Electro-Harmonix Hot Foot

This pedal has no electronic parts. It is a wah-style rocker pedal with a rotating flexible shaft attached. The shaft fits onto a potentiometer control of another effect box so you can "turn the knob" with your foot. Ease of use is limited only by the difficulty of removing the knob you wish to control on the second effect. Some effects do not have enough room for the hardware to attach and make a complete turn.

Real time control of an effect's parameters can give your old pedals whole new sounds. For example: I hook this up to the "manual" knob of an MXR Flanger, and turn the "width" to zero. This gives me the ability to operate the flange sweep by foot, giving a wah-wah type of expressiveness, but with the trippier frequency sweep of a flanger. Hooking up the shaft to the "rate" control of an MXR phase 90 means you can speed-up/slow-down the speed of the phase shifting to match the dynamics of the music as you play. Changing the rate of a tremolo pedal will cause vertigo.This is a very simple idea, but infinitely useful.

The downside of this device is that it is both fragile and awkward. It functions best when the 18-inch flexible shaft is not bent, but straightened out to its full length...otherwise, resistance and slippage occur proportionally to how much it is bent. I don't know where you could ever find replacement parts as they all seem very custom-made and EH is long gone (except for the handful of reissue projects), so I never use it outside of the studio/home because of its rarity.

N/A.......Don't break it!

Shortcomings aside, I love this thing. It's an awesome studio tool. You can fade in effects subtly by turning their mix/depth/level controls, or go for maximum tripiness by controlling rates and sweeps. It makes me wonder why more companies have not released foot-controlled versions of their popular effects. If only they were cheaper or sturdier, so I'd feel comfortable taking it out of the house.