questions regarding mission expression pedals...

    just found a brand new mission dealer in my area. ran down to them and picked up an sp-1 and sp-2 for use with the kpa.


    the plan was to use the sp-2 as a wah/volume pedal, and the sp-1 as a wah with the switch to act as a boost. i will not be running both pedals simultaneously.


    i have 2 different issues, one for each pedal.


    issue 1:


    on the sp-1 the wah works exactly as it should. no issues. however, when using the switch i find that i have to click the switch more than once to have it cycle my boost on and off. if i click it once, the boost will come on, then the next click will do nothing, then the next click will turn it off. in other words, every other switch click seems to work. my guess is this is a kemper issue - anyone else having this issue?


    issue 2:


    on the sp-2 the wah and volume both work perfectly while they are enabled. switching is perfect as well. however, when switching channels the unused channel control value drops to 0. this is fine if i set my wah to bypass at the heel (which i dont want to do anyway), but this is no good for volume - if i goto use my wah the volume drops to nothing! not sure if this is KPA related or not.


    i am using both pedals through my ground control pro, but i get the same reaction by skipping that and just running the pedals straight into the kpa.


    anyone with these pedals have similar or different stories?

    Quote from Hedge

    issue 1:

    You need a nonlatching momentary switch. What you describe is the typical behaviour of a latching switch connected to a nonlatching logic. So the SP-1 is not the right pedal for this purpose. You should contact the guys at mission and ask them which of their pedals has a nonlatching switch. I would guess the SP1-LF might do but the description on their website is not really clear about this. You could also ask a soldering gun savvy to replace the switch in your SP-1 by a nonlatching one.


    Quote from Hedge

    issue 2:

    What do you want the volume to do when you switch to wah? Drop to zero is the logical consequent behaviour. Stay at some intermediate value is almost impossible (as you have to max the volume because the switch is at the toe-down position). Should it be maximum? Obviously the SP-2 leaves the contacts of the unused output open. If it would close the circuit then you would have maximum volume when wah is active. Should be done in the switching logic of the SP-2. I don't see how it could be done in the settings of the KPA. Wouldn't it be much more musical anyway to use a second, dedicated pedal for the volume?

    www.audiosemantics.de
    I have been away for quite a while. A few years ago I sold my KPA and since then played my own small tube amp with a Bad Cat Unleash. Now I am back because the DI-profile that I made from my amp sounds very much convincing to me.


    I haven't tried it yet with the KPA, (i'm a few thousand miles away from my KPA at the moment) But i use the Mission SP-2 with the MFC/Axe, and when I switch from Volume to Wah obviously because i have to press all the way on the pedal to switch it, when it switches into wah it keeps the volume of the Axe all the way up, is that what you're trying to do? To me that's what makes more sense and what I wanted to do to accomplish both volume and wha with just one pedal. I'll try it on the KPA as soon as I have a chance.

    Quote from DigitalTube

    ...i use the Mission SP-2 with the MFC/Axe, and when I switch from Volume to Wah obviously because i have to press all the way on the pedal to switch it, when it switches into wah it keeps the volume of the Axe all the way up, is that what you're trying to do? To me that's what makes more sense and what I wanted to do to accomplish both volume and wha with just one pedal...

    this is exactly what i want to do. i can make my wah bypass automatically by bypassing at the heel position, but i prefer my wahs to bypass at the toe - i dont like that overly insane super high frequency sound of a wide open wah. as for the volume, the sp2 defaulting to 0 makes my volume settings completely useless. is it possible i can just rewire the pedal for reverse polarity, or will that also make the pedal sweep inverted as well?

    a little update...


    just took my sp-1 and rewired it to make an extra sp-2, strictly for experimenting. no matter what i did i could not get the unswitched channel to default to 127 - even if i reversed polarity. i could get the pedal to sweep backwards, but not invert its 'off' state.


    after trying a few combinations, i decided to move onto a different MIDI unit. the KPA and the ground control pro exhibit the same behaviour - 0 value when bypassed. however, my g major 2 processor defaults to 127 when bypassed! from what i have also read it seems the axe fx's do the same as the g major - which is ideally what i'm looking for. any MIDI gurus want to elaborate on why different units will behave differently, and is there a way to rewire these expression pedals so they play nicely the way i want them to???

    Quote from Hedge

    this is exactly what i want to do. i can make my wah bypass automatically by bypassing at the heel position, but i prefer my wahs to bypass at the toe - i dont like that overly insane super high frequency sound of a wide open wah. as for the volume, the sp2 defaulting to 0 makes my volume settings completely useless. is it possible i can just rewire the pedal for reverse polarity, or will that also make the pedal sweep inverted as well?


