From bruce@ashbysolutions.com Tue Oct 01 09:02:31 2002
Subject:Re: Fwd: [NordElectro] wah-wah and yamaha FC-7

Hi Emili,

I don't own an Electro, but let me try to answer your questions, anyway ...

> I just tried the FC-7, wich I already owned before
> purchasing the electro. I did the jack converter (to
> switch polarity) thing someone here suggested, and
> apparently works fine. Tried it on the organ, and acts
> as a smooth swell control. However, while using it to
> control the wah, I can't seem to be able to sweep in
> any manner ressemblant to a real wah. I don't know how
> to describe this, but it sounds to me like a high-pass
> filter sweep rather than a real wah, it don't seem to
> act on the low frequencies at all. Voce's Electric
> Piano did much better at that. It just doesn't seem
> either deep nor wide enough to simulate a real wah to
> my ears. I tried tweeking the rate-amount control
> (amount works, while I'm not so able to tell whether
> the rate does; sometimes it seems so, sometimes not).
> These wah sounds specially bad on rhodes pianos, where
> it should be glorious!. Would another control pedal
> like Roland's EV-7 make a difference, or is it just
> the way wah is on this board?.

From your description, I suspect that the problem is native to the Electro. I've used several effects units with built-in digital wah algorithms, and none of them really sounded like a Vox or Dunlop wah. It appears to be a difficult item to duplicate in the digital domain.

Since your FC-7 is working well as an organ expression (swell) pedal, I doubt that changing to another pedal will solve your dilemma -- although if you can borrow one from a friend, it's probably worth trying.

Regards,

-BW

--
Bruce Wahler
Design Consultant
Ashby Solutions™ http://consult.ashbysolutions.com
CloneWheel Support Group and HiNote moderator
978.386.7389 voice/fax
bruce@ashbysolutions.com