CV won't work in place of tap tempo footswitch?

Any questions about the Midronome, technical or not
Post Reply
mike
Posts: 1
Joined: 04 May 2023, 04:11

CV won't work in place of tap tempo footswitch?

Post by mike »

I have an Electro-Harmonix Canyon pedal which has a tap tempo input on it, and I wanted to send the CV/analog clock to it via a cable I bought that's called 'CV Cable' by Revelation Cable Co.. The guy at the store said it'd work with the canyon (they also sell the pedal, and their whole shop is about modular synths and effect pedals)

On the Midronome I have the Analog setup option set to 'On' and it only seems to send a pulse when I disconnect the cable from the Midronome, and it doesn't always work either. The thing is the tempo isn't even the same. Sometimes it's doubled, sometimes it's half, sometimes it's quadruple speed. No matter what number I set An.1 and An.2 to it doesn't change the results much, if at all.

Am I missing something? What do I do? Was the guy wrong?
Simon
Posts: 790
Joined: 09 Jan 2022, 22:08

Re: CV won't work in place of tap tempo footswitch?

Post by Simon »

Hi Mike

I am not sure how the guy at the store managed to sell this to you, but the CV output of the Midronome and the tap tempo input of the Canyon pedal are very different things. Maybe there is a way to make it work, but it definitely is not with a simple cable.

The Midronome ANLG output sends 0V -> 5V pulses.

And the Canyon's "tap" input is clearly described in their manual:
TAP IN Jack – Connect an external momentary footswitch to this 1⁄4” jack
to control the delay time by tapping in a tempo. The external switch should
be normally open. Upon engaging the switch, it should create a short
circuit between the Tip and Sleeve of the plug.
Depending on how the electronics are behind the plug, sending a 5V pulse to a plug like this could either damage the pedal (quite unlikely though), give random results (what you experience), have no effect, or actually work as you want it to (clearly not the case here).

To make it work, you would need a very small circuit (maybe that's what inside that cable the guy sold you?) to convert the pulses into a open/close kind of circuit.

This is very easily done in a Midronome module (little add-ons that you clip on the side of the Midronome) - I suggest you create a topic here viewforum.php?f=11 about making such a module, then either me or the community will help you get something that works :)

Cheers
Simon
Post Reply