[claytushaywood]

Disregard the post-buffer Fuzz question I posted...I'm mainly interested in the ability to have vol control for the OBEL if needed.

Throw a passive volume pedal as the first pedal in your obel loop. Visual volume (havent used it but seems likea cool idea) makes a volume pedal that has a bunch of led's for indicating volume level and i believe is meant for adjusting volume more than swells. you can also change the pots in volume pedals or get one with the right pot for adjusting volume and for using after an active buffer.

I think if you really need the ability to just clean up a dirt pedal a bit that would be the best way... and i also like the idea of putting a boost pedal between guitar and amp.

Of course you could get into some multi cable hybrid method- with effects between pre and power amp and in the obel and between guitar and amp. and digital systems allow you to set expression pedals to have precise up position values and down position values of the footpedal volume... like down 6db in the up position or 8db or whatever.

[redeyedjim]

Bumping this thread with a minor question.

I've been a late but fervent convert to germanium fuzz boxes, and have really enjoyed playing with them lately. The resulting tone isn't very "Jerry," but there's something very satisfying about making your guitar snarl, y'know? Just. Too. Much. Fun. Anyway, I've been using a small 25k volume pot/pedal on my board for cleanup, but I think I'm going to take the plunge and add a 25k OBEL volume pot to my guitar, as it would be much easier to manage that way. Is 25k audio taper the correct value for this pot? Anything special I need to know before I do this? (It seems straightforward, but it never hurts to ask.) Apart from Brad, is anyone else using a dedicated OBEL volume pot?

[TI4-1009]

From the wiring diagrams, Wolf, Tiger, and Rosebud all had 25k log (audio) volume pots.

[redeyedjim]

OK, being the impatient person that I am with projects of this sort, I decided to tackle adding an OBEL volume control to my guitar last night after the rest of the family went to bed. I have to say, I am extremely pleased with the results. Even at quiet bedroom levels, I could hear a tremendous difference in my fuzz and distortion tones when using the OBEL volume control. Fuzz and distortion clean up very nicely now, giving me a much wider range of tones to play with while still leaving everything on tap for the Mutron or massive fuzz/OD/distortion when I want it. It's a killer addition to the OBEL setup, and I'd recommend this to anyone with volume sensitive effects like germanium fuzz boxes in their OBEL.

[redeyedjim]

Bumping with Wild Eye's question from another thread, which probably belongs here:

Hey Red Eye,

Can you give some more detail about your OBEL volume pot? I talked about it here ( forum/viewtopic.php?f=309&t=12439 ) plus there were a couple other posts where people had differing results...

Sure, WildEye. I took what I thought was the direct route, just a 25k log pot wired into the send leg of the OBEL circuit, between the OBEL selector switch and the OBEL jack. Here's a quick, crude diagram of the pot, added to MIke Wald's familiar Tiger schematic (and with full credit/thanks to Mike for making such a detailed drawing, which helped me greatly when I did my OBEL conversion last year):



Given how the frames on this site tend to cut off large images, you might want to right click and Save As... to your local drive to see the whole thing.

I thought I was implementing the same solution brad mentioned here:

I've done it a few times and even have it on a guitar currently. You can simply add a "normal" volume pot in your guitar wired up before the buffer. When the pot is on 10, it's essentially like it's not there, full signal to the buffer, and you have a normal OBEL guitar. If you turn down that volume knob, you still have the buffer right there to handle the loop and OBEL functions, but you've turned down the guitar level to hit your overdrive pedal more softly to "clean" it up a bit. You still need the main OBEL master volume pot as usual. It works great.

Brad

Of course, in re-reading that just now I see that I did NOT follow his method (a regular guitar pot controlling buffer input signal strength) and am instead controlling the buffer output volume with a 25k log pot, and then further cutting the buffer output volume with another 25k log pot when it leaves my guitar and feeds my amp. Am I killing my tone by doing it that way? It doesn't sound bad, but then it's late where I am so I can't really crank it above bedroom levels at the moment. Maybe I'd get better tone if I did it the way he suggested and had one signal attenuation before the buffer and one after, instead of none and two? Any thoughts? I feel a little foolish at the moment, but it's nothing that a little solder and a part swap won't fix

[Pete B.]

I bought an 8-loop true-bypass loop strip from LoopMaster. This allows you to run a lot of different combos of effects... I'm still experimenting but, I currently have MuTron Oct-Mu3-Phasor in the OBEL in the first 3 loops. Loop 4 sends the OBEL effects back to the guitar, and receives the guitar output.
Loops 5-8 are post OBEL and Guitar, and in my case are Earthdrive, 25K Volume pedal, and MXR Analog Deley.
So the nice thing is you can completely bypass the whole deal and go direct from guitar to amp, or turn off the OBEL and use your guitar volume to control the Earthdrive input volume, and use the Volume pedal to control the amp input volume. You can completely bypass the volume pedal, or the analog delay.
So with regard to input sensative distortion or overdivre pedals, you can get the grit set right and still control the overal output volume.
The pedal was around $185, and for some reason takes 2 months to make and deliver.

One other observation is that you could run from your OBEL Output to your effects, then instead of running the OBEL back to your guitar, run it to your volume pedal, then on to your distortion pedal and amp (completely bypassing the volume knob on your guitar).
It's fun to experiment.

[redeyedjim]

Thanks, Pete. I have several TB loop strips, but on the whole I keep my effects in the OBEL, though I do have a reverb pedal and a EP-Pre after the OBEL as they sound better there.

The more I think about this, the more I see the wisdom of doing this as Brad suggested and controlling the input volume of the buffer, rather than just its output volume. So I'm going to rewire this tonight as he suggests and see how that sounds. Worst things I'll have to do is rewire it a third time, I suppose

EDIT: My planned change is going to look like this (due to frames you might need to open the image in a new window to see the whole thing):



If anyone else has any thoughts on this I'd love to hear them. Thanks.

[redeyedjim]

OK, I moved the new volume control to the buffer input signal as Brad suggested, and the results are great! Much better tone and control than the 25k pot on the OBEL Send. I'd highly recommend this mod - it really broadens your tonal palette, and not just for ODs and fuzzes.