Grateful Dead Music Forum

Suppose you ride your volume knob to clean up your od/fuzz type pedals...seems like this ability would be lost with an OBEL. Am I wrong? Is there a way around it?

You could place the dirt after the guitar, so it's guitar>effects loop>guitar>fuzz>amp/whatever. The only problem with this is I don't know if the affected tone coming out of the guitar after the OBEL will hit the fuzz/od differently and change the sound. Dunno about that.

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

Maybe some of you can point out the drawbacks here but i was thinking of just running a good quality volume pedal at the end of my effects chain. No OBEL needed. As i understand it the idea with the OBEL is to hit the effects with the same level signal, so that your envelope filter for example will respond the way you want it to, you can set and forget with the effects and get the same response. The OBEL lets you control the master vol after effects. Well why not just control master vol after effects using a volume pedal at the end of the chain? You can set your guitar volume where you like when using the envelope or dirt pedal and adjust the overall level with said volume pedal.

The thing you don't get when you use the volume pedal is the effects loop bypass switch on the guitar. Yes, you're right, a volume pedal essentially does the same thing as the OBEL by having a master volume control after the effects. I think that it also comes down to ergonomics. It's MUCH easier to exactly fine tune your volume with your fingers on a knob than having to step up to a volume pedal, make sure you have good balance on the other foot, and then precisely dial in exactly the right volume. With the OBEL, you can be standing away from your pedals and back by your speakers, eyes closed, in the zone, and fine tweak your level. If you have to run over to the volume pedal every time you want a micro adjustment in volume, it really is a lot more work than having that knob with you wherever you go. And that loop bypass switch on the guitar itself is VERY handy at times.

As Waldo has helped point out, Jerry's whole sound was very, very dependent upon the fine setting of his guitar's volume knob. He had the whole rig dialed in so that he could travel from totally clean all the way up into that dirty Mac/JBL thing and all with that guitar knob. He seemed to have played much of the time down around 60% or so, and kept that upper range for solos and headroom. Watch the videos, Jer reaches for the volume knob a lot. He would have been 75 lbs. lighter if he had to run over to a volume pedal every time he wanted to adjust level.

Brad

My take on the volume pedal thing... I don't know about the other guys on this board, but most of the gigs in my lifetime have been on stages where you take one step forward and you're speaking into the mic, take one step backward and your adjusting your amp. I've rarely ever had to walk over to my volume pedal, but Jer would have had to, as Brad says.
Also, I cannot "play" and "adjust volume" at the same time without a Volume pedal.
I've played with Volume pedals since 10th grade, so that's part of it too. Having control over the volume the whole time I'm playing outweighs the ergo issues mentioned.
I personally really like having a Volume pedal when using the MuIII. You can match your picking to the Blurp factor sweet zone, and send the amp the right volume.
I like havin' both a Volume on the guitar, and a Volume pedal on the floor as the last control before the amp.
Just Sayin'.

Brad makes some very excellent points of course. It is really great to have control from your guitar. Its also true that where I have been playing there ain't much hope of being out of reach of a volume pedal. I have been trying to keep it real simple with two pedals. An SMS Earth Drive and an envelope filter into an SMS pre, (+ mesa 50/50 and JBL). The SMS stuff sounds so good I don't feel like much else is needed in the way of gear really...

Thanks Brad and all at this forum who put me onto the essential ingredients for the tone...

Yeah, the other thing is, you can have a Volume pedal in hand by sundown, test-fire your idea, and return it if you don't like it.
No mods requiered to your guitar.

Bump

SarnoMusicSolutions wrote: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

Brad,
Did you mistakenly put "OBEL" in the last sentence? If I understand your point correctly, that should read "main master volume pot as usual", right?

And, if I'm correct, on your guitar that has this setup, you simply use the OBEL vol pot as the guitar volume when playing with OD/Dist/Fuzz, right? Do you put the main vol pot at ten, then? It would seem you would dime one and use the other for volume, and vice-versa, depending on whether you're using OD/Dist/Fuzz. ??

Lastly, do these sequential vol pots do anything detrimental in terms of tone or volume?

I think somebody already suggested it, just put the dirt pedal in line w/ the mono cable coming out of the guitar. Just use the pedal in the conventional style while the rest of your fx stay in the fx loop. Or have a couple flavors of drive in the loop so no volume adjustments are needed, just switch flavors.

Thanks Hogan. Unless I'm mistaken...the problem with that is my pedal chain would then be backwards- modulation effects in the OBEL would be before the OD pedals in the guitar->amp line.

It seems to me the OBEL volume pot is the answer. Dime the OBEL vol and use guitar vol for "normal" OBEL. Dime guitar vol and use the OBEL vol as the main vol when using vol-sensitive OD/Dist pedals.

Brad?

Also...does anyone here use Fuzz pedals with a OBEL? Is there such thing as an "un-buffer" device? I'm thinking of throwing a FUZZ in a loop on the very front of my OBEL chain that includes an "unbuffer", if such a device exists.

We're mixing two issues here: (1) not preceding certain effects (like germanium chip fuzz boxes) with a buffered signal; (2) having your effects follow, rather than precede, your guitar's volume control so you can vary the input signal level to them from your guitar.

For a guitar with a UGB and OBEL, both are resolvable. The simplest solution I can think of is to let go of your analog pedalboard and embrace the dark side of digital modeling effects. In my case, I dropped my painstakingl- assembled analog pedalboard for a LIne 6 M13, which is basically 100 or so effects in one box. I insert it into my guitar's OBEL. Nothing in my UGB makes any difference whatsoever to the tone of any of my effects now, fuzzes included (not that I use any with my Dead rig anyway).

If I wanted post-guitar-volume-control fuzz and other similar effects, myself, what I'd do is add a Line 6 M9 or the like between the output jack from my guitar and my amp. The Line 6 units are loaded with models of many different types of fuzzes (+ tons of other effects). Again, none of them give a darn whether the signal they see are pre-buffered by your guitar or not.

A brief concluding response to the readily-anticipateable-on-this-forum comment, "But that's not what Jerry did." Well, among other things, the digital multi-effect units we have today did not exist in his day, plus he wouldn't have faced the post-volume-control fuzz issue because he didn't use one (that I'm aware of). Devices like the M13 and M9 - they're just boxes of rain ...

Thank, Jon...regarding your point #2. A more accurate description would be to have the effects EITHER follow OR proceed the buffer, depending on which vol pot you use.

Also,I have to admit, I've been considering taking the full plunge into digital land and simply getting an AxeFX, ss power amp and a cab with some good PA speakers. That would certainly end all the trouble associated with, well, pretty much everything.

Something still scares me about digitizing the whole shebang, though. I'd hate to drop that much coin and have it sound like my band pressed the return key on Apple's GarageBand

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

I wound up having three dirt boxes in my setup. The first is a MIJ Boss Heavy metal pedal in the OBEL set pretty dirty. Its just a good distortion pedal, seriously. Then I have a boss SD in the OBEL set for kinda hairy, maybe furry. Then, I have another OD on the non-OBEL line for vol knob adjusted OD. It is a pedal on the floor to deal with, but I got what I wanted. It totally cleans up with a vol knob on the amp line. The past two gigs I have experimented with a boost pedal to slam the preamp and I guess in turn the Mac. All good ways to get some dirt/hair that is not too dirty, and I think I like the boost most when we get to play louder than a usual club gig.