Volume pedals ?

Emp_Fab

I think I might need one for those situations where I need to adjust the volume up or down without stopping playing.  Ideally, I'd like one that has a centre detent so I can always return to that exact mid-way point if possible, but I suspect they don't exist.

Anyway... why is there such a price difference in them ?  Surely they're all the same, sound-wise ?

boogieman

I’ve got a Morley Volume Plus that has a minimum volume point controlled by a pot, rather than a centre detent. That might do what you want? The preset is footswitchable, so in effect you can get a lead and rhythm preset. The downside is it’s a huge pedal so takes up a lot of real estate on the board. 

Price depends on quality to some extent. The Ernie Ball ones are built like tanks, the Morley one is just pressed steel. You pays your money, etc etc. 

Snags

I've got a Boss FV-50H and am only just learning to get on with it; I keep thinking about chopping it in, but am never sure what for.

Good points: it's unpowered, and you can adjust the minimum/floor setting all the way from "off" to "virtually as loud as full on". The latter function is great if you want to have fine control between "loud" and "louder".

Bad points: there's relatively little resistance in the pedal, so if you have it configured to do "off" to "max" rather than "5 to max" or "7 to max" as above it's far, far too easy to make large adjustments in your volume when you don't mean to.

Halikus

I have a Sonuus vol pedal and i love it, expensive but no mechanincal pots to die and many options for sweep curves as well as haveing some nice bonuses such as a comp filter and tremelo fx.  The non mehcanical sensor with select-able sweep was the clincher for me.

TheBigDipper

Halikus said:

I have a Sonuus vol pedal and i love it, expensive but no mechanincal pots to die and many options for sweep curves as well as haveing some nice bonuses such as a comp filter and tremelo fx.  The non mehcanical sensor with select-able sweep was the clincher for me.

I borrowed a Sonuus from a mate for a few weeks and thought it was great, but too much flexibility and more functionality than I needed. Good design and they're British, you know...  Mostly I've used an Ernie Ball VP Jr in front of the drive pedals. Well built, worked well and didn't obviously colour the tone (but I had a high quality buffer in front of it anyway). 

Gulliver

Maybe try the Truetone visual volume?  No detent but LEDs to show you where you are...

solar

Does it need to be a continuous adjustment or would a single preset point work? Maybe one of these? https://www.vein-tap.com/product/the-leech-guitar-attenuator/

Emp_Fab

Funnily enough, I found a thread by our old friend @monquixote asking the exact same thing from a while ago!

Actually, thinking about it, it doesn’t really need a centre detent.  All I need is something that will allow me to set a minimum and maximum volume and give me the full sweep of the pedal to vary between those two points.  I suppose the maximum setting is probably irrelevant as there seems little point in having a volume pedal that doesn’t give you full volume when it’s on full!

All it’s for really is when I find a combination of effects / patch on my multi-fx is too loud or quiet, or I need a boost for solos, and I’m not going to bend down and turn knobs or fiddle with the amp in the middle of it.  I always run my guitars at full volume on the guitar pot - it changes the tone too much to use it as an actual volume control.

If anyone has a pedal with a minimum volume knob, what happens with the sweep I found you set a minimum volume ?  Do you get a nice, gradual increase over the full sweep from your set minimum to max, or is it that the pedal movement from zero up to the set minimum point does nothing and only when you reach that point does it increase the volume?

JCA2550

Ernie Ball MVP is a pricey, but very useful volume pedal, good range of sweep, positive feel, minimum volume setting and a decent volume boost/preamp. Recommended.

nonesuch

Emp_Fab said:

If anyone has a pedal with a minimum volume knob, what happens with the sweep I found you set a minimum volume ?  Do you get a nice, gradual increase over the full sweep from your set minimum to max, or is it that the pedal movement from zero up to the set minimum point does nothing and only when you reach that point does it increase the volume?

I sometimes use a Boss FV500-H, but usually as a swell effect going from nothing to full volume. However I've just tried the mix/max control, and it does actually produce a smooth volume increase over that smaller range.

Snags

Emp_Fab said:

If anyone has a pedal with a minimum volume knob, what happens with the sweep I found you set a minimum volume ?  Do you get a nice, gradual increase over the full sweep from your set minimum to max, or is it that the pedal movement from zero up to the set minimum point does nothing and only when you reach that point does it increase the volume?

The FV-50H I use does exactly that.  You can set the minimum volume on a wheel (0 - 10) and you then get a smooth sweep from the set "min" all the way up to "max".

With "min" set reasonably high (5+) it's quite usable because the difference isn't too great so if you have elephant feet you won't suddenly knock all your signal out with a tiny movement (of deafen everyone if going the other way).

As above, I find that if you have "min" on 0 to give you a full sweep from off to max then the lack of physical resistance in the pedal means it can be a little too easy to be heavy-footed.

But if you're basically wanting to use it as a more fine-tunable boost switch, and you play with it on your set "min" and kick it up to "max" when required, it's fine, and cheap as chips (or mine was).