passive volume pedal

[musomaniac]

hi everyone , i have a cry baby wah that i've gutted out to make a passive volume pedal


i've tried wiring it up from a few diagrams i found but it won't work , could anyone tell me how to wire it up , much appreciated

[bagudan]

This should work

http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/diagrams/dearm_vol.gif

[Paul Marossy]

This should work

http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/diagrams/dearm_vol.gif

Yeah, that's your basic volume pedal. I would use at least a 250K pot, and if for use with humbuckers, I would go with a 500K or 1M pot.

[pinkjimiphoton]

tie the grounds together, tie input tip to top lug of volume pot, take wiper to tip of output pot, and bottom lug of volume pot to ground.

you probably don't need a treble bleed cap.

100k to 1 meg work well usually...seems to depend on where you put it in your effects chain. if you put it first, do what paul said, and use 250k to 1 meg...
if in the middle of the chain like i run it,  (i run 'em after distortion and before time domain when i use 'em) 100k will often be enough.

[Paul Marossy]

Yeah, true, it does depend on where it is inserted into the signal chain. I put my volume pedal first before anything else, between the guitar and the first effect on the pedal board.

[pinkjimiphoton]

that's what i figured from your suggestion...i use my guitar knobs usually. if ya put it first, it NEEDS to have that big value.
in the middle, 10k would even probably work!!

i hardly ever use 'em anymore, but i cut my teeth using a shobud pedal when i was a kid...was neat, spring loaded...ya just tapped the heel part and it would turn up by itself.

[Paul Marossy]

If you do a lot of volume swells like I do, then the volume pedal is far more efficient. If I just want to turn the volume down a little bit to lessen the strength of the signal actually coming from the guitar, then I'll use the volume control on the guitar. Depends on what I'm doing at the moment. In any case, I mess with the volume a lot.

[pinkjimiphoton]

all comes down to style, bro, i guess.

i'm a turn on the fuzzface and leave it on kinda guy, just turn the guitar up or down as needed.

i'd rather have the volume pedal after noisy stuff, so i can nuke it with a quick stomp...

a fuzzface into a tonebender into a klon can ...ummm...make a LITTLE background noise.

[deadastronaut]

^ hissssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss......

i love my cheapo plastic volume pedal, it even has the seperate adjustable pot under the treadle for setting the min/max...quite handy for instantly cleaning up (backing guitar vol) off...

just kick it back..sorted!..


i would add that to it...a good option to have.. ........not sure if 100k or 1MEGS though...

[Paul Marossy]

all comes down to style, bro, i guess.

i'm a turn on the fuzzface and leave it on kinda guy, just turn the guitar up or down as needed.

i'd rather have the volume pedal after noisy stuff, so i can nuke it with a quick stomp...

a fuzzface into a tonebender into a klon can ...ummm...make a LITTLE background noise.

Yeah, depends on your setup too. My stuff is pretty quiet, so it's not an issue for me to have it before everything else. 

[musomaniac]

wow thanks for all the info guys much appreciated , now heres the thing , i've wired it up as per instructions and it works , but 1) the volume does not go all the way off 2) it seems to suck the living daylights out of my tone seems to make it more cutting and i loss a fair bit of gain , this is with the pedal at the front of my chain.
By the way i use a kramer , ibanez , and esp through a blackstar ht100 head and 4X12 marshall cab , just in case anyone needs to know.  And thanks again for the replies .

[musomaniac]

forgot to mention i have also made sure the pot is all the way off when the heel is down on the pedal , but as i say there is still a lot of volume there .,it seems like it is more of a boost pedal at the moment which seriously sucks my tone 

[Paul Marossy]

wow thanks for all the info guys much appreciated , now heres the thing , i've wired it up as per instructions and it works , but 1) the volume does not go all the way off 2) it seems to suck the living daylights out of my tone seems to make it more cutting and i loss a fair bit of gain , this is with the pedal at the front of my chain.

That's the problem you're going to have using a crybaby shell - not enough "throw". It's only going to give you a volume swell that either doesn't go all the way off or all the way up. You could try a linear pot so that the volume comes up much faster, but it might be a lot harder to control than what you want.

What size pot did you use? Anything smaller than a 250K with single coils & smaller than 500K with humbuckers and you're going to notice it. You could also put a "treble bleed cap" on it. Get a 0.001uF film cap an solder it across the wiper of the volume pot (middle lug) and the outer lug that is not connected to ground. What this does is allows some of the higher frequencies to get through directly to the output when the volume control is turned down. But you still need the right size pot.

[musomaniac]

thanks paul , the pot is 100k audio taper , and the cap is 100pf , i use all humbuckers !!

[Paul Marossy]

thanks paul , the pot is 100k audio taper , and the cap is 100pf , i use all humbuckers !!

Well, that pot is not going to work. It's bleeding all the highs to ground because it's too low of a value for use with humbuckers. Use a 500K or a 1M and that problem will be greatly improved.

[musomaniac]

ok thanks paul i've ordered a 500k and will try that when it arrives 

[Paul Marossy]

ok thanks paul i've ordered a 500k and will try that when it arrives 

You can also get a 1M pot from your local RadioShack and use that. But the 500K you have coming will suffice.