external volume knob?

[Stevio]

I would like to move my volume knob "outside" of my guitar. I'm thinking of having a box with a pot in it, that I can dial to whatever volume, with a switch that engages the knob, or that bypasses it. Basically I'd like to be able to play "full up" with the switch disengaged, and "rolled-off" (as if I'd reduced the knob on the guitar) with it engaged. Maybe another way to put it is I want a volume pedal (that's really just a switch) that only has two positions, wide open and - with a minimum volume setting - turned down. Of course I want to be able to adjust that minimum volume.

I would think this should be an easy project, and hoping it involves a case, jacks, switch, and pot, and that's about it. Any advice or pointers to schematics, etc. would be appreciated.

Thanks!
LSL

[petemoore]

  Look I think in layout galleries there is exactly what you've described, a pot wired as a volume control, bypassed with a DPDT switch.
  Or Splice a volume control with a Bypass [circuit fragments] from schematica..
  One end lug of Vpot gets a ground, the other end lug gets a 'switch to input jack tip' wiring. [ie replace circuit in/out to switch parts of chosen schematic with a volume pot]
  The middle lug of the pot goes through the switch to the output jack tip.
  1    4
  2    5
  3---6
  Lug 1 to volume pot input [outside lug opposide the pot's ground connection lug]
  Lug 2 goes to input jack tip
  Lug 3 goes to lug 6
  lug 4 gets pots middle lug
  lug 5 goes to output jack tip.
  Both jacks and one outside lug of the Vpot must have ground connections [that'd be the jack's sleeves].
  If the volume pot is an audio taper, and you visualize the ground connection lug of it by virtually 'turning it down and looking at which lug you're turning it toward...
  It'll work, if the pots action is all scrunched up at one end, reverse the outside lug connections.

[woulfer]

What value pot is recommended? How would one go about figuring that out?

[puretube]

Welcome to the forum, Stevio!

And happy Easter, (if it applies to you...)

you`ll soon receive more answers and suggestions to choose from, for sure...

[chunks717]

100k audio would be my starting point, as thats probably what is in your guitar.
that should go from full volume to nothing...........
if you want less total cut, and easier to dial..try 50k etc.

[Mark Hammer]

A few things to consider: 

First, if you are not going to have the pot on the guitar, you probably want to have a buffer on the guitar to combat the cable you'll have to run to the volume pot on the ground.

Second, people scoffed when J. Everman put one out, but he said his customers asked for it and I believe him: a pot in a box.  Step on the switch and its whatever the pot is pre-set to.  Step again, and it's full volume.

Third, do you really want to NOT have a pot on the guitar?   God gave you a pinky finger for a reason, and it wasn't so you could pretend to be Ringo Starr and wear bling.

Fourth, there are many reasons for wanting to have a secondary volume control.  If your guitar has a different tone depending on the volume pot setting, you may want to leave it there and use another pot to select between different levels of that tone.

Fifth, though a lot of clean boosters are, by default designed to provide unity gain and up, there is no reason why they cannot be modified to provide levels well below unity gain through unity and higher, with the abiity to stompswitch between any two preset levels you want.  One could be below unity and the other higher than unity.  The upshot is that you don't limit yourself to just what your guitar's pot (or a remote pot in a box) can do.

Sixth, chunks717 may have meant well, but guitar pots are generally around 250k (for Fender types) or 500k (for Gibson types).  If your intention is to stick a pot in a  box and hardwire the guitar to simply feed the pickup selector switch to a jack and cable, you will want to mimic that pot value.

[chunks717]

right....like I said..(um)..500k
like in your guitar.
not like in your ds-1
thats 100k audio...fer sure