The Steel Guitar Forum

Can someone please explain the difference between a passive volume pedal and an active one? What are the advantages/disadvantages of each.

With an active pedal, you need to either run it on batteries or a wall wart.
Not required with a passive pedal.
Erv

A passive pedal will affect your tone as you change the volume. Imagine a volume control on a guitar. As you turn it down, you lose some of your high end. This is caused by interaction between the resistance of the potentiometer that controls the volume and the capacitance in the cable going from the volume control to the amplifier. Good volume pedals will add a few components that will counter this loss of high end. My goodrich pedal actually gets a little more treble as I turn it down. But this depends on your cable and amplifier input.

An active pedal will use buffers so that the volume control does not affect your tone. When at low volume, your signal being sent to the amp will have the same frequency response as it does at high volume. Your cable between the amp and the pedal will have no effect.

Some players actually like that slight roll off of the high end that occurs when you back off the volume on a pot pedal. It's not necessarily a bad thing. As Nick mentioned, it's a bit variable depending on your amp, cable, and specific V-pedal. That said, I wouldn't give up on it before you tried it. I personally like it, and a big upside is that I REALLY don't miss yet one more thing to have to plug into power (or carry a spare battery for).

Yeah, volume pedal pots need to be replaced from time to time, but I've got a stash of NOS AB pots that will keep me in biz for as long as I'm likely to keep playing, and good pots last a long time.

I'm in the passive pedal camp...
1). Initial outlay
2). Nothing you can't fix at home vs pedal electronics and power supplies.
3). As mentioned, one less thing to plug in..
My Fender tube amps have a bright switch to compensate for the loss of highs at low volume.

Thanks for the replies....I understand now !

If you put something with a buffer...like a tuner...in the chain before the passive volume pedal, it won't affect the tone...that's what I do with my Moyo...