The Steel Guitar Forum

Sam, thanks for the tube information on my Fender tube amp. James, several people are after me to build a pedal where the top swivels. One person wants the top to control a midi, others want it to simply control tone. I had the guys in my machine shop built a proto type pedal that had a swivel top. The more I looked at the mechanical movement, the more it gave me the "WILLIES". WILLIES--in that I have to guarantee what I make. The more moving parts, the more things that can--and WILL-- go wrong. Maybe this Fall I can do some thinking on it. The movement must be fail free, simple, easy to make, have few parts, and be able to take abuse, and require no service. Now about amplifiers, tube amps, and speakers. You could not get me to build a tube amplfier, or anything that had a speaker. Why--because I know what some people put tube amps and speakers through, and how people expect a manufacturer to guarantee a product. If I was Fender, I would hate to make and guarantee a tube amp at (ANY) price! In my opinion the $1,349.99 price tag is really cheap, considering what Fender has to guarantee and put up with. Just my opinion.
I know you are probably laughing Sam. Another thing Wally, you get what you pay for.

Steve: Yes the fender pedal is alittle stiff out of box. I just lossened the two nut inside alittle and Lubricated the shaft with high grade turbo oil. I also think the fender pedal is a great deal and worth the price. Besides the bag is great.

Frank,

I did loosen the nut and it did the trick. Thanks for the advice.

Now I'm having a problem with the tone returning to full open. I have to do this diagonal thing a few times to get it to return properly. Something must be blocking it so I'll open it up and see what's going on.

BTW don't loosen that nut too much or that ball bearing will fall out. It's only held in place by the pressure of the top of the pedal. I noticed that the old one didn't have the bearing and I bet not many do.

Steve: My Fender Pedal is only volume not treble and bass. The adjustment did not change on my pedal lossing the nuts although these pedals are completely adjustable. Steve just get inside pedal as you said and adjust as needed. Remember only lossen the nuts alittle as I said and lube alittle. Good luck you should do fine. Frank

I have a vintage Fender vol/tone pedal that has been rebuilt and works like new.

Although the side/side tone effect does work, it didn't give exactly the same tone effect as using the pinky on the guitar's tone knob, IMHO. It is a bit of a tone sucker, if I remember correctly.

Another problem I found with it, is that due to the side/side action of the pedal, the pedal itself would rarely rest in the middle. Wouldn't this be the 'zero point', where you would want it? I set my guitar's tone control where I like it, and only use the side/side pedal for the tone change effect.

Why don't two pedals work? One for volume, one for tone? A long time ago I plugged a Dunlop Cry-Baby into the system with my amp, volume pedal, and guitar. The two pedals were sitting next to each other. I know nothing about electronics, but in theory, I thought it would work. Well, it didn't...the timing, the sound...it was so long ago I don't remember exactly why, but that it just didn't work properly.

On many guitars the tone control is not in an optimal place to reach. Even on those that are, I find it awkard to coordinate the pinky move anyway. I would think having a pedal to do it would be simpler.

Wouldn't wiring two pedals to work side by side, be easier than designing a complex pedal (with more moving parts) to do both?

If someone could explain why or why not to me, I'd greatly appreciate it, as I've been wondering about this.

My Fender V/T is in the shop being converted in to a volume/expression pedal. With a good multi-fx unit, it will be put to good use as a wah, mix control, etc.

Jeff, the reason people want these effects both on the same pedal is so they can control both at the same time. If you have two pedals side-by-side, you have to take your foot off the VP to use the wah. Not only do you loose the ability to use the VP for expression when you switch to the wah pedal, but you have to take your foot off of the VP with the volume right where you want it, which can be a little tricky. On the other hand, with them both on the same pedal, it can still be pretty tricky to use them both well at the same time. But hey, if you want easy, you're playin' the wrong instrument.

I played my first show with one last night. What I noticed:
1. I used it with a fender pedal steel (2000), and the tone cut it gives in the middle is actually kind of nice (to mellow the sound a little, because Fenders are high-endy). It definitely made it closer to Chalker's Fender tone.
2. It IS a little tall, and makes it a tight fit under most steels (especially if you wear cowboy boots), but changing where you put the pedal is helpful for both that and using the tone control.
3. the boo-wah sounds perfect, but as previous posts stated, you have to have a very trebly sound dialed in when you have it wide open.
4. The side-to-side is pretty stiff. I loosened the nut, and it helped, but it definitely still takes some effort to move it. The pro of that is that your tone doesn't slip to one side or the other when you don't want it to. The con is that it's not going to be very easy if you're trying to use it like a wah pedal sometimes. (I think it would be really cool to be able to do that, so I'm going to work on it.)
5. the taper on the volume pot is great, in my opinion. There's also a little "all-off" space at the bottom, which makes gutting really easy.
6. during the last set I played last night, the amount of treble-cut I got in the neutral side-to-side position changed. I don't know what happened, but my theory it that I boo-wahed a little too hard, and made the string on the tone-pot slip a little when it reached the end, thereby changing where it was set at neutral.
Overall, I like it a lot.