Fender Tonemaster Twin with passive volume pedal.

[Ivan Funk]

Using a passive Goodrich volume pedal into a Fender Tonemaster Twin changes the taper compared to a tube amp Twin.
Any ideas why? Anyone know the input impedance of a Tonemaster?

It doesn't sound or feel quite right. It's like it only has 3 levels instead of a sweep . Jumps from soft to medium to loud. ...or am I imagining it?

I ended up going though a Boss RV6 reverb pedal and it (maybe the buffer?) seems to get things back to a familiar place.
But it's a shame it doesn't sound good with just steel > vol pedal > amp.

[Joe Bill Moad]

Can you switch the wattage selector on the back of the Tonemaster and make a difference? That is if you had it on full power?

Thanks

Jbm

[Ivan Funk]

Interesting idea.
I'll try different setting and see what happens.
Thanks.

[Larry Dering]

I was talking with a friend about how the volume doesn't change much after half pedal sweep. I use a Sarno black box in front of my volume Goodrich passive VP and I really never noticed it that much. He just sold his Tonemaster Twin. I'm on the fence with mine.

[Ivan Funk]

Good points Larry.

I think I figered it out with your guys help:

I mostly play in the within first 15%? of the volume pedal. The rest is only for sustain. So I set the amp eq for that first low position where the pedal rolls off the highs. Then, if I have to play with the vol pedal too far up it get's a bit shrill and there is a point in the taper where it isn't a smooth curve.

Joe had the right idea.
Turns out I had left the amp on a low watts setting for late night playing last night, so today I was unknowingly riding the vol pedal higher up into the crap-tone zone where the taper jumps up, which I usually don't do.

I've used various different buffers between the pickup and volume pedal but I seem to end up going back to just guitar to passive volume pedal to amp as I like how it sounds/feels the best.

Yeah I'm on the fence too. It's nice for the lightweight when loading / transporting to gigs with louder bands but that's about it.

Thanks for the input guys.

[Larry Dering]

Ivan, that's definitely true. I usually run up to the setting just before max and it works fine. I play guitar and steel so I love the amp for 2 channels and it's lightweight. I rarely gig out anymore but it will be the one I take on a gig. The line out is fantastic too so you can run to the PA. Plus you can flip the mute switch and the line out is still active to a mixer or PA.

[Karen Sarkisian]

i tried one this weekend with my hilton pedal similar results. returning it

[Dave Mudgett]

As far as input impedances go - from the Tonemaster Twin owners manual:

INPUT IMPEDANCES Input 1 (both channels): 1 MOhm Input 2 (both channels): 136 KOhm

These are the same as a real Twin Reverb. So that is not the issue.

But yes - if you run the amp in the lowest power mode, then I'm not surprised that running your volume pedal in the bottom 15% of its sweep feels anemic in comparison to playing at, let's say, up towards the middle volume settings of a typical 85-100 watt Twin. Maybe don't run in the lowest power mode and use the volume pedal the way you normally do to control the volume.

The biggest issue I've had with running multi-power-level amps (the ones I've had are not Tonemasters) at their low power levels is that I have never found that the higher-power speakers run at a small fraction of their power rating sound very good. Tonemaster Twin speakers are Jensen N-12K neodymiums, which are each rated at 100 watts RMS, for a total of 200 watts RMS for both speakers. Typical bedroom levels are just a few watts at most, and I haven't found that high-power speakers like this sound good at very low power. My examples were different, but with the same basic issue - high-power amps with high-power speakers run in low-power mode.

Maybe try your late-night playing sessions into a cab with a reasonably efficient and clean but lower-power speaker. I sometimes use the JBL D120F in my '74 Deluxe with low-power amps like a Vibro Champ - they are very efficient, and really don't have a high power rating. Another that I, somewhat surprisingly, found works well clean in low-power amps is the Celestion Vintage 30, and there are a bunch of speakers with more or less this same response.