Volume pedal control

G

Gas Hed

Member
One drawback that still exists with my love of tube amps is the need to get loud for good tone. For night time playing I need to scale back but I get the fizz tone. I don't have the EV-1 but am wondering if this is a good option for me? Can I get the amp to good tone and scale back with the EV-1 and retain that tone?

Thanks for any tips.
 
I am not sure about the volume pedal as that would just reduce the input signal but what about an attenuator? This would allow the amp to run 'hot' but attenuate the volume going to the speaker.
 
The EV-1 is a great expression/volume pedal. If it doesn't do what you need when it comes to controlling the FX8, nothing will!
 
True, I've flirted with that path in the past, but I've heard people have had reasonable success with volume pedals (which is a much more affordable option). Was wondering how it would work out through the FX-8.
 
Yes you can get good tone at low volume. Just set it up as a global volume pedal at the end of the signal chain. Then you can roll back the EV-1 and not lose the gain from whatever OD/Distortion pedal you've got programmed in. It's like a having a guitar with an onboard effects loop.
 
Gas Hed said:
One drawback that still exists with my love of tube amps is the need to get loud for good tone. For night time playing I need to scale back but I get the fizz tone. I don't have the EV-1 but am wondering if this is a good option for me? Can I get the amp to good tone and scale back with the EV-1 and retain that tone?

Thanks for any tips.
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A decent (tube amp) tone at low volumes heavily depends on whether the pre amp section of your tube amp contributes to the overall tone at a significant level or if your power section does this as well.

If you have a "modern" amp like my Marshall JVM410, you can dial in a decent tone without being loud. This can be purely done with your volume knobs of the amp (no volume pedal needed).

If you have a "vintage" amp (say a Marshall Plexi, where the overall tone is heavily based on a hard driven power section at loud volume levels), there is no way to get a decent tube driven tone at lower volume levels without a good power attenuator (like a Rivera Rockcrusher for example). A volume pedal won't give you with these type of amps any decent tube amp sound.

Of course you always can lower the amp volume and let a distortion pedal do the job to get a distorted tone.
But this is pretty likely a different tone as you will get at normal band volume levels with your tube amp.

Hope that makes sense to you.
 
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Thanks wolbai, it does make sense. I'm starting to think that maybe I should go Axe for the lowish volume home playing I want to do. Does Fractal have a finance option? ;)
 
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