Ernie Ball Pedals Not Functioning as Expression Pedal

[reycantong]

Usually, when using a regular volume pedal to act as expression pedal, 2 mono cables (in/out of pedal) to a Y-adapter (stereo) is needed.

I'm succesfully using my Ernie Ball pedals as expression pedals with my G-System. But I'm having some trouble getting it to work with my Eleven Rack. Do you guys have this experience? Any suggestions? Need some help here.

Thanks in advance...

[Martinibeach]

I'm having the same issue myself and my Sweetwater Rep said he wants to get his Avid rep to address the issue as he had no solution. I need an answer pretty quick myself.

[drokken2]

I called EB about this a few months back. Basically the pot's that are used in their pedals are not the pots that are required for expression pedals use with midi controllers. You'll have to install the correct style pot and you should be set.

I didn't want to dick with all the research and work for it so i just went with a FCB1010 and haven't looked back since, but you may google what type of pot is needed and check around, maybe newark.com has some?

should be a cheap buy, and install my be a pain due to the string being wrapped around the pot and all?

good luck guys!

[Darryl Ramm]

Volume pedals like the Ernie Ball and Ernie Ball Jr. use logarithmic aka audio taper potentiometers and maybe some potentiometer resistance range different from what you want anyhow. An effects pedal typically uses a linear potentiometer, with 10 k ohm being common. Even if you try to calibrate things the log pots just are not going to work well.

On the Ernie Ball Junior volume pedals it's pretty simple to mod the pedals. Dealing with the Kevlar string is not a hassle with a suitable hook tool.

I covered details about modifying the Jr. pedals in a post over at the Fractal Audio MFC-101 Forum at http://forum.fractalaudio.com/mfc-10...l-vp-jr-2.html

Note this is for the Junior volume pedals, the full size ones are different, the OP was not clear on what model was being discussed.

An even easier way is buy a nice expression pedal like a Mission or Boss 500 series, but I like the Ernie Ball pedals.

Darryl

[Darryl Ramm]

For those not registered on the Fractal forum you can also see the photos of the mod at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/darrylr...n/photostream/
Scroll back through the photos to see several images.

Darryl

[reycantong]

"Basically the pot's that are used in their pedals are not the pots that are required for expression pedals use with midi controllers. You'll have to install the correct style pot and you should be set"

And why is it that it's working with the G-System as expression pedal?

Funny how the EB pedals work flawless with the G-System and not work with the Eleven Rack. They are assigned to perform both as expression pedal and yet they don't work the same

[mikefont]

It must be that the G-System has different value requirements than the 11R.

I use a Rocktron HEX that works perfectly with the 11R, but it does NOT work with my Eventide PitchFactor. The PitchFactor requires a 25k ohm pot...the Rocktron HEX has a 10k ohm.

It's a pain in the ass that all of these different companies don't use an industry standard universal value for expression pedal requirements, but unfortunately...it is what it is!


.

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by reycantong

"Basically the pot's that are used in their pedals are not the pots that are required for expression pedals use with midi controllers. You'll have to install the correct style pot and you should be set"

And why is it that it's working with the G-System as expression pedal?

Funny how the EB pedals work flawless with the G-System and not work with the Eleven Rack. They are assigned to perform both as expression pedal and yet they don't work the same

They won't "work flawlessly", maybe it is good enough for you, it may not be for other users/uses. Even if a system tries to calibrate out the logarithmic behavior of the pot it is just too technically difficult to do so accurately. This is exactly why the G-System manual warns against using a volume pedal for effects like wah etc and suggests you use a real expression pedal (see the "Important Note" callout box on the first page of the express pedals chapter). If you are doing that now you might want to see if it works even better with an expression pedal on your G-System.

Darryl