Sorry Converse, it's been done
June 22, 2016 3:38 PM   Subscribe

 
Untold, or shouldn't have been told.

Anyways, it's still censored, leading me to believe there will eventually be an unrated version or director's cut.
posted by Nanukthedog at 3:42 PM on June 22, 2016 [1 favorite]


The rapid-wah foot wiggle was actually pretty cool.
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:51 PM on June 22, 2016 [2 favorites]


"You stick you're right foot in
And you wah-wah it all about..."
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:52 PM on June 22, 2016 [1 favorite]


I guess I could have included a link to the much buzzed about Converse All Wah sneakers but I just prefer the DIY approach.
posted by Lorin at 4:06 PM on June 22, 2016 [1 favorite]


This video demonstrates it a bit better. But the problem with those is that it takes a rather awkward foot movement to do it, as opposed to the more natural foot-tapping movement of the peday/DIY boots.
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:23 PM on June 22, 2016 [3 favorites]


The sad story of a busted ankle, and for what?
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:30 PM on June 22, 2016


(*clenches, hoping no one asks about his ben-wah pedal*)
posted by ZenMasterThis at 4:30 PM on June 22, 2016 [8 favorites]


The sad story of a busted ankle, and for what?

For rock'n'roll baby, yeah!
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:38 PM on June 22, 2016 [3 favorites]


I wonder if trying to emulate a pedal motion is the problem.

Since the moving part in a wah pedal is a potentiometer, what if the actuating movement was sweeping the foot from side to side, or forwards-backwards. Or use Heelys to be avant-garde.
posted by ardgedee at 6:45 PM on June 22, 2016


I wonder if it's possible to replace the pedal's potentiometer with something like an accelerometer, like they have in smartphones, to measure the tilt of the shoe.
posted by Greg_Ace at 7:16 PM on June 22, 2016


"This video is not available."
posted by Sys Rq at 9:26 PM on June 22, 2016


No accelerometer necessary. There are dozens of schematics available online for "optical" wah circuits. They use an LED (or 12V lamp in the olden tymes) and an LDR (light-sensitive resistor ...or optical sensor if you want to think of it that way) to replace the hard-to-source, and prone-to-failure (or at least scratchiness) potentiometer in golden age wah pedals.

With modern parts, and a break-out cable for power and guitar I/O you can fit the whole circuit into package the size of a wrist watch. It would be a tight fit in off-the-shelf Chuck Taylors, but would easily fit in most thicker-soled skate shoes - even in the toe/ball of foot area. Point the LED and LDR straight down. Recess them both as far as possible, to isolate them optically.

Your foot's distance to the floor now controls the wah frequency!

Since this is the quick and dirty version, I wouldn't expect great results over more than 10mm of range or so. After than I'd expect ambient light will start to interfere, and it'll be less controllable.

If you really want to go crazy though, there are a couple of mods that will up your shoe-wah game considerably: First, replace the LED with an Infrared LED, and the LDR with an Infrared sensor.

These are designed to be used mainly in digital circuits, so while they are power-friendly, they typically aren't great in linear operation. (i.e. a smooth frequency shift) Also, last time I played with them, I found that Infrared sensors were very prone to interference from fluorescent, strobe, and some LED lights.

The solution to these issues is to pulse the infrared LED (check the datasheet, but I remember 1.5kHz or so being ideal) and use a corresponding band-pass filter after the IR sensor. This provides and incredibly reliable, linear shoe-height-to-voltage/resistance value that works on all floor surfaces and light conditions.
posted by Anoplura at 10:12 PM on June 22, 2016 [5 favorites]


This is so exactly the kind of thing my asshole friends would have done in high school. One of them made a bass out of a dead PS2, and part of a bass someone had smashed(and like, a plank of hardwood floor joist). The action was surprisingly good.

When he started hopping around i couldn't stop laughing thinking of all the crap like this that happened.
posted by emptythought at 12:34 AM on June 23, 2016


so uhh ZenMasterThis... what's that now?
posted by numaner at 11:43 AM on June 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


« Older Sometimes I think progress progresses too fast!   |   Could a neuroscientist understand a microprocessor... Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments