Tool's Adam Jones Has A Wicked New Pedal

P

PlasticMoonRain

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Hey all:

Just reading the Guitar World cover interview with Tool's Adam Jones and he talks about this wild pedal his engineer made for their new album. It sounded so crazy, I figured you'd all get a kick out of it.

Jones talks about how he has this Gig-FX Chopper pedal he had worked on so he could go from a clean sound to tremolo and control the tremolo speed as well. The pedal let him slow it down and speed it up.

Jones tells his engineer that he wished he could do this with ANY pedal. So the dude does his thing and comes back with what looks like a wah pedal, but you plug your other pedals into it. It blends between your clean sound and the pedal effect, so you can fade in the effect gradually, "like a breath," instead of clicking the pedal on.


Drew
 
Doesn't sound too complicated to make. Basically it's an effects send. Rewire a volume pedal; start with a buffer stage, send one output to the pedal, and one output to the pot on the volume pedal.

Here's something similar to blend two pedals:

http://www.aaroncake.net/circuits/mixer1.htm

That with a buffer stage in front of the guitar in should work; I think it should be possible to use a single pot instead.
 
That's cool too. I might try switching out the button on an old pedal with a pot sometime. Anyone have any ideas for pot size?
 
Creamyapples1 said:
That's cool too. I might try switching out the button on an old pedal with a pot sometime. Anyone have any ideas for pot size?
Click to expand...

Depends on the source. If you wanted a totally passive circuit with a guitar input on one side, 100K should work OK, 250K might be better. If it's two pedal input, 10K.
 
The more I look at the diagram, the more it doesn't look like it's setup for what we're talking about. I don't think that schematic would allow you to play through your pedal and gradually sweep into the effect while maintaining a solid signal. I.E. Uneffected guitar gradually sweeping into distorted guitar maintaining a constant volume rather than insta on, insta off.


I'm not even sure that a pot would be the best way to go, but in theory it sounds good to me lol


A pot in place of the on/off switch should still let you maintain a signal while gradually switching from "bypass" to "engaged" Or I could just be talking out of my arse. /shrug. Sounds good to me though. ;)
 

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Creamyapples1 said:
The more I look at the diagram, the more it doesn't look like it's setup for what we're talking about. I don't think that schematic would allow you to play through your pedal and gradually sweep into the effect while maintaining a solid signal. I.E. Uneffected guitar gradually sweeping into distorted guitar maintaining a constant volume rather than insta on, insta off.
Click to expand...

It's not, but it's similar.

Here's something I sketched real quick but I haven't thought about too hard. Thus this circuit could have errors in it.
 
Ok, that I could see, assuming that the pots are for input volume, blend and output volume, but it's still more complicated than I think it needs to be. If you can just utilize what's already in the effect board and change one part for another and still obtain the desired results, wouldn't that be ideal? Of course, this is assuming that the pot all the way off retains true bypass, or atleast comparable bypass to the on/off switch.



EDIT - Actually, I'll recant. Two inputs makes it way more complicated than it needs to be. You still have to route the signal into the effect path leaving you with two signals at the ass end, when all you need to do is change the way the effect is engaged.
 
Creamyapples1 said:
Ok, that I could see, assuming that the pots are for input volume, blend and output volume, but it's still more complicated than I think it needs to be. If you can just utilize what's already in the effect board and change one part for another and still obtain the desired results, wouldn't that be ideal? Of course, this is assuming that the pot all the way off retains true bypass, or atleast comparable bypass to the on/off switch.
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I'm not sure what you are trying to do--are you trying to add a blend pot to each pedal? My schemo is more of a "master" blend control intended as a volume pedal mod (where the volume pedal is just a simple pot, no active electronics).

If you are modding an existing pedal, you'd need a lot fewer parts, since it already has a buffer. Just tap right after the buffer to one side of the blend pot, and move the effects output to the other side, and wire the output of the mix resistors to the output jack.

You'd still need some makeup gain, but you can get that from another pedal, or your amp.
 
I don't see a single pedal being logical to use with a multi-pedal array, I guess maybe I should have said that at first, my appologies, but this is merely my opinion, and more preference than anything. If I were to utilize this techinique, I would want it on each individual pedal as I'd not want effects already in use to be taken away and added again everytime I hit the controller pedal.

