The Steel Guitar Forum

IMO, the strengths of the NV112 are its durability, flexible EQ, reasonable weight and good price used. I have an older model and my tech says it's very serviceable as well.

It's maybe not the amp for some to get their 'perfect' tone, but I feel like it should be able to get almost anyone to 'good enough' for a gig.

I found I like it most at rehearsal volume but pushing it harder at gigs (running pre and post vol at about 12:00) it just feels a little dead compared to other amps I've used. But those amps tend to be more expensive/heavier/tube based or some other tradeoff.

Thank you so much to all of you for the suggestions. I tried all the amp settings. The active volume pedal is something I will definitely look into. There were some divergent opinions on the Nashville 112 settings but I found something that is much closer to the focused tone I was seeking for the Fessenden SD-10. It is definitely in the ball park of the JD Maness example I sited. And then I changed the strings, which was a no brainer. The tone is immensely better. This forum is really helpful to me as a newbie there are only a handful of pedal steel players where I live and no stores or service. Jerry Fessenden moved away from Vermont which was a couple of hours away and the closest person is Al Brisco who is about a 4.5 hour drive away. I was supposed to go see him last week but we had to cancel because of the Omicron variant. Happy holidays to you all and thanks again for being so helpful.

PS I tried to upload the settings that seemed to approximate what I was seeking. Hope this works

Thanks for posting those settings.

Another thing I hear people talk about for passive vol pedals but I don’t do, is to put the vol pedal in and out of the amp effects loop.

Anyone here using pre or post eq patches on the nv112 like this?

Addressing your VP-in-the-loop question:
https://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtop ... 9d0c6f2381

It’s fun to post old discussions on a topic, to see if maybe some of the authors have changed their minds on it. The points made in this one seem pretty valid to me.

Looking at your settings reminded me -- just from my experience of having the N112 at my house for a few days, I do NOT like the reverb. It reminds me of the verb in the Fender Steel King which I also find unusable. The dwell is much too long and the result, for me is muddiness, no matter how low I dial it. Fortunately there are so many excellent digital reverb pedals available that I consider a good onboard reverb a nice plus but I don't review or rate an amp based on it.

And what about pickups? My general impression is that more modern pickups (1980's and later) generally sound much fuller but tend to lack the punch, clarity and bite of the vintage ones, especially in the upper mids.

Here's mine! Tone wise, Emmons push-pull w/original single coils & Evans FET 500 amp or with a Peavey LTD or Session 400!
Best I've gotten & it's amazingly BIG!!!
Merry Christmas, Pat

John Poston wrote:Thanks for posting those settings.

Another thing I hear people talk about for passive vol pedals but I don’t do, is to put the vol pedal in and out of the amp effects loop.

Anyone here using pre or post eq patches on the nv112 like this?

I should have said in my earlier post that I run my volume pedal in the fx loop of a Katana 100.

I believe if you were to run your VP into the “Post Gain” loop of the NV400, you would get basically the same result I get - simply raising and lowering the volume of your fully-gained / fully-eq’d signal, just like having a VP in a regular fx loop. With the VP in the pre-gain loop, volume and gain will change with pedal movement, as well as EQ to some extent.

Even if you are super mister clean with your signal, a backed-off volume pedal takes some of the hair off the tone. I think some players make up for this by slightly boosting gain and EQ knobs when they run the guitar straight out to the VP ahead of everything else. It also may be a preferred way to have the sound blossom when increasing volume.

There's about 7 other registered from Montreal if you click on "Members" above and enter Montreal, maybe you can borrow a black box or other boosters, volume pedal etc for a half hour. Something like a Klon circuit, Echoplex circuit (Goodrich Baby bloomer has 2, it's great)

And maybe try playing with pickup height and stainless steel strings, try your steel thru other amps... all the stuff that doesn't cost money first.

One bad cable can muddy your tone. Also, high end cables like George-Ls or Dadario DIY can make a huge difference.

I second the opinion that perhaps you have a pickup thats not right for the guitar you have, and the sound you are looking for... What kind of pickup is on the guitar?.

There is a big difference in the response of humbuckers and single coils on some pedal steel guitars...

I agree with Tommy Boswell. I switched all of my cables to George L's (.155) and wow, what a difference! No muddiness at all. I run my guitar directly to the high gain input, Goodrich L10K pedal through the preamp loop and effects through the post loop. My Bass is at 8-9 o'clock, mid 9-10 o'clock, high and presence around 11 o'clock. Those are MY settings for MY guitar and yours will be different. At least my Carter is now starting to get close to the sound of an Emmons Push Pull