Is it me or my amp? TOO LOUD

[Cole Weidenbach]

After 8 months of lap steel, I’ve recently started learning on my new stage one PSG. Loving this instrument and journey, but learning to use a volume pedal has been difficult…sometimes I’ll press a little too hard and it gets SO LOUD in my headphones or the house… Not healthy. Is this normal for y’all and I just need to get better? Is it because my amp doesn’t have a master volume option? Amp is a Dean Markley K-20x. The settings in picture below are not current. I currently have overdrive off and clean at the lowest setting.

[Dave Hopping]

Cole-
It could be the taper on your VP.Ideally the increase in volume should be nice and even over a fairly long throw, instead of going to Warp 9.9 all at once.If you can show a pic of your VP, there are several guys here who can tell you what's possible in the way of adjustments.

[Cole Weidenbach]

My description may have been a little misleading.. My brand new stage one VP has perfect smooth progression from 0 to 100. I went back and was actually able to lower my clean knob a tiny bit right before it cut out. Definitely better than earlier. Is it normal for headphones at 80-100% VP to be “uncomfortably loud” but not “eardrum busting” loud? Because that’s the lowest my amp seems to do. I need to learn to use RKL without moving the VP haha.

[Dave Hopping]

Hmmm..
I wonder what would happen if you went from your guitar straight into the amp,and from the phone jack to your VP in, and from the VP out to the phones.

[Jon Light]

Yes, good volume pedal technique is not easy but it is essential. Full-on volume pedal should be too loud because that's how you get best tone and sustain in the zone where you should be using it -- more in the middle zone (with the higher zones being there for extended sustain as the note decays.

But........what's up with those eq settings? I could make a case for those making the amp super spiky and sensitive to peaks. Why are you diming everything?

[Cole Weidenbach]

Yes, last night I made some great improvement with the volume pedal without blasting my ears. As for the EQ, I’m guilty haha. I’m a beginner and I’ve never noticed that much a a difference adjusting EQ. I read I should set all knobs to 12 oclock and start there. Should I start with a certain knob first to best hear a difference?

[Dave Grafe]

...Is this normal for y’all and I just need to get better? Is it because my amp doesn’t have a master volume option? Amp is a Dean Markley I currently have overdrive off and clean at the lowest setting.

Your photo shows the clean volume past the center, i.e. medium loud. Try leaving it at 10 o'clock max, at least in the house.

Before you worry to much about tone shaping just focus on keeping the pedal halfway or lower and playing with consistent volume. When this becomes automatic you can proceed to the subtleties and they will come more naturally. The only need to push past the middle is to sustain a note, otherwise mid-point and below is where the action takes place when striking a note.

Patience is a lifetime effort, carry on.