Expression Pedal Issues

[moid]

Hello everyone

I just bought my first expression pedal (Alesis F2 expression / volume pedal courtesy of a good price on Ebay). It works perfectly with my Digitech Timebender (speeding up / slowing down the decay time with it is lots of fun), but when I try it on my Boss PH-3 Phase Shifter I can't get it to work properly. Even after setting the maximum and minimum rate settings, the pedal will only jump from maximum to minimum (and vice versa) - there is no gradual change of rate as I push the pedal up and down like there in on the Timebender. Obviously the Expression pedal is working correctly or it wouldn't've worked with the Timebender, but is this issue something that the Boss pedal has - no ability to slide from one value to another; just a hard jump? I have tried adjusting the polarity switch on the FP2, I've made sure I am using a TRS cable, and I have tried cursing loudly. I also tried adjusting the screw on the bottom of the FP2 pedal to calibrate the sweep of the pedal (although it doesn't seem to do much).

Do Boss pedals only work with Boss Expression pedals? It's still fun to use on the TImebender and the volume part is also good. but I was hoping to do some weird noises with my phaser... any ideas anyone? Thanks for your thoughts.

[UglyCasanova]

Connect exp pedal.

Put in toe position. Set max rate setting you want on pedal.

Put in heel position. Set minimum rate setting you want on pedal.

I'd that doesn't work, the boss thinks your expression pedal is a momentary switch.

[moid]

Thanks, that's what I tried... no joy alas - it either uses my maximum or minimum setting, but nothing inbetween. I guess the boss pedal has a glitch there? It was bought second hand sometime ago... oh well I'll use the expression pedal on the Timebender instead! Thanks for replying.

[Jwar]

It may not have the right pot in there to sweep the Boss pedal but the manual for that expression pedal also says you have to calibrate it.

The Boss with work with an EV-5 which is a 10k pot. I can't seem to find the Alesis value? If it's off too much though, that could cause that hard sweep you're describing. I've had very similar experiences with other expression pedals.

[moid]

Thanks Jwar, that explains this. I'll have to take the pedal apart to find out what size pot it has. I have tried the calibration but it seems to control the point at which the pedal travels from one settingto another - how close or far away they are as you push down... I guess the Alesis is maybe a 1K or 5K pot and so that would explain why it only 'just' switches from one setting to another with little variation in the middle...

Anyway I just recorded a track with the volume part of the pedal and that went rather well to control some heavy reverb/delay/distortion sounds

[Chankgeez]

You might not have to take the pedal apart, moid, you may be able to find out the pot value online.

[moid]

Good point, thanks Chank...I don't have the for any pedal rebuilding until Easter so at the moment the pedal is being used as a volume pedal for swells / odd tremelo things for which it works really well - I'msending it into two fuzzes at the moment and the lowering of the volume cleans them up and then raising the volume brings them back to more broken destruction... it's fun, not sure what to do with it yet, but something will occur I'm sure!