I guess what I'm saying is, on your average stomp box, rather than the push button on/off switch, use a pot in its place to sweep slowly from bypass to 100% effect, allowing you to stop in incriments if desired, instead of going from 0% effect to 100% effect at the push of a button. Though the wiring I'll leave to the more experienced. I've put a few together, but switching the button for a pot is well beyond me. Though I'd love to know, cuz I'd switch every pedal I own ASAP.
 
I already do something kinda similar.

I have a Boss AC-3 that i use to thicken up my sound sometimes. Its kind of similar, not exactly what the original subject pedal does though.. Its an acoustic simulator for those who dont know.
No electronics needed. I just use a couple 1/4 inch splitters.

Adam Marshall
 

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Actually... That idea is kind of old. I can do that with my GNX2. All you have to do is assign the channel warp to the expression pedal and viola! It's an interesting effect but I don't see how you could use it for more than 2 songs. I think after that, the novelty would ware off.
 
Good Point

Yes you're right. I don't use it alot, but if i just wanna use the acoustic simulator, i just bypass the other effects and crank the volume pedal. And yes I know there is some pure signal coming through right from the guitar, but I honestly dont hear it, the AC-3 must have loud output.
I really like using chorus and acoustic at the same time. That i do do alot.

Adam Marshall
 
Creamyapples1 said:
I guess what I'm saying is, on your average stomp box, rather than the push button on/off switch, use a pot in its place to sweep slowly from bypass to 100% effect, allowing you to stop in incriments if desired, instead of going from 0% effect to 100% effect at the push of a button. Though the wiring I'll leave to the more experienced. I've put a few together, but switching the button for a pot is well beyond me. Though I'd love to know, cuz I'd switch every pedal I own ASAP.
Click to expand...

Oh I see. The biggest problem is mechanical--you'd need to do something with the case to get that kind of foot-pedal action.

Also if you want true bypass, you'd still need a switch, you can't implement that with a pot alone.

Here's a sketch: "Q" and "SW" are the pedal's existing switch and buffer stage. "Pot" is new. If the effect has another active stage, you might want to send the mix output to that stage rather than straight to the switch. You'd have to have a look at each pedal's design.
 
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mshilarious said:
Oh I see. The biggest problem is mechanical--you'd need to do something with the case to get that kind of foot-pedal action.

Also if you want true bypass, you'd still need a switch, you can't implement that with a pot alone.
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Just move it all over to a wah pedal chassis and use the rack and pinion for the pot. The bypass would be the shitter then, but if the "up" position of the pedal was a pretty decent sound, it'd be workable, guess there's no way to tell that without trying it though.

So now that we're on the same page. How would you go about switching out the button and putting a pot in its stead? I'm assuming it'd take more than just using the leads going to the button and putting them on a pot, but that'd be swell if that were all it took. :D

EDIT - On a similar note, How cool would it be to switch your favorite distortion pedal to a wah chassis, put the bypass button in the same place as on your standard wah pedal and put your gain pot on the rack and pinion for the pedal so you can adjust your pedal gain on the fly?
 
Creamyapples1 said:
Just move it all over to a wah pedal chassis and use the rack and pinion for the pot. The bypass would be the shitter then, but if the "up" position of the pedal was a pretty decent sound, it'd be workable, guess there's no way to tell that without trying it though.

So now that we're on the same page. How would you go about switching out the button and putting a pot in its stead? I'm assuming it'd take more than just using the leads going to the button and putting them on a pot, but that'd be swell if that were all it took. :D
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OK if we're using a wah chassis it has a switch and a pot? So why do we need to swap out the switch? Leave that be for bypass. If you need more pots for other controls, drill out the side of the pedal.
 
mshilarious said:
OK if we're using a wah chassis it has a switch and a pot? So why do we need to swap out the switch? Leave that be for bypass. If you need more pots for other controls, drill out the side of the pedal.
Click to expand...


As long as the "low effect" portion of the pot was in the down position of the pedal, that would be gravy. Then see my above post^^
 
I guess it would be doable with any pedal, just have to pick which control you want/need to control with the pedal, rather than bypassing the entire effect and fading in, easier to do anyway.
 
Creamyapples1 said:
I guess it would be doable with any pedal, just have to pick which control you want/need to control with the pedal, rather than bypassing the entire effect and fading in, easier to do anyway.
Click to expand...

Yep. In fact, you could add a switch to make the pedal pot selectable for any of the controls :cool:

But that might be getting a little silly :o
 
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