 at 8:33 am #108388
    Kevin Demuth
    Member
    Quote:
    Actually, with midi you wouldn’t need to add features, because it’s all controlled from your laptop. You could have all your modulation pedals set to sync at whatever rate you like. It just depends on what software you use. So all that would be needed (as far as I know) would be a midi in/out

    in the case of a tempo based effect such as tremolo, delay, chorus etc., the effect would need to receive MIDI clock information telling it the overall tempo in beats per minute…
    the effect would then need to determine the note length (8th notes, 16th notes etc) it uses in relation to the MIDI clock info.

    so, yes… the effect would need a MIDI input, but that input has to be attached to something (ie. a little computer inside the pedal) to process the data it receives.

    all of the effects i have which accept MIDI have options to set the sub-divisions of the tempo received via MIDI clock.

    so, like i said, these are all features which lots of people wouldn’t use which would obviously increase the price of the effect.
    all of the pedals that immediately come to mind with MIDI sync options are already pretty expensive.

    March 11, 2010 at 12:47 pm #108390
    Louis
    Member

    Yeah, but aren’t those units digital beasts? What if it were a much simpler unit such as the digital electric mistress or something like that? I willing to bet that after they figure it out they cound install it pretty easily and cheaply, but I could be wrong

    March 11, 2010 at 1:05 pm #108391
    Kevin Demuth
    Member

    of course, I don’t know the costs involved in research and development and then manufacturing, so it could be done for sure.

    at this point, I’d just like to say that I DO see the benefit of having MIDI-syncable pedals, and admit that it would at times be useful…
    however, it wouldn’t be my preference… I kind of prefer it when tempo/time-based effects are a little out, with some drift in timing – it makes things sound more natural and ‘organic’.
    if I were into sequenced (and/or pattern-based) music I would probably feel differently.

    but again, my main argument against MIDI implementation on pedals, is from (what I assume to be) the manufacturers perspective: it makes little sense in adding features (which would increase prices) to your products if the majority of your customers wouldn’t use them*.

    … there must be a reason why there are so few pedals with MIDI.

    however, if there was ever a company which would cater to a niche market, then it would be EHX.

    * there is probably a high percentage of guitarists who don’t even know what MIDI is!

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