The British Steelies Society

I've just tried a Fender Volume/Tone pedal and came away thinking that the tone control could be more trouble than it's worth for a newby steel player. The chap in the shop told me that he'd had a few problems with the Fender Classic (the none tone version) which may be why it was out of stock. Has anyone on here had or know of any problems with the Fender Classic VP at all? Seems reasonably priced to me, and I don't really want to go for the Tone/Classic version, so it'd be a case of trying to order one in. I was also looking at the Ernie Ball Jr, but as someone pointed out in another thread, the sockets are not in the ideal place
Bryan

Remo
Best advice- play your guitar without the pedal, then plug the pedal in, if it alters the tone noticably, dont buy it.
A volume pedal should do nothing more than raise and lower the volume level by the use of a simple potentiometer (the pot) the tone your looking to get will come from the guitar and amp- not the pedal.
Have you tried looking on e bay or asking on here if anyone has a used pedal? I know we dont always trust used, but not much can be wrong with a used pedal that a £5/£10 replacement pot wont fix.

Definately beware of combined tone/vol pedals, and in some cases, the expensive (very) mains powered pedals, these sometimes alter the tone.

Hope you find what your looking for soon.
Dave.

Dave, thanks for the advice - all noted. I'm going to leave the pedal I tried and will probably now go for something in a slightly higher price bracket - maybe a Goodrich or a Hilton. Must admit, being new to this, I've been quite surprised by how much you can pay for a volume pedal

have to agree with all daves comments there, and in particular to the expensive electronic ones, i had trouble with my hilton, ie cheapo sourced power adaptors, why oh why do these electronic companies produce very expensive pieces of equipment, then supply a really naff power adaptor, also i found the hilton, although cleaning up the sound, to my mind, made it too clinical sounding, i sold mine, and went back to my more organic sounding Ernie Ball pot pedal, with input/output jacks on the side, also Goodrich make an excellent pot pedal, i dont know about the telonics, never tried one, but they are mega expensive, these are just my views of course, im sure others will disagree,
ps. why would anyone need a tone control on the volume pedal anyway??? just adjust the amp

Hi Remo
As Eddie suggests, buy an older Ernie ball with the in/outs on the side. They are indestructabe and not that expensive. I've bought them on Ebay from the states for around £35, some of them even had the old AB pots in them.....wonderful, and it costs around $12 with USPS and I've never paid any duty on them. You can even put an extra jack socket in the side and parallel the input jack to go to a tuner.
Barry

Hi Remo,
I've got the Fender Classic and it works beautifully.
In the store I tried a few of the vol/tone version and they all made crackling noises in operation. Design fault methinks. I also tried a few other big name pedals and they all sucked the top end out of my sound. IMHO without spending a fortune the Classic is the way to go.
Cheers,
Ian

Thanks for all of the replies. Appreciated.
I've now picked myself up a Goodrich L120 - which I'm very pleased with.
Ian, I found the exact same crackling problems with the Tone/Volume pedal that I tried.
Bryan