I thought the preamp was a big winner! I tried it out in the Zum room and loved it. I didn't get to use it on stage because Russ wanted to use it on our set. And Russ sometimes doesn't share toys with others... I think this will end the search for the perfect steel preamp.
Yes, they were all using the vol-pedal loop. Not only does that give you the variable impedance and the silent tuning feature, it also give the black-box style tube buffering of the pickup.