Board Games
Adrian Thorpe takes you beyond the volume knob on your guitar as he extols the virtues of the humble volume pedal
THE BACKGROUND ANDY PAULLSON, Via email
I’ve long been a fan of volume pedals, but I’ve a feeling, with some creative pedalboard routing, I could get even more interesting functionality and sonic results out of them. Could you tell me the optimal place or places you could put a volume pedal for ordinary level control on stage? And then suggest some more creative uses for volume pedals in either a big pedalboard or a pedalboard and two-amp rig?
THE QUESTIONS
1 WHAT IS A VOLUME PEDAL – AND WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES VOLUME MAKE TO A ’BOARD?
2 CAN VOLUME PEDALS BE USED IN DIFFERENT LOCATIONS?
3 ARE THERE ANY OTHER USES FOR A VOLUME PEDAL?
THE ANSWERS
Andy, great question. A volume pedal is often a misunderstood beast. Lots of players swear they don’t need one as they can just ride the volume on their guitar. This is understandable to a degree, but, ultimately, it ignores the versatility a volume pedal can bring to your rig.
01
A volume pedal is a mechanical pedal that allows you to control the volume of the input source (the guitar, usually) with your foot. This can be anything from 0 to 100 per cent if it’s a passive pedal, or from 0 to 100+ per cent if it’s active – namely, it contains an electronic circuit that can boost the signal to the output.
Even if you only need some very fleeting volume swells, a dedicated volume pedal can introduce a useful degree of control over your volume that hitherto was unavailable. Using a long travel on a foot pedal is easier to control while you’re playing than the volume control on your guitar, and allows you to control your guitar’s volume for clean. If used before a gain pedal it can be used to ‘clean up’ the amount of drive on tap, meaning you can set a driven sound for rhythm and then swell in the gain for solos. This works particularly well with vintagestyle germanium Fuzz Face pedals (passive volume only).
02
The traditional placing of a volume pedal is at the front of your pedalboard, but they are versatile in that they can be used in other locations, too. Placed at the end of a ’board they can control the output from your whole pedalboard and therefore how much of your effected signal reaches the amp. This is great if you run a stereo rig, as you can have one signal unmolested going to one amp and then you can feed in the other amp as and when required.
Another trick is to use the volume pedal in your amp’s effect loop. This comes after your amp’s preamp and can therefore act as a level control for the amp’s distortion without changing the character of the distortion.
03
Volume pedals are very much focused tools, but there are versions out there that multi-task, such as the new Ernie Ball VPJR Tuner pedal that has a tuner built into the top plate to save ’board space. Others combine volume, wah and expression into the one slice of real estate. One last thing: it’s great to combine a volume pedal in front of a delay pedal or reverb that has spillover engaged. This means that when you roll back the volume on the pedal it creates space for the spillover to occur and do its things.
Volume pedals can be extremely expressive and creative tools, so their placement is vital to getting the most of their abilities. Experiment and enjoy!