PART III : REALTIME CONTROL

A Word About the Switchblade Continuous Control Feature

Unlike a simple volume pedal that limits the user to having control over volume at a single specific point in the audio path, (usually the last effect and the amplifier), the Switchblade Continuous Control capability allows the musician the ability (under preset control) to insert volume control not only anywhere in the signal chain but in multiple areas of the entire effect network at the same time. In addition, the sweep of the continuous controller can change the levels of these areas in a "scalable" fashion (where the degree of change is programmable) and with different slopes (one patch increasing while another is decreasing in response to the pedal movement). With this in mind it becomes possible to do things that are not possible with other setups. Two such ideas are crossfading between effects in parallel and the other seemingly impossible task of crossfading between effects that are wired in series. Until the Switchblade, there was no known way to perform this function.

Crossfading Between Effects in Parallel

Crossfading effects in parallel opens up huge areas of live sound control and lends itself to many imaginative possibilities. One of the more obvious examples is simply controlling the amount of distortion in your sound in real time. This setup is similar to the "wet/dry" knob on some effects devices but is under control of the continuous controller pedal instead. The guitar signal is split with one signal going to a distortion effect and the other going directly to the amp. The output of the distortion is mixed with the direct signal. The gain of the direct signal is programmed from maximum gain to minimum gain as the pedal is moved down and the gain of the signal from the distortion is programmed with the opposite slope going from minimum gain to maximum gain as the pedal is moved down. The signal level from the guitar to the distortion is fixed at 0dB. With this arrangement when the pedal is in a full up position only the "dry" direct signal appears at the amplifier and the resulting sound is full clean. As the pedal is moved down, the direct signal begins to fade while the signal from the distortion increases until finally there is no direct signal and only the signal from the distortion is present at the amp.

This simple example can be expanded where both a delay and a distortion are patched in parallel with the output of the delay and the output of the distortion programmed with opposing continuous gain. When the pedal is full up only a clean echo is heard and when pressed downward the echo fades as a non-echo distortion begins to take its place. As you can see this can be expanded to include even more effects for complex crossfading.

Crossfading Between Effects in Series

Sometimes, crossfading between effects in series is preferred to crossfading in parallel, especially when the sounds offered by effects in series is required. Such a case might be placing a distortion and a delay in series. This arrangement (without crossfading) causes the output of the distortion to feed the delay device so that the echos also are distorted (This in contrast to having a distortion and echo in parallel where the initial strike of the string is distorted and all echos are clean). Now suppose you wish to be able to vary the amount of distortion and delay under continuous control and still have the echo follow the amount of distortion that is chosen. The only way to do this is to crossfade in series.

Unlike crossfading between effects in parallel, where the cross gains are simply assigned to the effect signals going to the amplifier, crossfading between effects in series takes some imaginative patching techniques. This unique arrangement is only possible on the Switchblade because it makes use of the distribution and mixing properties of the matrix. The method to do this is to create the following patches:

1) From guitar to distortion with 0dB gain.

2) From guitar to delay with continuous gain from off to 0dB (rising slope).
3) From distortion to delay with continuous gain from 0dB to off (falling slope). 4) From distortion to amp with continuous gain from 0dB to off (falling slope).
5) And finally from delay to amp with continuous gain from off to 0dB (rising slope).

Now when the controller pedal is all the way up, the guitar signal from the distortion will pass directly to the amplifier. The output from the delay to the amp will be off. Hence we have pure distortion with no delay With the pedal all the way down, the signal from the distortion to the amp is off as is the signal from the distortion to the input of the delay. The guitar signal instead directly feeds the delay (clean signal) and the output of the delay to the amp is full on, hence we have clean echo. So far we have the same sound as these 2 effects in parallel. The difference however occurs when the continuous controller is somewhere in the middle. In this case the input to the delay sees both a direct guitar signal and the distorted signal. And the amp sees both the output from the delay and the output from the distortion. The result is distortion with distorted echo with the amount of distortion from both varying with the position of the pedal. A very unique arrangement indeed!