cv I/O on pedals - what size and how do you interface?

[smallsnd/bigsnd]

well i would use the mp-201 but I traded it away to some dude on the forumz...

I'm building one of these so the hope is that I can use a banana to 1/4 converter. But 1/4" for sure.

http://www.73-75.com/

One thing that would be awesome is some sort of attenuverter on the cv input and using the physical value of the knob you want to control to be the offset. That way you can dial in positive or negative control at a specific spot in the travel of the knob, as opposed to from the min or max. That to me is where the rubber meets the road. It also makes it much more interesting to send a single cv source to multiple locations and have them all do very different things at different scales.

oh yeah totally. i've been having a lot of thoughts and levels/scaling/offset is really important to me too.

I voted 1/8". Putting together a small tabletop setup with pedals and a drum machine that are relying on CV and it just makes sense for my situation. People made good points on just using an adapter, I have several TRS 1/4" to 1/8" headphone adapters laying around. Would be great if the CV range and limit was listed clearly somewhere. I have a few things I am afraid to plug together because of possible limitations. Very curious to know what you are working on.

right on. i want things to be very clear with this so that won't be an issue i think. thinking about some cv controller ideas and cv controllable things. utility stuff that might be fun. i'll post some more thoughts when i iron out a few more ideas.

Top mount 1/8" means you'll make people using eurorack happy, and that's a pretty big market these days.
Top mount is pretty important here, you need to know where you're plugging stuff and having to look at the back of a pedal is not convenient at all...

yeahhhhhhh i feel like finding the middle ground between the two is an intersection i'm interested in. i know it's kind of a weird place but i think it makes sense for a lot of people. as for the top mount vs back mount - what if there were clear labels along the top, near the back of the pedal? i'm not talking about 20 i/o - more like 5-6.

[oscillateur]

Top mount 1/8" means you'll make people using eurorack happy, and that's a pretty big market these days.
Top mount is pretty important here, you need to know where you're plugging stuff and having to look at the back of a pedal is not convenient at all...

yeahhhhhhh i feel like finding the middle ground between the two is an intersection i'm interested in. i know it's kind of a weird place but i think it makes sense for a lot of people. as for the top mount vs back mount - what if there were clear labels along the top, near the back of the pedal? i'm not talking about 20 i/o - more like 5-6.

Well, it depends on the intended use. Pedals people tend to plug things once and then just play. Modular people patch and repatch all the time, so seeing the jack and label clearly is a plus in that case. I guess it's pretty hard to please everyone on this but if you want to do something that users of modular/desktop devices (SQ-1, Beatstep pro, etc.) can use easily, then having top jacks would be super nice. Labels on the top are good to know where each plugged cable goes to, but not to replug these cables. Still better than no labels at all, obviously .

It all depends on what the device is and how it would interact with other things, though. My remarks might apply or not depending on that...

[drolo]

Hard to please everybody. What about a table top version and a pedal board version :-)

[smallsnd/bigsnd]

Hard to please everybody. What about a table top version and a pedal board version :-)

yeah that is actually a direction i'm thinking about going with simpler for pedal, more complex for tabletop.

[ritz]

What about those of us that want the complexity on our boards? Kidding, kind of.

Honestly if there were better adaptor choices out there I would care less. You can get a right angle 1/8 to 1/8 adaptor easily to reduce the chances of a face mounted cord getting kicked. The problem is on the other end where you want to go to a side mounted 1/4 jack. The hosa 1/8 to 1-4 TS cord has like 2 inches of casing sticking out. On a tight board that's a dealbreaker. You can get a 1/4 to 1/4 right angle but that's crazy bulky with the hosa casing and then you are running into problems interfering with other jacks and cords, unless you can route all 4 inches of it straight down between board slats.

Anybody found a better way to do this? Wish there was an ebs-style low profile right angle 1/4 to right angle 1/8 ts cable out there.

[smallsnd/bigsnd]

What about those of us that want the complexity on our boards? Kidding, kind of.

Honestly if there were better adaptor choices out there I would care less. You can get a right angle 1/8 to 1/8 adaptor easily to reduce the chances of a face mounted cord getting kicked. The problem is on the other end where you want to go to a side mounted 1/4 jack. The hosa 1/8 to 1-4 TS cord has like 2 inches of casing sticking out. On a tight board that's a dealbreaker. You can get a 1/4 to 1/4 right angle but that's crazy bulky with the hosa casing and then you are running into problems interfering with other jacks and cords, unless you can route all 4 inches of it straight down between board slats.

Anybody found a better way to do this? Wish there was an ebs-style low profile right angle 1/4 to right angle 1/8 ts cable out there.

i totally get it about the complexity thing - i'm trying to devise a way to appease everyone (which obviously will never happen)! face-mounted seems great on the surface to me (like the moog cp-251) but i totally agree that it gets very bulky very quickly with 1/4" jacks overall, especially if you're using right angle cables. the thing with back-mounted jacks is that no matter what you'll most likely need to use straight jacks since they maybe have to be staggered to fit all of them.

[wafl]

I dunno, I don't use any cv stuff but for expressions peds and the like I prefer 1/4" because I find it easier to make my own 1/4" cables diy styles.
Not that I've ever tried making 3.5mm ones.

[goroth]

What about having a tabletop version that has a TRS for the bypass switch, so you could switch it externally? That way if anyone wants to put the complex shit on their board they can do so and not worry about stomping the crap out of it?

[smallsnd/bigsnd]

What about having a tabletop version that has a TRS for the bypass switch, so you could switch it externally? That way if anyone wants to put the complex shit on their board they can do so and not worry about stomping the crap out of it?

i've also been considering this with relay switching and using a little stomp dongle.
adds yet another jack though and there are already SO MANY

[ritz]

i totally agree that it gets very bulky very quickly with 1/4" jacks overall, especially if you're using right angle cables. the thing with back-mounted jacks is that no matter what you'll most likely need to use straight jacks since they maybe have to be staggered to fit all of them.

This hasn't been an issue for me since switching to EBS flats. 3 or 4 side by side, no issues. Never going back.

[smallsnd/bigsnd]

This hasn't been an issue for me since switching to EBS flats. 3 or 4 side by side, no issues. Never going back.

huh, i'll have to pick some of those up.

[goroth]

They are the best.

[drolo]

too bad they don't make TRS ones ...

[goroth]

True.
Trying to find right angled trs cables is hard. I've got a couple of 3ft RA TRS cables from Hosa and I found some 1ft ones at Monoprice (haven't bought them though). Otherwise... nothing.

[coldbrightsunlight]

wh crs ds pdls nt mdlr.

Personally I want modular for cv fun and pedals for "I press this switch and it sounds rad as fuck". Hooking pedals up to the tabletop is too time consuming for me when the rack is all set up.

But I realise I'm probably not the majority!