GMC:er Posts: 25.297
Joined: 23-December 09
From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA
I've been trying to get my FCB1010 Behringer midi controller to control the 11 rack wah and get it to sound good. Sadly, when I compare it head to head with a real wah pedal (the hotone soul press) there is simply no comparison and the 11 rack wah just sounds horrible. I've tried every calibration trick, every setting, same result.
I took to the web to find out why. I think I have it The analogue wah it seems, responds in a very certain, logarithmic way. This is what gives it it's "feel". The fcb1010 responds in a very linear way and sounds very sterile as a result. I found one poster explain it thusly.
-----(poster is talking about using a midimade with an axe fx)-------- When you plug in an analog volume pedal or expression pedal into a digital effect, it converts the analog information (the resistance) to one of the 128 positions. When I plug an aftermarket expression pedal into my Rocktron Midimate, or Fractal MFC101, you can see the position of the pedal, and it's in one of the 128 positions. It doesn't matter if it's in the FCB or external, when it comes to midi effects it will be in that state. The axe Fx allows me to set the slope of the controller. I like my volume linear, and wah logarithmic slope. The difference is that the 250k logarithmic will have a steeper response. ---
he even provided some charts.
nice wah sound
bad fcb1010 sound
it seems that the fcb1010 has an optical sensor on a 128 step slope that is very uniform. Also, if you wah too fast, it loses tracking and doesn't know what you are doing. It sounded "fine" until I put it up against a real wah and now I just can't stand it.
QUESTION:
anyone else using a midi controller to control their wah? if so, can you compare it to a real wah? I'd like to know what you find
Here is my soul press wah
Here is a pedal purpose built for working with the 11 rack as a wah controller. It's a nice pedal but still doesn't sound as good IMHO as the real wah. I suspect that the wah wah emulations in the 11 rack are simply not as good as I'd hoped. Who knew wah was so hard to emulate?
The analogue wah it seems, responds in a very certain, logarithmic way. This is what gives it it's "feel". The fcb1010 responds in a very linear way and sounds very sterile as a result. I found one poster explain it thusly.
