H9 Y cable for exp pedals

[Boynigel]

stupid/easy question-  i'm want to use both an expression pedal and a tap tempo pedal simultaneously via a Y cable.  does the male end of the Y cable need to be stereo or mono?

[nickrose]

All ends of the cable are male.

I'm guessing you are talking about the single and double ends. The end with two cables of course must be stereo. If the single ends are stereo plugs with only the tip and sleeve wired, they will work with a wider range of pedals.

[Boynigel]

my plan is to get a short one so that i can custom cut the cable lengths that go between my expression and bpm pedals and the Y.  what i need to know specifically is, what plugs into the H9 itself- a stereo, or mono plug?  i get that they all need to be male.  in my case, i want to have the two ends on the Y be female so that (again) i can custom make the male-to-male plugs that will go from my pedals to the Y cable.  hopefully that makes more sense.  sorry for the confusion.

[gkellum]

What plugs into the H9 itself is a male TRS plug. 

Here's an example of a cable that will work although it's two female into a male, and two males into a male would be the optimal solution:

[pauliusmm]

If i order this stock cable from amazon it should work without modification? Say i plug exp pedal to red side and momentary switch to black side, and stereo plug to h9?

[Boynigel]

that's the same cable i got…well, the Radio Shack version anyway.  got it all hooked up and i still can't get it to work correctly.  here's what i did:   i assigned my expression pedal to "Foot Switch 2 (Ring)", and my (external) tap tempo foot switch to "Foot Switch 3 (Tip + Ring)"  here's what happens:  my (external) tap tempo foot switch only registers tempo if my expression pedal is in full toe-down position.  if the expression pedal is anywhere else, the external tap tempo does NOTHING.  i don't get it.

[gkellum]

boynigel:

that's the same cable i got…well, the Radio Shack version anyway.  got it all hooked up and i still can't get it to work correctly. 

Really? I've been posted links to that cable on numerous forums… It's going to be embarrassing if it turns out not to work…  We'll have to investigate and get back to you about this…

[Boynigel]

i'm not so sure it's the cable because i can flip-flop the expression pedal w/the bpm pedal as to which female end of the jack that they plug into and the problem persists.  my bpm pedal is "normally open".  that wouldn't have anything to do with it, would it?

[nickrose]

There are really too many possible combinations of pedals, switches and cables for us to deal with each one individually. So, we will test a few combinations of cheap and widely available parts, and put out the information.  While we are doing this, here are a few tips:

1) You must use H9 software V4.8 or above. (Didn't work properly before).

2) You must use a Y-cable with a stereo (TRS) plug on one end (goes to H9) and two mono plugs (TS) on the other end. The TS connecting to the tip of the TRS goes to the expression pedal. If you use TRS to TRS, the pedal and switch will interact.

3) You must use an expression pedal rather than a volume pedal. If you use the second, you will find that it goes 0-100-0 as you swing the pedal.  You can turn a volume pedal into an expression pedal by cutting the wire that goes from the pot to the ring connector on the jack.

4) You should use a momentary (non-latching footswitch)

The above pretty much covers it, but more later ….

[Boynigel]

1)  i am running 4.8

2) check

3) i'm using an Ernie Ball VP Jr.  which is a volume pedal by description.  when i sweep it, it DOES go from 0-100, but only on the pedal.  if i monitor the effect on my iphone it sweeps within my set predefined range.  that said, i'm not having issues with the expression pedal.  my problem is with my tap temp button not functioning.  can the volume/expression pedal still be responsible?

[Boynigel]

"The TS connecting to the tip of the TRS goes to the pedal. If you use TRS to TRS, the pedal and switch will interact."

could someone clarify this a bit?  when you say "pedal" are you again reiterating the H9, or are you talking about the expression and bpm pedals?  also- is that last sentence a typo?  did you mean they WON'T interact?

[noladc1967]

the tap tempo needs to be a normally closed circuit . I got one from T1M for cheap .

[noladc1967]

trs goes to H9. tip side goes to expression pedal and ring side goes to aux pedal

[Boynigel]

is there any way to check, other than trial and error, which end of the Y is tip and which is ring?  mine isn't labeled.

[Boynigel]

so if i get a normally closed footswitch, my problem will be solved?  i'm still skeptical given that it's just for tap-tempo.  i'm still dead in the water and want to be sure before i spend any more money on this issue.

[gkellum]

We got a Boss FS-5U in the office today.  I'll try the tap tempo tomorrow with a y cable, and let you know how that goes…

[Boynigel]

how did you make out?  i'm not using the boss pedal.  i've got a momentary normally closed pedal.  it's been 2 weeks and i still can't figure out how to make this work.  i'm using an ernie ball vp jr. pedal for my expression pedal.  i've been using it successfully by itself for quite a while, but ever since trying to use it w/an external tap-tempo it's been a mess.  i use the expression pedal 90% of the time for controlling the mix of my delay presets.  all i want to do is have the external aux pedal be able to control tap-tempo commands that way i can have the H9's tap switch dedicated to scrolling presets.  here's what happens-  i do all my mappings but as soon as both pedals (EXP and Tap) are plugged in SIMULTANEOUSLY, their functions stop.  to be clear- if i unplug the expression pedal, my external tap tempo pedal works, but as soon as i plug in the expression pedal i lose them both.  conversely, if i plug in just the expression pedal, it works until i plug in the tap tempo switch.

my H9 is running on the most recent version, i have the expression jack set to "both", i have the tap tempo switch set to Sw2 (ring).  the expression pedal value is set to Sw1 (Tip).  my cable is a male TRS that turns into 2 female mono jacks that i connect to the expression & tap pedals via short male-to-male patch cables.  

not sure if it's worth mentioning but when i get the tap tempo working by itself, when i tap it, it visually moves the "wet mix" knob through it's range within the split second that the switch is engaged/disengaged.  this is the range that is assigned to the expression pedal.  i'm not sure if it's just a normal glitch, or maybe it gives a clue to solving this puzzle so i figured i'd mention it.

  i stumped and totally frustrated.  can anyone tell me what i'm doing wrong here?  thanks

[gkellum]

boynigel:

how did you make out?  i am stumped and totally frustrated.  can anyone tell me what i'm doing wrong here?  

My colleague, Nick, dug into this issue a bit deeper, and we're going to post a document about this to the website in a few days… But basically, having looked into it, we're not surprised that you're frustrated.  We were surprised ourselves at the range of behaviors we saw from the different expression pedals and switches we looked at…

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