Controlling a pot from a pedal....

[Neal]

Hey guys!
Please point me in the right direction for some ideas.... I have an Arion chorus pedal that I use for fake leslie sounds. I'd like to be able to control the speed with a volume-type pedal, so I can go from fast to slow with my foot. The obvious choice would be to re-house the chorus pedal inside a wah shell. Then I got thinking, what if I wired the speed pot to a mini-jack on the side of the chorus pedal, and plugged in a volume pedal? Now I'll have two pots in parallel, so that'll change things quite a bit. I'm wondering if there's a website or page that addresses this idea, or has a different solution. Or should I just get a Univibe?
Thanks, guys!
Neal

[Mark Hammer]

Go to www.geofex.com and look for the L.E.R.A. circuit. This will allow you to adapt your pedal in the manner desired. You will need to retrofit the Arion with an optoisolator for the speed pot, though that doesn't necessarily have to involve a destructive overhaul. RG Keen recently posted some other circuits for Leslie-like ramp-up/ramp-down effects with phasers and tremoloes.

If you are looking for a less invasive solution. Consider the T.I.P. Third Hand. ( http://www.toneinprogress.com/ ). You can connect a footpedal to the shaft of the pot itself and work it with your foot. The 3rd Hand is a nice replacement for the old Electro-Harmonix Hot Foot pedal. I used to have one of those and it was an absolutely wonderful toy. The nice thing is that you can tack it onto anything, whereas the circuit modificationis obviously confined only to the box you installed it on.

[Neal]

Thanks for the tip, Mark.. I'll check out the site.
Funny you should mention the old Hot Foot pedal... I've got one of those lying around. It's a neat idea, with 3 quibbles....
First, it's HUGE. Takes up an insane amount of room.
Second, the footpedal works backwards from what you'd expect... rolling the pedal BACK turns the control UP.
And third, with some of today's compact effects, the thumbscrew on the flexible shaft hits the adjoining knobs, making a full rotation impossible.
It's cool to see someone updating this pedal... I always thought the Hot Foot was a great idea, and I'm surprised nobody's resurrected it until now.
Thanks, Mark!
Neal

[Neal]

Follow-up to an old thread....
I'd been getting together a parts list for the L.E.R.A., among other projects, when a TIP 3rd hand pedal popped up on EBAY. I bid low and got it. Just received it, and it looks like a cool toy. Here's an ultra-quick review....
Made from thick metal... pretty solid. The actual mechanism is a large plastic wheel on an axle, with a belt around it. The belt makes a half-twist to go around another wheel that controls a flexible shaft, which in turn controls whatever pot you connect it to.
Pros: Simple design, fewer parts to tweak.
Pushing toe-down on the pedal turns up the desired control (as opposed to the old E-H Hotfoot, which turned DOWN the control when you gave it the gas).
Flexible shaft is connected with a set-screw. It takes a few seconds longer to connect, but the Hotfoot had a thumbscrew which would bump into adjacent knobs, thus limiting rotation.
Long sweep means you control the full rotation of the pot.

Cons.... fairly big... takes up a lot of real estate on the pedalboard.
Made in China.. the supplied Allen wrench doesn't QUITE fit the set screw. I'll get a replacement and figure out a way to clip it to the pedal itself.
The long sweep means you flex your foot a LOT, so if you really give it a workout, you're gonna have a sore ankle. If you just want to ramp up your leslie effect, like I do, it's not an issue.
Some people dislike the belt-drive system, but I figure it's a little insurance so you don't twist off a plastic pot shaft during the heat of the moment. If you get to the end of the rotation, the belt slips rather than damaging your effect pedal.

I haven't spent much time with this thing yet, but it seems like a cool toy, even if it's just to have lying around the music room. Looking forward to connecting it to my flanger. (I'll have to pick up some incense and a lava lamp on my way home....)
Neal

[Mark Hammer]

Lucky boy! I'm envious.

I suspect the belt-drive design allows for less stress on the moving parts than EHX's old Hot Foot design using a pot. The pot arrangement DID permit for their standard wah pedal chassis (which was freakin' huge) to be co-opted, but pots simply aren't meant to put up with that sort of torque and lateral pressure. I didn't have mine long enough to experience mechanical breakdown, but I gather I would have had to replace the pot eventually.