Volume/attentuation pedal

PeteM

I have a pedal which was once a fuzz/waah pedal. The innards are gone but the pot activation mechanism is intact. I want to turn into an attenuation pedal between guitar and amp. I have tried putting a 3K pot in there - it works but as it attenuates the tops also reduce dramatically. Can anyone help me? Do I need to it make it active? Is the value of the pot incorrect? Do lengths of cables have an influence etc?

makepeace

try a 500k pot (like a guitar volume control). it will be alike to controlling the volume on your guitar, except with your foot. to retain the eq dynamics you could put a 0.001-0.005 film cap as a treble bleed between the middle and hot lug of the pot.

makepeace

you could also play around with putting a resistor in parallel/series with the cap.

read here:

http://www.bothner.co.za/articles/volumepot2.shtml

PeteM

makepeace wrote try a 500k pot (like a guitar volume control). it will be alike to controlling the volume on your guitar, except with your foot. to retain the eq dynamics you could put a 0.001-0.005 film cap as a treble bleed between the middle and hot lug of the pot.

Sorry, meant to say a 300K pot. Ok, will try a 500K pot. Linear or analogue for a pedal?
So it's the cap that will stop the tops from degenerating.
Value of resistor?
Thanks.

AlanRatcliffe

makepeace wrote try a 500k pot (like a guitar volume control). it will be alike to controlling the volume on your guitar, except with your foot. to retain the eq dynamics you could put a 0.001-0.005 film cap as a treble bleed between the middle and hot lug of the pot.

+1. A 500K LOg. Dunlop makes a really nice, heavy duty pot for wahs. Using a standard wah/volume pedal mechanism, you only get something like 85% of the travel of the pot, so make sure to adjust it to the top of the volume range.

makepeace

yeah, the cap should help.

Alan beat me to it. you should use a logarithmic (audio taper) pot. our ears sense volume change logarithmically, well close to it anyway.

if using a series resistor, try a 130k. if parallel, try a 100k.

PeteM

Alan Ratcliffe wrote Using a standard wah/volume pedal mechanism, you only get something like 85% of the travel of the pot, so make sure to adjust it to the top of the volume range.

Yep, don't need to attenuate too far but obviously need maximum level.
It also has a switch so I will use this to bypass the pot as I will not need it all the time.