Volume Pedal Technique

Andrew Waegel · From: Berkeley CA USA

So I've been playing for about 15 years now and I still don't get the volume pedal. It seems like I have an unbelievably small range of motion between 'inaudible' and 'way way too loud', so I'm always anxious about having to hold the right foot in just the right place, and my playing suffers.

This is hard to practice at home because I only have the problem when playing with a live band.

I have decent equipment (Emmons S-10, Nashville 112, older Goodrich pedal) and I've replaced the pot once, but it was with a new one from Scotty in St. Louis.

Anyone else have this problem? What am I doing wrong? I've tried the approach of turning the amp volume way up, and that just makes things more out of control. Last night I almost got clocked by the bass player in rehearsal for blowing his ears out on a break.

Larry Bressington · From: Nebraska

Try adjusting the rope on the pot inside the volume pedal, i think mine used to be 80% open at full volume,a pot is pretty much wide open in ohms at about that percentage. The pot should not be bottoming out in either stroke, but OFF will be very close to bottomed out.
Just a thought about sweep, as you said you changed the pot!
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A.K.A Chappy.

Earnest Bovine · From: Los Angeles CA USA

Maybe it would be easier if you slide your foot more forward or back.

Ken Pippus · From: Langford, BC, Canada

Assuming that there isn't a mechanical issue, and that the player doesn't have a clue (this is me hijacking the thread for my own issues, but with the same question!), does anybody have any great exercises to help develop facility with the pedal?

KP

Gary Richardi · From: SoCal, USA

I still don't have the hang of the vol pedal so I too would love to hear technique advice in this area.

Ray Anderson · From: Jenkins, Kentucky USA

I am a Newbie and I am doing fair at learning but this volume pedal makes me feel like shaving my Crying or Very sad

beard off. What is the formula(when to swell and at what point?)I know someone has a formula.

Dave Grafe · From: Hudson River Valley NY

While it is an essential part of pedal steel guitar performance technique, using the volume pedal seems to be a major hurdle for many folks - in fact there seems to be a real run on this topic currently here on the SGF Smile

Unfortunately, excercises to develop and improve this technique are seldom mentioned in most of the learning courses. This is not a bad thing necessarily, as most of the excercises for developing picking and blocking dexterity are best done without using the VP (or even an amplifier) at all. Still, if you want to play with other musicians and have an aversion to getting "clocked by the bass player" it is an issue which must be overcome. I'm certainly no master of the art but until we hear from one here are a few relevant thoughts from an old hack with at least one Ernie Ball pedal in his pack-a-seat:

Addressing the primary issue of finding an appropriate and consistent level of attack is a matter of amp settings, environment, comfortable footwear (oh yeah!) and, like most things, practice, practice, practice. What you want to do is find a pedal position somewhere between 1/2 and 3/4 full on that you can quickly and easily return to on the fly, which may require that you use the same footwear whenever you play until it becomes a natural response. While the pedal is in that position reach over and set your amp's volume knob for what is now your MAX VOLUME LEVEL IN THAT PARTICULAR ENVIRONMENT. When you play with a band this amp level is going to be higher than when you play at home (unless you have a monster stereo and understanding neighbors); if you are gigging you will find in fact that different rooms will require different amp levels as well, but in all conditions you want your max level to happen consistently at this particular VP position.

There is a very important reason NOT to set the max volume with the pedal fully on so bear with me here.

Having first found an easily repeatable foot position for a nominal max level, all that remains is to learn to control your attack and sustain as you pick harder or softer, swell into or fade out of audibility, as the music and your creative needs indicate. For this you will apply subtle adjustments moment-to-moment, keeping the overall output musical and appropriate for these moments. Here is the only excercise that I can come up with, hopefully there are others from other sources:

Strike a chord good and hard, with the volume pedal at about 30%; as the strings ring out and your left hand applies a moderate vibrato, slowly push forward on the pedal, trying to keep the volume absolutely the same until the sound of the strings dies out altogether and all you hear is the general noise of the bar on the strings. Repeat this excercise until you achieve some semblance of volume consistency, then try the same thing picking more gently at first, adjusting your foot position to still get the same level as you got when picking hard. Repeat this excercise striking near the bridge; near the center of the neck; with single notes and using full grips, at all times trying to maintain a constant volume. A recording rig with a VU meter can be a real help in verifying that you are in fact achieving this goal. Work on this every day until your foot and your ear make the connection, you forget to think about the right foot and your mind moves on to other frustrations.

I cannot overstate the importance of listening to the masters' recordings, first listening and then playing along with them, and you WILL begin to get the feel of the pedal and learn to understand the mechanical movements associated with recreating what you hear. Above all, keep practicing until you eventually forget that you ever had a problem at all.

Ray Anderson · From: Jenkins, Kentucky USA

Thanks Dave, This a start in the right direction, I'll practice on this. I knew that there had to be a starting place, seems no one will touch on this subject. Let you know how it works out. Thanks again Smile

Andy Zahnd · From: Switzerland

Maurice Anderson told me once that the volume pedal is like a cruise control of a car! And he's perfectly right with ! A good way to practise is to hit a string on a low volume level and trying to keep it sustain as long you can on the same volume level......(hard to explain)
My personal taste is: I have usualy my volume on the Amp wide open(8-10), so I don't work allot with my V-Pedal, but I have alot of reserve on the volume pedal... I personaly think you have the better sound /tone and sustain like that!
Oh Well

just my 1.5 cent

Stephen Cordingley · From: Ontario, Canada

way back when, in his Guitar Player column, Jeff Newman wrote about volume pedal technique
(maybe I can dig out the issue from the basement)
one tip I remember (sorta) involved putting a block underneath the pedal mechanism ... you HAD to play close to wide open ... you couldn't rely on just backing off the pedal to cut off all your mistakes ... I think the point was to avoid excessive pedal movement
I've tried experimenting with the opposite: cranking the amp way up, so I have to use the bottom half of the pedal's travel...I figure I am guilty of letting the pedal stay wide open because it hurts my wimpy legs/ankles to hold the pedal in a raised position.
I don't know if this helps, except that there is a question of getting brain, muscles and ankle to do things that they have never done before (except may be driving a standard?)
sorry if this post is not so coherent, but you get the idea...?

