Volume pedal - to buy or advice

[lebedagirl]

After a decent volume pedal if anyone has anything for sale OR a recommendation for what to buy new. Currently using a Dunlop High gain, which is not particularly smooth and doesn't seem to have much dynamic range.
Thanks!

[Jif]

The Dunlop is a good pedal but not really designed for pedal steel, as you probably know. A dedicated pedal steel pedal has side entry jack sockets which work better for fitting the pedal into your rig. There are a variety of dedicated pedal steel volume pedals out there, essentially either passive or active. They tend to be on the expensive side compared to other types of volume pedal but are worth getting imho.

I'm currently using a Lehle Mono 90 active pedal which I like, you can also buy a fixing bracket for it,

Lehle Bracket.jpg (11.1 KiB) Viewed 1698 times

The pedal is around £229 and the bracket is £59

Here are a couple of pics of mine in situ. The bracket has a swivel on it, so you can position it at an angle which suits.

Of course there are many ranging in price up to the Telonics multi-taper pedal which I believe is in the £700 range? and is available from Mark Dunn on this forum.

My friend Calum and I did a bit of a comparison between 4 pedals a while back, you can view the post here,

viewtopic.php?f=39&t=15471

Then there are low profile and high profile versions, depending on your leg room, a lower profile pedal might work better than a high profile pedal.

I know, too much choice, but I hope that this helps to show some of what is available. Personally I like the Lehle, it works by using a magnetic field sensor, so there is no noise coming from using a pot pedal where the audio signal goes through the pot itself, and the pot eventually degrades over time and requires replacement.

[lebedagirl]

Thanks Jif, that's really helpful. I am short and getting my knees up enough to reach the levers is a little tricky, so I assume something high volume is what I'd want? Thanks!

[Jif]

Hi Lebedagirl, your welcome. Yes, probably a high profile pedal rather than a low profile pedal then. Ideally it would be good if you could try before you buy, to make sure it's a good fit for you, if that's possible. Or have an option to return a pedal if it's not right for you. Is there anyone close to where you live who plays pedal steel who could perhaps lend you a pedal to try?

From memory, the Dunlop pedal is quite a high pedal, did that work for you in height? If so, you could maybe take a height measurement from that and compare it to other pedals for sale online.

[Ted Nesbitt]

Check your PM

[John H]

I have a Lehle and although the price is painful it’s been very reliable and appears to be pretty bombproof. Needs a power supply though which is yet another thing to lug around… I do rate it though.

[JohnDavisStringsHere]

I have a few talk to me.