Using Ernie Ball Volume Pedal as WAH Expression on Eleven. ? Need your help fast!

[awritersparadise]

I see this is a tricky subject all over the net and on this board, ha. Please help if you can as my deadline is today on a project and I assumed I was good to go on a simply "wah" sound with my Eleven. No such luck.

Maybe I'm missing something simple on the hook up..
I've enabled the wah pedal on the rig.. set user options to expression pedal/ pedal type to every thing possible.. calibrated.. no expression..

My question.. cable wise..
I have 1/4" from guitar direct to ELEVEN guitar input.
and I have 1/4" from Ernie Ball Volume Pedal (out/AMP) to Expression IN on back of ELEVEN.

Is this not the correct config? Any help is greatly appreciated. I simply want wah for a 10 minute tracking session and have spent an hour researching how to do that with ELEVEN, ha. Thanks for your help.

[AvidEditor]

You need to use a 1/4" balanced TRS cable. A regular mono cable won't work. Also you need to use a "Y" adapter on the pedal. One 1/4" goes to Ernie Ball In and one 1/4" goes to Ernie Ball Out - then complete the connection using the TRS cable.

[awritersparadise]

this "Y" adapter will be something like this?
http://www.amazon.com/HOSA-Stereo-4-...male+to+female

plug both male ends into the Ernie Ball (in + out) .. and then plug the balanced TRS 1/4" out of the fem part of the Y cable.. into the expression in of ELEVEN?

Sorry.. just gotta make sure I have this right!
Thanks!

S

[blewis]

That cable plus a 1/4" TRS cable will work.

BUT!

You're not going to like the nonlinear taper. "Why is all the volume change at the last 15% of travel" will be your next question.

It'll work, but it won't be great. I've tried it.

[AvidEditor]

Originally Posted by blewis

That cable plus a 1/4" TRS cable will work.

BUT!

You're not going to like the nonlinear taper. "Why is all the volume change at the last 15% of travel" will be your next question.

It'll work, but it won't be great. I've tried it.

I do believe belewis has had unsatisfactory results or he wouldn't be talking about it. With his results I'm sure I'd say the same thing. But in my experience it's been a 50/50 flawless expression pedal.

The last 15% of travel in my rigs would not be your next question. It's as normal as I would expect.

I will say that there are many parameters that affect how the expression pedal behaves in Multi FX mode on the Pedal selection in the rig and I assume these settings are making the difference regarding the post by blewis.

Edit to add: I was wrong. I brought back my Ernie Ball from where we practice and blewis is totally correct, the travel for the wah is about 85/15 on an Ernie Ball VP JR passive volume pedal.

[blewis]

Originally Posted by AvidEditor

I brought back my Ernie Ball from where we practice and blewis is totally correct, the travel for the wah is about 85/15 on an Ernie Ball VP JR passive volume pedal.

I think I tried my other guitarist's VP JR too before I gave up. That one, the JR, I think, actually has a small switch inside that gives you two taper options. For me, I found that both taper options didn't work for my taste.

I was mainly using it to try control the volume and wah module of the 11R.

Hopefully it works to satisfaction for the OP.

[moff]

The normal 250K EB JR volume pedal won't work correctly; you need the 25K model built for active instruments (model 6181).

You also need an "insert" cable (1/4" TRS male > 2 mono 1/4" male). Run the TRS end into the 11R, the two monos into the in and out of the EB. If it doesn't work, swap the in and out on the pedal (then mark which is which )

IIRC, some of the newer EB JRs have an "expression" output, which, I believe is a TRS connector. If that's right, you only need a long TRS>TRS cable into the 11R's expression jack.

[AvidEditor]

Originally Posted by blewis

I think I tried my other guitarist's VP JR too before I gave up. That one, the JR, I think, actually has a small switch inside that gives you two taper options. For me, I found that both taper options didn't work for my taste.

I was mainly using it to try control the volume and wah module of the 11R.

Hopefully it works to satisfaction for the OP.

This subject is interesting to me because after trying the Ernie Ball again as a wah I'd like to change the taper. Anyone offhand know a quick handy link for replacement parts and a guide to making the change? I've goggled a bit and haven't found a definitive taper solution.

I haven't had a lot of luck with expression pedals with 11R. In the past 18 months I've used M-Audio EX-P which broke quickly, a Roland EV-5 that seemed to impart a strange squeal at the end of travel when used as Multi FX pedal and a Line 6 EX-1 that didn't work out for a reason I no longer remember. I think there was one other I tried, but suffice to say I was not having good luck with the sub $100 pedals.

I finally used my Ernie Ball in a backup situation and it worked so well I started using it full time. It's heavy which is great for gigging and it feels really good under your foot. The other pedals are made of plastic and feel cheap to me. My memory is flawed because I thought it had equal 50/50 travel with the Wah but other than that - and the fact that having a Y connector on the floor that can fail is not good (I always gigged with a spare Y) in my experience the Ernie Ball volume VP JR pedal is the best expression pedal solution for 11R I've used.

[Darryl Ramm]

All the issues here start with the Ernie Ball Volume pedals being volume pedals (it's in the name) and not expression pedals. Volume pedals have logarithmic (aka audio taper) potentiometers while expression pedals have linear potentiometers. Then you get into range issues. Most expression pedals are around 10k ohm, and controllers may or may not be able to calibrate say a 250k ohm pot wether it is linear or log. Calibration software can try to change tapers on pedals but trying to map the logarithmic pot to the usual 8 bit dynamic range and then change that behavior often just works out to be a mess.

If you like the Ernie Ball Volume pedal feel likely the best thing to do is just modify the Ernie Ball with a linear potentiometer. Its not clear if folks here are talking about the full size EB volune pedals or the more popular Jr. pedals.

Anyhow all this has been discussed here before and as then I'll point to instructions and parts required to modify an Ernie Ball Jr. to an Expression pedal I wrote over at the Fractal Audio forums at http://forum.fractalaudio.com/mfc-di...all-vp-jr.html Read the whole thread since there are done useful comments there from others.

This modded pedal works perfectly with my Eleven Rack.

Darryl

[AvidEditor]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

All the issues here start with the Ernie Ball Volume pedals being volume pedals (it's in the name) and not expression pedals. Volume pedals have logarithmic (aka audio taper) potentiometers while expression pedals have linear potentiometers. Then you get into range issues. Most expression pedals are around 10k ohm, and controllers may or may not be able to calibrate say a 250k ohm pot wether it is linear or log. Calibration software can try to change tapers on pedals but trying to map the logarithmic pot to the usual 8 bit dynamic range and then change that behavior often just works out to be a mess.

If you like the Ernie Ball Volume pedal feel likely the best thing to do is just modify the Ernie Ball with a linear potentiometer. Its not clear if folks here are talking about the full size EB volune pedals or the more popular Jr. pedals.

Anyhow all this has been discussed here before and as then I'll point to instructions and parts required to modify an Ernie Ball Jr. to an Expression pedal I wrote over at the Fractal Audio forums at http://forum.fractalaudio.com/mfc-di...all-vp-jr.html Read the whole thread since there are done useful comments there from others.

This modded pedal works perfectly with my Eleven Rack.

Darryl

Thanks Darryl! This is my next project.