ampage Tube Amps / Music Electronics	For current discussions, please visit Music Electronics Forum.

ampage archive

Vintage threads from the first ten years

Fx controllers other than foot-rocker

:

8/31/1999 6:50 PM

Fx controllers other than foot-rocker

I thought I'd bring this out to its own header level.

Breath controllers, pressure controllers, multi-way foot rockers and guitar mounted LDR's are good.

I am reminded of the old Vox semi-hollow guitar that had a real, honest-to-Vox wah mounted inside and had a lever mounted roughly over the bridge to work the wah.

In that vein, how about obtaining a cheapo joystick, the kind used for computer games, with two pots inside, and using velcro to mount it just below the bridge and back of the controls? Should enable you to do two different controls by wiggling the stick. If you had two wahs, you'd get the ability to make vowels.

8/31/1999 7:50 PM
Gus	R.G. how about a pot mounted under the wha rocker, shaft thru the rocker to a round pad under the ball of the foot for the second wha circuit. problem would be keeping the downward pressure from destroying the pot.

8/31/1999 8:25 PM

For wireless users: Pressure pad controllers mounted inside your shoes. Signal chain: guitar > shoe wah > beltpak xmitter. Mount a tiny pressure pad inside the shoe under the area occupied by your big toe. Mount the on-off switch under the little-toe area. Wire up both shoes for additional control or extra FX.

Now you can move anywhere on the stage and wah to your heart's content by rhythmically pushing down your big toes. Try it now - you have a lot of power and control in this muscle. For extra showmanship, combine your wah tones with rhythmic strutting and break-dancing...

8/31/1999 8:57 PM

I am reminded of the intro to the old Milton the Monster cartoon show: What have I done?

The traditional whine of keyboard players was that nothing in the world of synths could replace the immediate feel and organic quality of the piano keyboard. Many classical guitarists have said the same thing about electric guitar.

To some extent they are both right, but less so these days. If anything has been true of music technology in the last 20 years, it has been the drive towards making the kind of multiparametric control a human has over their voice box available to musicians using something in their hands.

Just stop for a moment and ask yourself to enumerate all the things you do with yourpicking hand to regulate or modify the tone you produce, whether it be how you hold the pick, where you pick, upstroke vs downstroke, where you rest your hand, how hard you press when you put it there, etc. Combine that with your fret hand, and there is a LOT going on, but it is still no match for the flexibility one has with the voice. Ultimately, the desire is to be able to do as many things on the fly as you can do with your mouth and throat.

So, where am I going with this? YOU DON'T WANT YOUR HANDS TO BE RESPONSIBLE FOR FX CONTROL (as in the case of the on-board wah). Reason? By occupying a hand, you've substituted control over about 10 parameters for control over one. In my books, that's interesting but a step backward, and less of what the musician wants, and deserves.

The neat thing about multi-parameter footpedals is precisely that they ADD to the number of parameters simultaneously available to the player's musical lexicon. Ultimately, this lets them say what they want, how they want, when they want.

9/1/1999 4:14 PM

I've thought about force sensing re...

I've thought about force sensing resistor (FSR) on one of the sides of a pick. You squeeze it harder, you change a parameter. Also, rather than a joystick, once of these surplus/salvage ALPS glidepoints, which I've heard are nothing more than FSRs and are fairly light. I've been thinking of these in terms of a PIC controller or Stamp controller that talks MIDI and drives a rack effects unit, but why not go straight to the effect.

While I'm spilling my guts, I've also been looking at the Dallas Semiconductor digital potentiometers, and wandering why I can use them to MIDIfy existing analog stomp boxes. Haven't had time to do this, (although I bought the parts). Anyone else?

9/1/1999 4:33 PM
Mark Hammer	Re: Alternate controllers The FSR-on-a-pick is a very interesting idea. I suspect it might crimp picking style for many, but that's common with guitar synths too, and they haven't exactly gone the way of the Elcaset or Edsel. What I like about it is that it adds more parameter-control than it detracts from.

9/1/1999 4:41 PM

I also remembered---I thought about putting the fsr on the lower palm of my hand, I find myself holding the pick between my thumb and next two fingers, and pressing this part of my hand with my ring and pinky. I thought mount the sensor(s) on a glove and cut the fingers out of it to maintain finger feel. In fact I have a Gr30, and want more control over it, and have a little StampII design that reads resistors and sends midi control. Just not enough time to implement!

Page 1 of 2