    Use the "Bypass@Toe" setting of Pedal Mode.

    mr kemper, first off, thanks for a wonderful product!


    unfortunately the bypass @ toe doesn't work with my configuration. my mission pedal defaults to the heel position (CCV = 0) when switched off. bypassing at heel or stop would work, but isnt' how i'd like to use the system, and would also still not help with my volume switching capabilities.


    since i have the master of the KPA in my thread, can you explain why some midi controllable units like the kpa or axe fx default control values to 0 while others default to 127 when you unplug/unswitch expression pedals?

    Quote from Hedge

    mr kemper, first off, thanks for a wonderful product!


    unfortunately the bypass @ toe doesn't work with my configuration. my mission pedal defaults to the heel position (CCV = 0) when switched off. bypassing at heel or stop would work, but isnt' how i'd like to use the system, and would also still not help with my volume switching capabilities.


    since i have the master of the KPA in my thread, can you explain why some midi controllable units like the kpa or axe fx default control values to 0 while others default to 127 when you unplug/unswitch expression pedals?


    Thank you!


    But I'm afraight that I did not get the story yet.
    What exact setting are you trying to achieve?
    What do you mean by "Mission pedal defaults to the heel position"?
    Do you want to use the build in swiches?
    I guess you can go without.
    I assume that you have learned that our "Bypass@ xxx" functions do not require an external switch.

    i am sorry. i am not so great with words, and i tend to ramble! i will try again


    the real issue i'm having is if you have an expression pedal plugged into the KPA, push it down to the 'toe' position (127 value) and then unplug the pedal, the KPA defaults back to a 0 value.


    the not as simple explanation:




    the SP-2 expression pedal has 2 separate outputs. it basically functions
    as 2 expression pedals in one unit. using a stomp switch at the toe you
    can switch back and forth between the pedal's 2 outputs. this in turn connects one output to a potentiometer while disconnecting the other.


    my original
    plan was to use this one pedal for both volume and wah, but not at the
    same time. hookup is easy - one output to pedal 1, and the other to
    pedal 2 on the KPA. in the system/pedals menu on the KPA i can confirm
    that the pedal controls both pedal inputs and values with no problem.
    the issue is when i switch outputs from the pedal. the switch is located
    in the normal toe position that you would expect, so naturally when i
    go to stomp on the switch my control value for that given channel will
    be 127 (toe position). as soon as i switch channels, however, that
    control value drops to zero.




    in other words, if i'm using my volume pedal and i goto switch to a wah
    setting, the volume drops to zero, and if i'm using my wah and switch to
    volume, my wah sound drops to the 'heel' position. ANY expression pedal
    i use functions the same with the KPA if i simply unp




    if i accept this for what it is, that means i can only use my volume for
    a nominal to boost function, and i can only use the wah with the
    'bypass @ heel' option. both of these things are the exact opposite of what i need. i was hoping to use the volume pedal for all the way off @ 0 and normal unboosted level @ 127. the wah i'd like to bypass at the toe, for tone reasons.




    in my experimenting, i have found that some MIDI controllable devices (ground control pro, KPA) exhibit this behavior (CV = 0 @ switch off/disconnect) while others (axe fx, g major 2) do
    the opposite and jump to 127.




    this is certainly not a flaw, just an observation about the KPA. would
    it be possible to implement some sort of feature that would invert the CV's of pedals in their off or unplugged state?

    I am afraid that we will not support this kind of swapping pedal.
    There is a good reason to return to the default value, especially with the volume pedal.
    We've had a number of users unplugging the volume pedal in the zero position. They could not find a way to bring the sound back. At least after powering up those default values have to be set.


    But why don't you use the Wah Pedal Booster for your volume control? You would not need to switch the pedal.

    i was actually playing with the wah pedal booster earlier this evening. it works just lovely for saving me an expression pedal on my board, but it doesnt look like i'll be able to have both the pedal booster and a wah stomp in the same preset to switch between. am i right to think this wont work?

    nice to hear about a sneak peak feature on the controller :)


    i've actually been using the wah booster and the wah combined with the stomp invert to get the job done. works just great, but while we're on the subject i'd LOVE more stomp invert options - like maybe invert only A&B, or B&C, or any other combination. i have to leave my MOD and X stomps blank so they dont invert with my wah/vol setup, but for now that's fine as i don't use mod or x too often.


    thanks again for the help, ck!

    So did you get your sp-2 to work as a wah and volume controller? If so how? I am having the same issue! For some reason when I first plugged in the sp-2 it seemed to work but now I am having the issue with the wah going to tuner mode? Any help will be greatly appreciated!