Volume (Swell) Pedal

[dobroman]

Hi All,

I have recently got back into guitar playing, following a break of 40+ years, although I am only playing for my own amusement,
I still like to get it as close as possible to the original, and am gradually building my gear, as finances allow.

I am now looking at a volume/tone pedal for use with volume swell, I was looking at the Fender pedal and wondered if anybody had any experience/advice
on the way to go?

Any help would be much appreciated.

Regards

Brian

[noelford]

Brian, I currently use a Burns Shad-O-Tone, which replicates the effect of the original DeArmond volume and tone pedal but with just the up and down motion, not the side to side. The only downside to this pedal is that it doesn't start from zero volume. Other than that it is an excellent pedal.

I tried one of the Fender pedals last weekend and was impressed. This has both the up and down and sideways motion and does have zero volume start. I may well buy one.

Cheers

Noel

[dobroman]

Thanks Noel,

That was very useful. I had not heard of the Burns Shad-O-Tone, I take it they are no longer made (Google search only resulted in 1 for sale on E-bay for £40).
I have read a couple of reviews on the Fender and they appear to be good, but you never quite know if the reviewer is looking for the same sort of thing that you are.
On another site I read that HBM used the tone control side of the pedal a lot, but certainly tunes like Cavatina and Argentina seem to utilise the volume swell.

I thought the price of £54 seemed reasonable, compared with some of the other units available, and the fact it works from no sound seems like it might be the unit to get.

Anyway, thank you for your response.

Regards

Brian

[Tone]

Hi

I believe a "new and improved" version of the Shad-o-Tone pedal will be available from Burns in the not too distant future.

I had the opportunity to try out an original De Armond 610 pedal last week. It sounded great but I found that combining the vertical and horizontal movements and playing the right note at the right time was quite difficult. I think a lot of practice is needed!

Cheers.

Tony

[noelford]

I had the DeArmod pedal back in the sixties. It was great when it worked but the nylon ratchets on the tone and volume pot needed constant adjusting. The up/down sideways operation was tricky at forst but was quickly mastered. Like riding a bike but without pain when you fall off!

[JimN]

I had the opportunity to try out an original De Armond 610 pedal last week. It sounded great but I found that combining the vertical and horizontal movements and playing the right note at the right time was quite difficult.

The required degree of co-ordination comes with a bit of practice. The trick is always to use the pedal when playing amplified and to keep experimenting. After a while it becomes second nature and you don't even notice you're doing it.

As for the issue about zero volume with the pedal backed off, that is very desirable when the pedal is being used purely as a volume control, but when the volume function is being used as a musical effect, then as David said, the backed-off setting should not be zero volume, as it makes accurate control of a swell much more difficult and hard to gauge. The correct setting varies from pot to pot, but on a Boss pedal, I find that setting the parallel minimum volume control to "2" does the trick. That means that the pedal is still letting some signal through at minimum volume - about the same as the DeArmond does.

I bought a Fender tone/volume pedal a year or so back, and was dismayed to find that it reduces the output to zero when backed off - the more so because it lacks the all-important minimum volume pot which can ameliorate the problem. But Pete Phillips of SMSE came to the rescue, by fitting said parallel pot for me (it is mounted to the tuner output socket, which I don't use)

The news about a proposed new Burns model of the tone/vol pedal is interesting. Will it have the proper two-plane action for volume and tone?

JN

[noelford]

The new Shad-o-tone will be priced at a (literally!) stomping £195. I've just emailed Burns to ask how the Mark 2 will differ from the original.

[dobroman]

There is a demo of the Fender Volume Tone Pedal at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLbe_JW5rEE.

This is a demo of the Boss FV-500H volume pedal at www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlEQ2EyAZdg&feature=fvw.

And you can see how the effect is achieved. Both look good.

Regards

Brian

[noelford]

Just received this reply from Burns regarding the Mark 2 Burns Shad-O-Tone pedal:

...the new pedal will be made in Sweden, not China.
The tone pots are different to the older Shadow-tone and the sound is
improved.

[dobroman]

Still seems a bit on the expensive side, Noel.

Having seen what can be achieved with the Fender and the Boss (on You-Tube) for a quarter of the price, it will have to be a bit special, I think.

I do appreciate that there is a learning curved involved in this.

Thanks for passing that on.

Regards

Brian