Modify your volume pedal

Michael Frede · From: Sonoita, AZ, USA

I added a 1/8" jack to my Goodrich L120 and connected it between the cold end of the potentiometer and ground.Into this jack I plug in another potentiometer connected as a rheostat and by adjusting this pot I can set a minimum level when the pedal is all the way back.Boy,it sure works a lot smoother now!

jim milewski · From: stowe, vermont

I did something similar, just soldered in a fixed resistor, about 2.2 kohms, so when the pedal is backed off, still a small signal coming through, beats playing with the mechanics of the pedal and reducing travel, the added pot is a great idea

Keith Hilton · From: 248 Laurel Road Ozark, Missouri 65721

Adding a 2nd pot wired as a rehostat to a pot volume pedal is really nothing new. Wiring the 2nd pot as a rehostat is the same as making it a variable resistor. It does alter taper. There are some advantages to having a little sound left on in the off position. It does seem to smooth out playing and volume control--just my opinion. It also seems to help the response of a pedal also--again just my opinion. There are some negative things why almost all the pro players have quit using the 2nd pot. Everyone of the pros I have asked why they quit using this hookup, better known as "THE WELDON MODIFICATION" is they claim they lost highs.
When you first listen,it appears the sound might be a little fatter. When the highs are lost you hear more mids and lows, thus making the sound just seem fatter. In reality all you have done is lost highs. Most people don't realize they have lost highs, because they simply turn up the trebble on their amp. This is like ice cream. Which tastes best, real ice cream or artificial ice cream? Which sounds best high end from a real guitar pickup, or high end obtained artificially by jacking up the trebble on a amplifier? Electronically what kills the high end frequency? It is the capacitance,and inductance in the pot wired as a rehostat. You actually lose "less" highs using a resistor as Jim suggested, because there is much less capacitance and inductance in a resistor. Here is what I suggest you do: Run a straight cord from your guitar to your amp without a pedal. Then listen to the high end. Then, put the volume pedal between your amp and the guitar. Again, listen to the high end. Unless you have high end hearing loss, you can easily hear the difference in high end.
There is a solution to this high end frequency loss, and that is to put a pre-amp between your guitar and your pedal.

Lee Baucum · From: McAllen, Texas (Extreme South) The Final Frontier

Now. If we could just get someone to design such a pre-amp.

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Lee, from South Texas
Down On The Rio Grande

Michael Frede · From: Sonoita, AZ, USA

The phenomenon that Keith is discribing is more common with humbucking P/U's than single coils.This occurs whether or not you have a taper adgusting pot on your pedal.Unless the pot you use is wire-wound,inductance and capacitance of typical wafer type pots is almost nothing(maybe a couple of uH. or pf.)which will have no audible effect at audio frequecies.And yes,I know that putting a taper adj. pot on a volume pedal is nothing new,I was just describing how I did it on my Goodrich L120 because there isn't any room inside that pedal for a pot unless one of the output jacks is removed,and I didn't want to do that.

Keith Hilton · From: 248 Laurel Road Ozark, Missouri 65721

Most simple tone controls on guitars are made from capacitors and/or inductors. The most common tone control on guitars is a varibable resistor, "pot wired as a rehostat", coming off the input and going to a .02uf capacitor to ground. Michael, hook up a 2uf capacitor from your pickup to ground and see what you get. You must of made a mistake with your figures. 2uf is 100 times stronger than a tone control all the way to the bass. The value of the capacitor determines the amount of highs taken off, because the arrangement is a low pass filter. Any capacitance value, even, "pf" values takes highs to ground. Any potentiometer has capacitance. If you will look at the Clarostat "spec" sheet it should tell the capacitance. Michael, it is good to experiment like you are doing. Altering the taper of a POT pedal to the taper you like can have benficial results. That is especially true of the potentiometers coming out of Canada now. They are not the traditional "Log" taper we steel players are used to with the old Allen Bradley Pots.

[This message was edited by Keith Hilton on 22 January 2003 at 11:05 AM.]

Michael Frede · From: Sonoita, AZ, USA

Keith,I made no mistake.I said uH.(microhenry) and pf.(picofarad or micromicrofarad).

Keith Hilton · From: 248 Laurel Road Ozark, Missouri 65721

Sorry Michael, my mistake, you did say uH.

Donny Hinson · From: Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.

I'd like to know how many "pro" players modified their volume pedals. Yes I know Weldon did it, and a few others tried it, as well. But I don't think it's that popular today..is it?

On the matter of lost highs, every steelplayer I've ever seen attenuates his highs at the amp with the treble control. I've never seen even one player run the treble "wide open". I do agree that, if you were boosting the highs as much as you could at the amp (and you still didn't have enough), then those little stray capacitances and inductances in a pedal would be worth worrying about.

