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Re: WAH WAHS

Bill, you may be right, but I don't see how the transmitter can handle zippering - it has to be in the receiver. MIDI CC messages have 128 levels exactly - you can't divide it more finely than that. It may be that the FCB doesn't sample the pedal motion as frequently as the gordius, so the FCB would skip more intermediate values, leading to worse performance than need be, but even a "complete" sweep, where every number from 0 to 127 is sent, will create *some* zippering on the receiving end if the receiver (i.e., plug-in or effect) switches between received values instead of slewing between them. This will be more evident in some parameters than others. (and i don't remember whether the fcb has a MIDI thinning function in it, which if present may be turned on by default - that would exacerbate any zippering problems, I'd imagine).

Now, if you were using a pitch wheel to control the wah, or a footcontroller of comparable resolution (which I've never heard of, but may exist), then it's a different story, because the resolution is something like 8,000 divisions in the pitch bend sphere versus 128 for regular CCs (if my memory is correct - it's gotta be at least 10 years since I really looked at these numbers)

On Wed, Dec 24, 2008 at 11:08 PM, William Walker <billwalker@baymoon.com> wrote:

Actually warren I think that the Gordius Midi controller really handles midi cc zippering flawlessly, a big step up from say,  an FCB 1010. Costs as much as three or four behringer pedals but will last longer I believe. I'm very happy with mine. Not sure about plug ins, not there yet.

 Bill

 

From: Warren Sirota [mailto:wsirota@wsdesigns.com]
Sent: Wednesday, December 24, 2008 5:05 AM


To: Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com
Subject: Re: WAH WAHS

 

I love wah-wah, but I use it mainly to add expression to individual notes, to help make up for the fact that the guitar is not bowed. Jimi was ever my inspiration for this (also, I guess, Steve Stills' playing on Season of the Witch on that Supersession album from 1969 or so) , always hated funk auto-wah. Unfortunately, being as digital as I am is not good for wah-ing: I have never heard (and I gave up trying about 10 years ago, so this is a very outdated opinion) a digital wah-wah with any balls, and even if I found one, controlling it with a zipper-inducing MIDI cc pedal does not stand much of a chance of working, unless the wah-wah plug-in is very good at interpolating between zipper teeth (I know this is possible. whether anyone does it or not is another story).

I used a crybaby for many years. Sold it a while ago, but I still love the use of pedals to make individual notes more expressive - controlling ring mod depth, or using it like a mod wheel to push in some lfo modulation.

In contradiction to what I said above (that didn't take long) I *do* use one digital wah effect, or at least did recently - I used a very extreme wah-like effect ("Traveller") in my old Korg AX-1000g on http://warrensirota.com/Brian/Tuffer.mp3. One thing that was interesting (challenging) about the effect is that is was too extreme to use the full range of motion on your foot, resulting in a just-barely-on-the-edge-of-control aspect to the playing. And there's no zippering, because I was controlling via the integrated pedal, not via MIDI.


--
Warren
http://www.ubetoo.com/Artist.taf?_ArtistId=6679
http://www.warrensirota.com




--
Warren
http://www.ubetoo.com/Artist.taf?_ArtistId=6679
http://www.warrensirota.com