Will a Line 6 EX-1 work for a wah pedal?

seankerns · August 15, 2019 at 6:47 PM

I tried to do a search, but either I suck at searches (likely), or no one's tried it. Using a powerhead with remote and KAOS 7.0.0.14?

I have some rigs with wah pedals in them, including the M Britt 2203, which is great sounding, so I tried attaching the only expression pedal I have, a Line 6 EX-1, to the pedal 5 jack on the remote, which is where the manual says to put it, with a TRS cable.

In the system settings, the Kemper sees it, but in pedal mode 1, there is a calibrate button, but it does nothing. In pedal mode 2, I see moving black bar below "calibrate", but it just seems to progress from right to left to about halfway, and stop, and this does not seem to be affected by whether I'm working the pedal.

Also, no mater what pedal mode I choose from within the edit page for the wah effect, the pedal doesn't seem to be controlling it.

This is one area where the otherwise very thorough manual seems kind of... cursory. Pretty much just says, plug it in, calibrate, enjoy. And the two ares of the manual in which expression pedals are discussed for wah seem to link back to each other in a circular fashion.

Am I doing something wrong, or is the EX-1 just not compatible for this use?

Thanks,

Sean

Ingolf · August 15, 2019 at 8:09 PM

EX-1 doesn’t work because it has a TS connection whereas you need TRS.

seankerns · August 15, 2019 at 9:57 PM

Well, crap. I thought it was a TRS pedal, but it appears you're right. I guess I'll have to stick with using an autowah setting or tuning the wah to the frequency I want for the "cocked wah" Schenker settings.

Thanks!

Wheresthedug · August 16, 2019 at 8:49 PM

You could just get another Exp Pedal. I bought a used Zoom pedal for £11 and it works just as well as my other pedals like Mission and Boss FV500. Yo don’t need to spend a lot of money to get a useable Exp with a TRS connection.

seankerns · August 16, 2019 at 9:15 PM

Thanks, yeah. It's not something I want to spend much on. I took a quick look a couple of places, and didn't see any under about $50US, which is a little more than I want to spend to play with the wah. I'll keep my eye open. I was mostly hoping this one would work, because it's brand new. I bought it to use with a Line 6 DL-4 that I ended up giving to my brother.

Wheresthedug · August 16, 2019 at 9:56 PM

The M-Audio EX-P is only £18 new on ebay at the moment. It probably isn’t the most robust but should do the job for messing around. Maybe that or something similar is available in the US or keep an eye open for a used alternative.

BulletFace · August 18, 2019 at 7:27 AM

Hi

I have sort of same kind of problem. I have line6 hx stomp and with that SP1-L6h ex pedal, whicih is TRS pedal. I tried it into port 3 where it says wah pedal should go, but i cant get it to work. Am i out of luck with that ex pedal or is there some way to make it work?

Ingolf · August 18, 2019 at 9:20 AM

Quote from BulletFace

Hi

I have sort of same kind of problem. I have line6 hx stomp and with that SP1-L6h ex pedal, whicih is TRS pedal. I tried it into port 3 where it says wah pedal should go, but i cant get it to work. Am i out of luck with that ex pedal or is there some way to make it work?

If it’s TRS it will work. If it’s TS it won't.

Make sure to calibrate the pedal and experiment with the pedal type (1 or 2) as well.

seankerns · August 18, 2019 at 7:41 PM

I looked at a bunch of expression pedals yesterday, and ended up ordering a Moog universal TRS expression pedal. I went with that one, even though it was closer to $50USD, mostly because it uses a detachable TRS cable, instead of built in. I figure/hope that the cable is the most likely failure point, and I have a ton of TRS cables in different lengths in the studio, so hopefully that will work out for me. I'll let you know when it gets here. I can use this with a couple of my synths, as well, so it should be a useful piece of kit.

seankerns · August 20, 2019 at 7:39 PM

Okay. The Moog pedal got here today. Hooked it up, calibrated it, and it's working exactly as I expected. It's not a sound I use a lot, unless I get talked into doing "Tales of Brave Ulysses", but it is nice to have it working.

BulletFace · August 21, 2019 at 9:00 AM

Quote from Ingolf

If it’s TRS it will work. If it’s TS it won't.

Make sure to calibrate the pedal and experiment with the pedal type (1 or 2) as well.

It is TSR but i actually reached out to mission engineering and asked them about it and they said that it wont work. Only the toe swtich woks, but cant do anything with the pedal otherwise.

Wheresthedug · August 21, 2019 at 10:33 AM

If I’m reading your last post correctly Mission just told you the pot in your pedal os broken and should be replaced. Is that correct?

BulletFace · August 21, 2019 at 12:16 PM

Not exactly. It works just fine with my Helix, but there seems to be some differences between (helix and kemper) that it wont work on Kemper. Dunno why. Seems kind of stupid to me.

Wheresthedug · August 21, 2019 at 1:22 PM

Ah, OK just checked the specs. They both have a momentary switch and 10k linear pots so they are the same pedals but the Helix has some strange wiring that allows it to work with 2 TS cables rather than the normal 1 TRS and 1 TS used by nearly everyone else including Kemper. They even mention hat you need to use a TRS adaptor for the HX Stomp

BulletFace · August 21, 2019 at 1:29 PM

Quote from Wheresthedug

Ah, OK just checked the specs. They both have a momentary switch and 10k linear pots so they are the same pedals but the Helix has some strange wiring that allows it to work with 2 TS cables rather than the normal 1 TRS and 1 TS used by nearly everyone else including Kemper. They even mention hat you need to use a TRS adaptor for the HX Stomp

What is trs adaptor? I just have normal Y-trs cable with my stomp and it works just like it should.

Wheresthedug · August 21, 2019 at 1:35 PM

I think that’s what they mean by TRS adaptor but I don’t have a Helix or Stomp so I’m not sure. The simple point is that Line 6 use a non standard wiring version. I have a Mission SP1-RJM which works fine with the Kemper even though it wasn’t marketed as Kemper compatible.

I just found this link which shows how to rewire a normal EXP to work with Line6. All you would have to do is reverse this to make the Lin6 pedal work with everything else.

Line6 rewired