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How To Notate Effects Pedals?


Pickles

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Let's say I was writing a piece for solo elec. violin, and it uses an octaver pedal. How do you put that on the score?

Does the pedal need any real-time activation (Whammy / Wah?) or simply ON / OFF instructions?

If the latter, I would just indicate in plain English: "With Boss OC-2 (or similar), one octave down" with clear ON and OFF written where necessary.

If needing more specific instructions (i.e. Whammy or Wah rocker actuations) use something like: 12px-U%2B2191.svg.png and 14px-U%2B2193.svg.png to indicate pedal positions...

Or (as a quick googling found):

If you want a specific open/closed pattern, I suggest:

+ = open (high sweep)

o = closed (low sweep)

Hairpins are used for long sweeps or slow changes to the effect, for example:

o < +

With the hairpin stretching across however many beats necessary.

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Thanks moderators, the music is straight 16th notes, with every 8th note one or two octaves "under" the main melody, forming a sort of bassline. Should just write "ON" over the relevant notes then or maybe use a down arrow instead?

I tried googling "effects pedal notation" but I didn't find anything with that. Robin J if you could give me a link to that page, that'd be great!

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Thanks moderators, the music is straight 16th notes, with every 8th note one or two octaves "under" the main melody, forming a sort of bassline. Should just write "ON" over the relevant notes then or maybe use a down arrow instead?

I tried googling "effects pedal notation" but I didn't find anything with that. Robin J if you could give me a link to that page, that'd be great!

How fast is this happening? regardless of tempo, I expect it'd be a joyous pain-in-the-donkey to have to click a pedal on-off-on-off-on-off-on-off-on-off-on-off-on-off-on-off-on-off-on-off-on-........At anything faster than really slow it might be impossible....

[perhaps a less strenuous alternative would be to have the effect along with a volume control (or, better yet: a momentary mute footswitch). Have the effect on all the time, but control when it's heard - that way the performer need only put their foot down when the effected sound is needed]

=====

The info I found was written in the comments on this blog post; however, you're right, there's not much to be googled on this.

http://www.musicianwages.com/the-working-musician/music-notation-for-guitar/

From what I've found, there's not really any standardized notation system for electronics and such, so I expect you're best to invent your own and explain it well. Another thing that may work would be to sit down with your musician and ask them: "how would you like this effect notated?".

:dunno:

Good luck!

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