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Topic: My affordable potless volume pedal, no moving parts |
James Mayer
From:
back in Portland Oregon, USA (via Arkansas and London, UK)
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Posted 22 Jan 2024 9:28 am |
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I have another recent thread about my Goodrich pot becoming scratchy. I looked through my boxes of gear and found something I had forgotten about, an Electro-Harmonix "Next Step" pedal. I'm guessing it uses the same gyroscope tech that's prevalent in smart phones.
I have the "pan" pedal which can be used for either panning between amps or as a mono/stereo volume pedal. There is a volume pedal version, but the only extra feature there is that you can set the default volume level when you deactivate the pedal (not the same as simply taking your foot off the pedal).
I got this when I was experimenting with stereo pickups and never used it as a volume pedal because it has one obvious problem for steel. If you take your foot off the pedal, it drops to the floor and is at maximum volume. Well, I put a piece of foam under the toe so it stays at about 20% when I lift my foot. I still have enough room to rock it back to zero and pressing into the foam gets me all the volume range that I need. It's actually very smooth, does not color that sound that I can hear and can be calibrated for any range. The rubber on the bottom grips better than any other VP I've had. I actually can't move it by pushing it forward whereas I frequently have to move my Goodrich back away from the pedal bar. I planned to attach the foam to the bottom somehow but I've put several hours into it and there doesn't seem to be a real need to do that.
Anyway, these can be found for $50 used. I think it has a lot of advantages, the main one being that there are no parts to wear out.
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Donny Hinson
From:
Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.
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Posted 23 Jan 2024 6:20 am
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One disadvantage of that pedal design is that it won't stay where you put it, volume-wise. That pretty much leaves out two-footing pedals, or some versatility since using another floor stomp-box requires you to zero your volume. Another downside is that the cables and power cord are always moving when you're using the pedal, and that may shorten their life.
You're free to use whatever you want, but keep in mind that everything breaks down at one time or another. I avoid using powered pedals because the power cube is just one more thing to fail, lose, or to forget to take with you. |
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James Mayer
From:
back in Portland Oregon, USA (via Arkansas and London, UK)
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Posted 23 Jan 2024 10:20 am
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| Donny Hinson wrote: |
One disadvantage of that pedal design is that it won't stay where you put it, volume-wise. That pretty much leaves out two-footing pedals, or some versatility since using another floor stomp-box requires you to zero your volume. Another downside is that the cables and power cord are always moving when you're using the pedal, and that may shorten their life.
You're free to use whatever you want, but keep in mind that everything breaks down at one time or another. I avoid using powered pedals because the power cube is just one more thing to fail, lose, or to forget to take with you. |
Good points.
For it not staying where I leave it when I remove my foot, it's actually a better scenario for my playing than one of the VPs I had before. I've had a Hilton pedal that fell back to the roughly the same spot every time I lifted my foot and I couldn't get it adjusted to do otherwise, so this is an improvement on that as the foam pushes it back to where I want it consistently. I can adjust the calibration for the lower range to be flat on the floor and it returns to just above that, to my estimate of about 20% (I could easily adjust this to be 0%, but that's not my preference). But, yeah, I can't push it to 50% and remove my foot and have it remain there unless I put less foam underneath and made that my default. Also, I only have an S10 3x4 so two-footing is not something I've experienced.
I'm planning on using right-angle cables and securing the cables to the sides of the pedal so there's no flex when using the pedal. The power cable already has a factory installed fastener for this. Hopefully, that prevents the cables from wearing out. In the end, everything fails eventually but this seems lower maintenance than scratchy pots and dealing with strings which made me want to kill myself last time I had to do it.
It's not going to work for everyone, but it is an affordable solution that is very smooth, doesn't walk across the floor and adds no noise to the signal. It even sits about 1/4" lower than my Goodrich and just feels more natural to use. |
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Jon Light
From:
Saugerties, NY
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Posted 23 Jan 2024 11:00 am
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This pedal generated a fair bit of discussion here when it came out.
My bud Stu (deceased) got one, had issues with the free-floating thing, then got a docking shoe that EHX designed to address the issue of the default return to zero rocker behavior of the pedal --- I don't recall if this docker was an original piece of gear or if was a response to complaints. Stu was always looking for anything that was neat and good....hell, me too. But I never heard anything more about this after his first foray.
I see that it's been discontinued since 2020. I think there was a small frenzy in the guitar fx community with accelerometer technology. It still seems like a neat idea but there's a difference between finding an advantage in the technology and just doing it because you can.
Bottom line -- it's working for you. That's a big thumbs-up. |
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James Mayer
From:
back in Portland Oregon, USA (via Arkansas and London, UK)
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Posted 23 Jan 2024 12:13 pm
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| Jon Light wrote: |
This pedal generated a fair bit of discussion here when it came out.
My bud Stu (deceased) got one, had issues with the free-floating thing, then got a docking shoe that EHX designed to address the issue of the default return to zero rocker behavior of the pedal --- I don't recall if this docker was an original piece of gear or if was a response to complaints. Stu was always looking for anything that was neat and good....hell, me too. But I never heard anything more about this after his first foray.
I see that it's been discontinued since 2020. I think there was a small frenzy in the guitar fx community with accelerometer technology. It still seems like a neat idea but there's a difference between finding an advantage in the technology and just doing it because you can.
Bottom line -- it's working for you. That's a big thumbs-up. |
Yeah, they made a dock but I don’t see how it solves anything other than keeping it arranged on a pedal board.
_________________
Modified Emmons GS-10 3X4 and too many iPad apps to list. |
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Robert Parent
From:
Gillette, WY
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Posted 24 Jan 2024 8:25 am
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I also bought one of these several years back. The electronics is great however they totally missed the boat on the mechanical design. After about six months it went into the closet. I might someday machine a mechanical housing that actually works, then it would be a great pedal.
I even traced out most of the circuitry inside just to see how it was designed. It used a MSP430 micro which I had used for several commercial products at a former day job.An accelerometer was also used to generate the position information, which was rather interesting.
Robert |
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