Can I use a volume pedal in the FX loop?

The Boogie Board

Help Support The Boogie Board:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

rduval

New member
Joined
May 12, 2015
Messages
2
Reaction score
0
I just bought an F30 Short Head which I'm loving..

I've seen how a slightly modded 1/4-1/4 cable can be allow the FX loop to be used as a master volume with the return pot on the back but I'm wondering if there's a way to do it remotely using a volume pedal? I'd like to leave my settings but be able to change the overall volume from up at my mic stand (since I'm the lead singer also).

Anybody tried this?

Rick
 
Volume pedal in the effects loop. That is a big yes! It is actually a very cool thing to do. It will allow you to have drive at different volume levels. Neat thing to do if, say you are playing a song that goes from Clean and the lead you want to have a drive sound but you want it to be in the back of the mix. It is a pain though as doing the pedal/switch dance always kinda sucks.

I mainly use the volume on the guitar to do this as backing off the volume on the guitar removes some of the highs and you don't have to look down for the pedal location. Tube amps are real cool using the volume that way especially if you are using single coil pickups. Humbuckers not so much as they don't seem to be as reactionary to the volume roll off as single coil pups. Singles give you the entire span of the volume adjusting the tone. With the volume just barely cracked on (in the drive channel) you get from a sparkly clean to over the top drive just using the volume on the guitar.

FYI: Something that came up at my last gig. I have different setups depending on the size of the venue we are playing. On my big rig I have a Mark V with two 2x12 vertical cabinets. The tone from the Mark V is smooth and beefy. The jobs we have been doing have been bigger and I really like the tone of the Mark. Well we did a smaller job last weekend so I took the F30. I always had the contour engaged. The contour basically scoops the mids. Well the F30 is a very bright amp but I wanted a more rich mid push more like the Mark. So I disengaged the contour, adjusted the drive just off of 50% pushed the mids a little about 1:00 O'clock and brought in the highs just a little to about 1:00 O'clock and there is was. Much warmer with big round singing leads.

This also makes transition from clean to drive not so drastic.
 
You need the low impedance type of volume pedal. The high impedance models are for using between the guitar and the amp input.
For example:
Ernie Ball model 6181 is 25K (low impedance).
Ernie Ball model 6180 is 250K (high impedance).
Roland (Boss) makes similar pedals.
 
MrMarkIII said:
You need the low impedance type of volume pedal. The high impedance models are for using between the guitar and the amp input.
For example:
Ernie Ball model 6181 is 25K (low impedance).
Ernie Ball model 6180 is 250K (high impedance).
Roland (Boss) makes similar pedals.

Looking for information. I actually never knew there were different pedals so I looked it up. I have had mine for geeze over 20 years. On the web it says the Ernie Ball model 6181 is 25K Ohm Resistance and it is for Active Instruments and the model 6180 is 250K is for passive. My assumption is 6181 is for active pickups and the 6180 is for passive pickups. As I think the intended use is for the pedal is as you said between the guitar and amp I'm wondering what the difference would be in the effects loop. As I said, looking for information. Can you explain it? The why one would work and not the other. I'm guessing mine is a 250k ohm as active electronics were not around much if at all in 1980 or so when I bought mine. I works fine in the loop.

Here is the exact text:

Ernie Ball 6180 VP JR 250K Volume Pedal For Passive Electronics
Volume Pedal with 250k Ohm Resistance and Micro Taper Switch, for Passive Instruments

Ernie Ball 6181 VP JR 25K Volume Pedal For Active Electronics
Volume Pedal with 25k Ohm Resistance and Micro Taper Switch, for Active Instruments
 
Actually it is not automatically a good thing to use the lower impedance pedal. For one, Mesa loop circuits are generally fairly high impedance, so they can get loaded down by a low-impedance pedal.

Second, the best reason for using a low-impedance pedal is noise, and since the loop is after the preamp gain, the high-impedance pedal won't add appreciably to the system noise.

The F50 loop drive isn't bad, so you might not notice a difference between the two pedals. But you should be looking for significant volume or tone change when you plug it in.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top