I don't go along with modifying pedal tapers, either, unless youre "stranded" with the wrong (non-logarithmic) pot. Too much of this type of "customization" means that (somewhere down the line), you'll sit in on someone else's rig and sound like...well, like you can't use a regular volume pedal.

Been there...done that.

Herb Steiner · From: Briarcliff TX 78669, pop. 2,064

RE: the Weldon Mod.

I have two old Emmons pedals with the Weldon Mod., and I've been using them lately with the old Emmons guitars I play. Yes, you get a bass/mids boost, and yes, the highs are attenuated. Since I most frequently play Evans amplifiers, which have highs that could peel paint, I move my treble control from "2" to "3" and I'm cool running. I do enjoy the boost that the Weldon Mod gives me.

For me, the bottom line is me liking the sound coming out the speaker, my "best" tone... which is not necessarily the tone of the instrument run direct into the amp with nothing in between. Granted, that is the "pure" sound of the instrument, but that might not necessarily be the most "pleasing" sound to my ears. I frequently use digital reverb and delay, for example, hardly the pure sound of the instrument.

All the words above in quotation marks are so marked so as to inform the readers that these are MY preferences ONLY, and that whatever anyone else likes is completely the best for them. Your mileage may vary, and my mileage will probably vary in the days to come.

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Herb's Steel Guitar Pages
Texas Steel Guitar Association

Michael Frede · From: Sonoita, AZ, USA

When I finally got a PSG,I tried using my Ernie Ball volume pedal,but my legs are so long that my right knee was jammed up into the changer.The L120 is just right height-wise but because of it's lower profile the pedal has a much shorter throw which makes for drastic volume changes with very little pedal movement.Adding the taper(or more properly,the minimum level)adj. pot has cured that problem for me and makes the L120 much easier to use.

Donny Hinson · From: Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.

Of course, I'm forgetting myself. When there are physiological reasons (such as Michael's "long legs", or any other sort of a physical handicap) that prevent a player from comfortably adapting to his equipment, it's perfectly alright to modify your equipment as necessary. My words were really meant to caution the majority of players against "willy-nilly" modifications that may hamper their progress down the road.

Herb brings up a good point, too. There are some players who don't like a bright sound, and those players might also benefit from this type of modification. As Paul Harvey is wont to say, I guess I should give the "rest of the story" that explains why I made those statements in my previous post.

Many years ago (mid'60s), I had just got my first pedal steel, a Fender 1000. As I was just learning the pedal steel (and I didn't have the $70 for a factory pedal), I took it upon myself to build a volume pedal. It was made of wood and aluminum, and I designed it with a series of adjustable bellcranks (not unlike those in a pedal steel), so I could alter the travel and "taper".

Stu Basore was playing with Ray Price then, and on one of his tours, he spent the night at my house. The next morning he "showed me a few things" on the steel I had bought from him the previous year. My custom-built volume pedal (which I was quite used to, and proud of, as well) caused him to comment..."Well, it looks cool, but it just feels really weird". I took this to mean "it really isn't very good". (After all, he was a professional "road-player" who had played with Kitty Wells and Ray Price...right?) And so, in a few weeks, I saved up my dollars and bought a "good" volume pedal...the same Fender pedal I still use today. It's served me well, and looking back, I'm glad Stu made that comment, and that I decided to use something little more "conventional".

Kevin Hatton · From: Buffalo, N.Y.

Keith, maybe you can answer this. I put my Boss RV-3 between the amp and the pedal. It preamps the signal and gives it that nice sharp high. Why is it that when I try to connect my Boss TU-H tuner to the other output jack of the pedal to monitor tuning that it results in distortion? If I unplug the tuner from the other jack of the volume pedal, no distortion, just nice and clean. It does not do this when I use the effects loop in the amp for the RV-3 with the tuner out of the second output jack of the volume pedal. I get a clean signal that way.

Jay Dee Maness · From: North Hills, CA

I have used the so called Weldon mod on my Emmons vol pedal for the last 30 odd years. I use a 500k pot for the what we call, "The Bump Pot" It is the same pot that is being used for the volume. I play out of phase so that alone makes my sound a little thinner. So, the BumpPot gives me back my mids. I only run the Bump Pot at about half or less on, never all the way on. I find it very difficult to play live without it. In the studio, going direct, I never use it. If I use an amp to record thru, I do use it.

[This message was edited by Jay Dee Maness on 23 January 2003 at 11:32 PM.]

