Volume Pedal Pot????

[Canucker]

would it be a bad thing to build a volume pedal with a 100K pot? I have a crappy pastic case volume pedal that i found in the trash (from an organ) and I gutted it ages ago (scratchy as hell)......and I have about fifty 100K high quality volume pots (thank you yard sales!)...I have to dig to locate the stuff so I figured I'd get your thoughts first....cus you guys are always thinking something ;-p Happy Newyears!

[deadastronaut]

i have a cheapo daphon dual in/out vol pedal..(which i intend to butcher one day)

it uses a dual 50k pot..(it has a min/max pot option)

so my guess is yes...try it.

[Mark Hammer]

The wisdom of using such a pot value would depend on where in the signal chain you intend to place it.  You certainly don't want to place it at the start of the chain, between the guitar and any subsequent pedals, since 100k would load the signal down substantially.  Between pedals and amp can work, though.

Many volume pedals out there, that use 50k-100k pots were intended for use with keyboards, and particularly organs.  Keep in mind that, as a guitarist, one has a choice of strumming more softly.  In contrast, if an organ player presses down on the keys, it traditionally didn't matter how hard or soft they pressed; same volume either way.  And if both your hands were busy on keys, then how would you work the volume control?  So, such "swell" pedals would go between the organ and amplifier, whether an external keyboard amp, or on-board power amp.  The organ sound-generating section would have a low-impedance output, such that a 50k volume pedal wasn't loading anything down.

You might note that the old Boss CE-1 Chorus Ensemble had a 50k input attenuator pot, to adjust the input level of what was anticipated to be a keyboard, going into a solid-state replacement for a rotating speaker.  That 50k attenuator was fine for an organ or other electronic keyboard, but tonal liposuction for guitar.