The British Steelies Society

anyone got a volume pedal for sale?

i went to do some recording last weekend and the engineer said my VP was too scratchy and gave me a Line 6 with an expression pedal on it to use instead . not fun to play with (really short action, small pedal etc) and not a very nice sound either!

so I reckon I need a spare VP so if one starts being noisy I can fall back on the other until I sort it out.

My current one is a Goodrich Low Profile Passive type, which I like cos no mains leads and I've got long legs. But I would be open to active ones and standard height ones.

and if anyone has opinions on the merits of active vs passive etc I would be interested to hear them

does anyone use the Ernie Ball ones? cos I see them coming up on ebay quite a lot

Used one of the old type Ernie Ball pedals for years and found it very reliable. I was going to buy another one recently but I see the new ones have the jack sockets at the front of the pedal instead of the side which I didn't think was a good idea especially if you use a pedal board bracket. But if you can get one of the old ones I'd recommend it as a back-up.

cheers for the info, Roy

Hi Henry, It seems the "scratchy" sound you refer to, sounds to me like the volume pot is to blame, I would suggest replacing the pot before buying another pedal. (£20 against £120 + ) its worth a try!
I had a similar issue and changed the pot, it made a big difference.

Henry, i use the ernie ball vp junior and it's great..the leads do go in the front but if you have l shaped jacks this isn't a problem as they should fit under your pedal bar, and there's no chance of getting tangled up...everyone uses the goodrich but i don't think it's for me..i tried one but the volume swell seemed to be too subtle and as i play with a loud band i like to have as much headroom in the volume pedal as possible...

I don't know about the passive active thing..i think with volume pedals if it works for you and it doesn't ruin the tone of the steel, that is the one...

Hope that helps

Henry - years ago, before Goodrich, Hilton etc. were available in UK, I checked out an Ernie Ball VP, but got a Roland instead - although both were good. It has a wide footprint but I bought it because it is low. It also has (or had!) a "minimum volume" control on it that trimmed the pedal travel to where you like before cutting the sound off altogether (must get that fixed sometime). However, I use quite expensive pots in it and keep a spare one of those.