The Steel Guitar Forum

Hi,

In anticipation of receiving my first PSG, I picked up a volume pedal on my way home today. I got an Ernie Ball VP Jr. Looks nice, but as a long time 6 string player I never used volume pedals. As I understand it, it's a must have for most steel playing.

So, I plugged my guitar into it tonight, then into my Deluxe Reverb. Thought it sounded okay, but hmm... let's just see here. Sure enough, plug straight into the amp, and the tone comes to life. Why is this? I don't get it. I have George L cables, nothing too crazy long. Also, I can use either cable, and it sounds great. This is a brand new volume pedal - is Ernie Ball that bad with tone preservation? Again, I'm a volume pedal n00b!

Anyone else experience this? Any recommendations? The store actually had a used Goodrich volume pedal that I originally went there to look at, but it was twice the cost, and as old as me - and it looked it.

Any advice would be great... thanks.

what dave said...

Jeff, part of the issue is that pedal uses a 250k pot like a fender strat so as you turn the volume down you lose the high end, if you replace the pot with a 500k as in a Gibson Les Paul it will improve a lot.
Also using the volume pedal in an effects helps as it is after the preamp however the Deluxe as you know doesn't have an effects loop so changing the pot value would be the cheap solution.

At some point I would consider buying a proper steel pedal, you will appreciate the difference especially in the newer ones with the lower profile.
Take Care, Pete

Pete Woronowski wrote:At some point I would consider buying a proper steel pedal, you will appreciate the difference especially in the newer ones with the lower profile.

Okay, what would a 'proper' steel pedal be? Where can I find those? Do pedals of that ilk not suffer from the high end loss?

Thanks!

Hi Jeff,
Goodrich,Hilton,Linkon,Shobud.
There are pedal's as well that use a photo sensor where it s volume controlled by a light bulb such as a Morley.
Take Care, Pete

Pete is correct - a stock EB pedal uses a 250 KOhm pedal, instead of a 500 KOhm like, for example, a Goodrich 120 or an old Sho-Bud. This presents a lower input impedance to the pickup and generally robs a bit more high end, especially as the pedal is turned down. But even the 500 KOhm pickup does this some.

The other issues with the EB Jr. pedal are

1. It's small - I didn't like the pedal travel when I tried one out for guitar when they first came out. I really like the pedal travel in the old EB full-size pedals, and think they're just great for guitar. I expect one could put a 500K pot in one of these to use it for steel, but have never done it myself.

2. The input and output jacks are in the front of the pedal, instead of the side. This makes right-angle jacks pretty much mandatory for PSG, and I have no clue why they made this bone-headed change. The older full-size EB pedals have the jacks on the side.

Personally, I would take this EB Jr. back and get a passive pedal designed for PSG like the Goodrich 120 or an old Sho Bud pedal. The big PSG dealers like Bobbe Seymour, Billy Cooper, Al Brisco, or Scotty stock them, and they do turn up occasionally here used on the For Sale: Amps and Accessories forum.

There are other options. One is to put an active buffer pedal, which presents a high input impedance and low output impedance, between the pickup and the volume pedal. Brad Sarno's Black Box or a number of other devices do this nicely. These show up in the Amps/Accessories For Sale forum also. Another is to get a Hilton pedal. The upside is that they are active, and don't lose their brilliance at all throughout their range. The downside is that they are quite a lot more expensive and require a running a wal-wart to your pedal. The latter is the only reason I don't use one of these.

Another option, if you have one of several Peavey amps, is to use a 3-cord hookup. There have been a number of threads on this in the past, like this:

http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=134444

Here is a link to Peavey's official explanation on how to do this:

http://www.peavey.com/media/pdf/steelgu ... qpatch.pdf

In simple terms,

1. Plug the guitar straight into the amplifier.

2. Plug the Pre-EQ Patch Send ("Out" on the earlier amps) into the volume pedal input.

3. Plug the Pre-EQ Patch Return ("In" on the earlier amps) into the volume pedal output.

Hope that helps.