Keith Hilton · From: 248 Laurel Road Ozark, Missouri 65721

I like what Herb said. By the way,Herb did a great job playing at Scotty's Convention. Kevin, remember that "all" these electronic devices were made for 6 string standard guitar, not steel guitar. I would suppose it boils down to what the input signal strength these devices were designed to best handle. Sometimes it is best to simply experiment by putting them different places in the signal chain. Your ear can tell you more than a bunch of complicated electronic facts. Sometimes these devices are designed for a low level pickup signal instead of a line level pre-amp signal. It all depends on the device. If you split a signal that opens up another can of worms. Splitting a signal off to a tuner essentially puts it in parallel. Putting stuff in parallel is much different that putting it in series. Again, let your ear be your guide.

[This message was edited by Keith Hilton on 22 January 2003 at 09:35 PM.]

Curry Coster · From: Glen Burnie, MD USA

Hi, guys--
Could someone please post a schematic drawing of the "Weldon" mod?
'Preshadit,
Curry

Jay Ganz · From: Out Behind The Barn

You really don't need a schematic.
All you do is determine the IN tab &
OUT tab on your main pot (the other goes
to ground). If your looking from the
back of the pot....IN is on the right,
OUT is in the middle, & ground is on the
left. Run a wire from the center tab
of your main pot to the center of the
2nd pot. Then from the right tab of the
first pot to either tab on the 2nd pot
(depending on which way you want to
turn your 2nd pot to bump up those lows)
Either way will work. Simple enuff, right?

John Lacey · From: Black Diamond, Alberta, Canada

Keith or anyone, is there some kind of solution that any of you have heard to correct the current quality control problem of pots? I've been thru a couple of Clarostats and they are not as clean as I'm used to. They either produce "whooshing" or crackling sounds and they're close to brand new. I've done all the fixes, engaging full travel dozens of times etc and nothing seems to help. I can live with my Goodrich right now for live gigs but it won't cut it if I have to record. I have my Emmons pedal with the Canadian P.E.C. pot in it but it is too unlike what I'm used to, the Clarostat. Also, it's rated at 25,000 cycles as opposed to 1 million cycles (supposedly) in the Clarostat. I'm holding off buying your pedal, Keith, as the cost is quite high with our Canadian dollar. Any answers out there?

Keith Hilton · From: 248 Laurel Road Ozark, Missouri 65721

John, here is the problem with pots, like tubes they are being used less and less. In the case of pots this has caused the price to go up and the quality go down. Clarostat moved production to Mexico for cheep labor. Clarostat is not about quailty they are about making money. Clarostat's quality has went down hill year by year. I don't care what their "spec" sheets claim, the pots they produce are terrible when compaired to the old Allen Bradley pots. JayDee recently told me of several brand new pots that had noise. This can be very frustrating to those that have spent $22.00 to $24.00 for a new pot that has noise. The real problem is that the people selling these pots will not take them back, nor will Clarostat do anything about it. I personally can't get away with selling something with noise. So I can't figure out how the people that sell these expensive pots get away with it? I want to clear up one other thing: I am the one that turned everyone in the Steel Guitar Business to the pots being made in Canada. No one knew about these pots made in Canada until I told a few people. Word then spread like wildfire. So I am the guy who got people using the pots made in Canada. The problem with the pots made in Canada is that the taper is not the same Log taper steel players are used to. The taper is slightly different. A few years back I talked to the pot maker in Canada about making a better taper. They never could get it right so I gave up. Bobbe Seymour probably summed it up best when he said, "It won't be long until pots are a thing of the past". I think he is correct, because price keeps going up,up,up and quality keeps going down,down down. My pedal has no pot and it is not a light beam pedal either.

John Lacey · From: Black Diamond, Alberta, Canada

Keith, thanks for your candor. This is the first definitive answer that I've received about the pot dilemma. I was surprised that you were the one that ferreted out the Canadian pot. At least it offers an alternative. I would like to try out a Hilton before I buy one. I'll have to sniff around here for one. Thanks.

Curry Coster · From: Glen Burnie, MD USA

Thanks, Jay.
Curry

Bob Farlow · From: Marietta,GA,

A note of caution. If your pot volume pedal is designed (and there are some) where the pot rotates counter-clockwise to increase volume, then you MUST use a reverse-logarithmic taper pot.

Jeff Peterson · From: Nashville, TN USA

Hilton pedals make the whole discussion moot.

[This message was edited by Jeff Peterson on 27 January 2003 at 08:41 PM.]

Michael Frede · From: Sonoita, AZ, USA

I suppose that would be true if you could buy a new Hilton for $120.

Keith Hilton · From: 248 Laurel Road Ozark, Missouri 65721

Thanks Jeff! I want a new Ford truck,but I can't afford one. They cost to much.

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