Clete Ritta · From: San Antonio, Texas

Im a new player, and I practice using the volume pedal like practicing harmonics.
Again and again. Shocked

I think of the volume as a compression pedal too.

I find a comfortable level on the pedal as my loud or full volume level that is near but not at the top of the pedal. Somewhere between 60% and 80% lets say is the loudest.
This also gives me 20% or more buffer as compression for really long sustained tones.
I practice doing a progression of chords over and over at my loud level.
Then I swell in the last chord or alternating chords with the volume pedal.
I alter the pedal motion from 0% till I find a swell level that sounds good to me, where I hear the attack. I also try limiting myself to the loud level on top. I rarely need to press the volume all the way down or up using this method.

Swells are one common technique, but watching the really great players, they often move the pedal very little in the opposite direction at first. They move the pedal very little in general! Its those little moves that you hear though that add so much expression to what the hands are doing.

The best part of a picked notes tone is the attack IMO.
It is the first few milliseconds of any sound which enables the ear to quickly recognize the instrument or timbre of the voice.

A swell from 0% has no attack. Thats not to say it has no tone, but it becomes routine very quickly.
So, besides practicing a typical swell, I practice picking at my loud level, then quickly lowering the volume to a comfortable swell level. This technique actually mimics a compressor with slow attack.
The goal is to follow the hands with the pedal starting with a full level attack.
There are an infinite number of ways to use the pedal, and this is just one thing I practice. Im certainly no expert, and these are just my observations. Your ears are your guide ultimately on this one. If it sounds the way you like, thats what matters!

Clete

Emmett Roch · From: Texas Hill Country

You'll get to the point where you don't think about the volume pedal and it just sort of operates itself. It takes time, but you'll get there.

That's the point where you learn when the sound man asks you for your highest volume, you put it where you normally keep it and keep some reserve you don't tell him about so you can use the pedal for swells and sustain. I've had to ask them just to take what I give them and don't be chasing my volume around.
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On Earth, as it is in Texas

Clete Ritta · From: San Antonio, Texas

Bobby D. Jones · From: West Virginia, USA

The one thing you did not mention is how much travel in your pedal does it take to get from no volume to wide open?? This is controled by the diameter of the wheel that goes on the pot shaft. With a small wheel you open volume real fast. With a slightly larger wheel on the pot shaft you will have a slower responce which will give you more control over it. Set the string on the wheel so when the back of the pedal is down solid you can hear your steel low volume. This may be a part of your problem. Good Luck and Happy Steelin

Tim Davidson · From: Glasgow, UK

I have usualy my volume on the Amp wide open(8-10)

Really? What kind of amp are you using - isn't that excessively loud? - i know that with a fender amp anything above three is almost audible in space - maybe my ears aren't up to the job....
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Emmons PP S10, Sierra U12, MSA Universal, D8 Fender Stringmaster 1955, '54 Fender Dual Pro, S8 Clinesmith, Fender Princeton

Andy Zahnd · From: Switzerland

No... not at all... as a example:
Nashville 112 or Nashville 400
Gain 6 Volume 10

You're barely using your V-Pedal....
if you're knowing how to use your V-Pedal... I think that is real easy to work with and you get that tone and sustain, that I love to get!

Try it out!
(The best way... sundaymorning in your house when the family sleeps.... if nobody is mad after.... you got it Laughing

)

Andrew Waegel · From: Berkeley CA USA

Thanks all, good stuff here. I think I'm guilty of moving the pedal around too much, and 'trying too hard' in general.

What I'm going to work on is:
- set amp so that I have the right level for soloing with the volume pedal at about 80%, then back off for comping & fills
- try putting the VP after my Pod XT so the level doesn't affect the nature of the effect so much
- mess with the rope in my pedal a little, or just get a Hilton

Emmett Roch · From: Texas Hill Country

When I first started playing steel, I had a habit of tapping my right foot in time with the music and sometimes my steel sounded like Duane Eddy was playing it...I had more energy back in them days...
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On Earth, as it is in Texas

Barry Hyman · From: upstate New York, USA

The thing that used to make me screw up with volume pedal technique is that we have two methods of volume control on the psg -- right hand and right foot. What I always used to do wrong is pick hard and step on the volume pedal at the same time when I wanted something to be louder. That's just human nature, but sure enough, it would always be too loud.

The cure for me was playing a few four-hour gigs with no volume pedal at all. I quickly started paying more attention to all the volume control possible with the right hand. Since then I move the vp a lot less and concentrate more on getting the right volume by how hard I pick. I haven't had an excessively loud note bite my ear in a while...
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I give music lessons on several different instruments in Cambridge, NY (between Bennington, VT and Albany, NY). But my true love is pedal steel. I've been obsessed with steel since 1972; don't know anything I'd rather talk about... www.barryhyman.com

Clete Ritta · From: San Antonio, Texas

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