Old Blood Noise Endeavors Debuts the Expression Ramper

May 13, 2021 · 8 sources

Old Blood Noise Endeavors announced the Expression Ramper, a compact expression controller that hooks up to any pedal with an expression input and moves between two stored settings, either in a single motion or as a continuous, footswitch-activated LFO¹². Guitar World reported that the unit was born out of the brand's own desire for automated expression control, aiming to help players "conjure sounds you never thought possible from any pedal with an expression input"².

The idea is simple: pick one expression setting for the A position, a second for the B position, then let the Ramper travel between them. MusicRadar noted that OBNE said it should suit most effects pedals out of the box, including pitch-shifters, expression-enabled phasers and delays³.

The maker's product page lists what the pedal carries⁴:

• Shape toggle for LFO motion: triangle, square, or one-shot
• Tap switch opening alternate wave shapes: smooth random, sharp random, or one-shot random
• Assignable knob to set A position, B position and LFO Rate
• Footswitch to set the expression output in motion, with momentary or latching operation
• Internal configuration for TRS, TRS reverse polarity and TS setups, with the built-in 50K digipot replaceable by 10K or 100K versions¹⁵

Guitar.com described the three motion modes in detail: Tri mode glides across a linear triangle wave sweep between A and B, Sqr mode uses a squarewave for an instant change, and A<>B mode fires a one-shot sweep that stays put until the footswitch is pressed again⁶. The expression output itself is configurable as TRS, TS or reverse-polarity TRS⁶.

The pedal runs on a 9V DC center negative 2.1mm jack power supply capable of 50mA, not included⁷. MusicRadar reported a launch price of $59 in the US, with the pedal on sale at the time, while Guitar.com said it would be available later in May 2021³⁶. The maker later expanded the line with the Expression Ramper X3, which packs three individual Expression Rampers into one unit, each with its own footswitch plus Tap Out and Tap/Exp jacks⁸.