JP Plugin and Whammy With Expression Pedal

Hello there. I recently got John Petrucci plugin. It is a really nice. But I want to ask; can I use a midi expression pedal to make it sound wah, volume and whammy? For example in Periphery - Everything is Fine, we can hear those whammy tricks. Is it possible to make it in JP plugin? And which expression pedal should I get? Thanks a lot!

I would say you can use any expression pedal with MIDI support.

I’m using FCB1010 with Petrucci plugin. Pedals are mapped to the wah and volume. It works like a charm.

I’m not sure what do you think by whammy. Even after listening to Everything is fine. I’m willing to try it and share a short audio sample.

Thanks for the comment @Radek ! Well, what I mean with whammy is making it one (or less) octave up/below. I am not sure if this is the best explanation haha

I see. Well, yes, it’s possible to map to Transpose knob to get at whammy.

Here you are a small sample with Default sound:
Untitled - 21.05.2023 12.02.mp3.zip (266.3 KB)

I used midi learn and it’ll be probably work on every knob in application. As you can see I never used it and I had a certain difficulties to hit exact zero back :slight_smile:

It looks like it’ll be better to map pedal to just one octave or use some other trick.

Thank you! I will get a midi expression pedal and also will write here the process.

Sorry for bothering you again. I just want to make everything clear before I buy something. Well, I have Focusrite Scarlett Solo and Irig Blueboard. Blueboard is a bluetooth midi pedal. And it looks like I will have a “M-Audio EX-P”. How should I connect expression pedal to my focusrite? İrig Blueboad has outputs and I assume that I can connect that expression pedal to the Blueboard?

Boss EV-1-WL Wireless MIDI Expression Pedal is an another option but it’s way expensive than M-Audio.

No problem, I’m glad to share what I’ve found.

You have many questions, I’ll try to describe what I learnt.

You need to connect MIDI to the computer. Usually it’s done via cable.

From the “pedal” to the soundcard for example. Scarlet Solo doesn’t have a MIDI support, you need a higher model. You can find the comparison here - Focusrite | Compare Interfaces - and you’re looking for MIDI input.

With iRig Bluebord you can run this with MIDI over bluetooth. When I explored the possibilities roughly a year ago, there was no support for MacOS so it was unusable for me.

Luckily I was pointed to another option which suits me - WIDI Jack - Wireless MIDI Interface via Bluetooth by CME. I bought FCB1010 and connect it directly to the computer via WIDI Jack. At home I play through Focusrite to the computer (via cables), WIDI is connected to the computer as well (bluetooth, wireless) and it’s used as a MIDI source in Petrucci plugin. And, this solution allows me to play with the band as well. The only difference is I’m playing through the iRig. It works with plugin, pedals are working fine. I’ve found just one issue - it isn’t working in the GarageBand. I do not need it so much so I let it be.

Hopefully it helps, feel free to add additional questions if there are any.

One more thing. If you would like to have awesome whammy experience give it a try for a new Tom Morello plugin.

Or the Gojira plug-in for that matter…