Overdrive Pedal Question

mickie08 · Post by **mickie08** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 7:45 am

Playing around the other day, I was just playing some and moving dial around on my pedasl to try to get some different tones and had an idea...

Can you make a overdrive pedal that operates like a volume pedal. You would still have to have a level control, as well as a tone control.......But if you could walk the pedal up and down to chane the actual gain settings.... Ideally with a light volume increase as the pedal dials forward....

All the way back would be bypass (true bypass of course....)

Being my hollow body loves to feedback, and very actively responds to gain changes...that would be alot of fun.....

gaybear · Post by **gaybear** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 8:12 am

i don't see why not. wouldn't it basically act as a knob?
anyhoo, it sounds like a good idea.

Post by **Mike** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 8:18 am

Yeah you can do that, as gaybear says it's just a variable resistor - it's just not that in demand and fairly pricey. You can buy these "third hand" thingies that clip onto a pot and you use a treadle to adjust the setting

mickie08 · Post by **mickie08** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 8:19 am

I would think so....I am surprised no one makes one that I am aware of. It seems like a perfect idea for noisy feedback stuff (that you can have alot of control over....

Also, if you really like the tone a pedal had, you could use the pedal just to adjust so you could use the same pedal for different sounds without having to get down on the ground and screw around.

mickie08 · Post by **mickie08** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 8:45 am

thanks Mike... I was just curious if they existed. I know it's kind of an odd thing but it would be cool.... particularly if you really liked the tone of a pedal. You could even just do an output that you could control via a standard expression pedal....

ultratwin · Post by **ultratwin** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 11:30 am

Interesting idea, Mickie.

Something tells me that I'm going to have the main techie at Moollon retrofit one of their Wahs to fit the circuitry of a nice dirt pedal or two of choice, within a year or so.

First choice: an OD-3, the main pot heel-to-toe driving the gain. A ProCo Rat would be equally as fun. Imagine the "mild hair" to all-out fuzz you could do a monster fade into. Things could get fun.

Post by **Doog** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 11:40 am

The other option is to replace the gain pot with a 1/4" socket, and plug in an expression pedal with a similar value pot to original gain pot.

Cheapest way would to engineer a simple volume pedal into an EXP pedal, they tend to be a lot easier to mod.

There's the Third Hand, btw.

euan · Post by **euan** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 12:15 pm

Morley do a Distortion/Volume/Wah pedal. Not sure if you can turn off the wah though.

There used to be a lot of 60s/70s fuzz pedals that had a treadle, and I'm sure there were a few distortions as well. Keep watching eBay and you might seem something appropriate.

Post by **Mike** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 12:22 pm

ultratwin wrote:Interesting idea, Mickie.

Something tells me that I'm going to have the main techie at Moollon retrofit one of their Wahs to fit the circuitry of a nice dirt pedal or two of choice, within a year or so. First choice: an OD-3, the main pot heel-to-toe driving the gain. A ProCo Rat would be equally as fun. Imagine the "mild hair" to all-out fuzz you could do a monster fade into. Things could get fun.

I like both ends of the scale on both those pedals a great deal. Could be a lot of fun. Keep us updated

Exothermia · Post by **Exothermia** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 2:39 pm

Gut a broken wah pedal and a distortion pedal. Take your distortion pedal's guts and stuff them into the wah pedal. Desolder the volume pot on the pedal, and solder those leads to the volume pot on the wah pedal. For the other knobs on the pedal (probably tone and drive) drill holes on the side of case and mount them elsewhere if you still need them. Then you're in business. Operating the pedal controls the volume.

Post by **Mike** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 2:42 pm

He wants to control drive, not volume.

Pens · Post by **Pens** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 2:48 pm

Only downside to doing that to a Rat is there is no minimum gain on those, so all the way down cuts out the volume completely. If you were going to mod a Rat for such a thing, I would go Doogs route of putting in an exp pedal jack, and then adding in a series resistor for min gain as well.

As for the overall idea, any control could be converted to a exp pedal. I've always wanted a delay with an exp pedal on the time control, because of the awesome sounds you get from fiddling with the time while playing.

Exothermia · Post by **Exothermia** » Thu Apr 12, 2007 3:27 am

Mike wrote:He wants to control drive, not volume.

You don't know very much about electronics do you...

More Cowbell · Post by **More Cowbell** » Thu Apr 12, 2007 3:52 am

Exothermia wrote:
Mike wrote:He wants to control drive, not volume.
You don't know very much about electronics do you...

*runs for cover*

oh no you didn't. you know who you just called out?

zoinks · Post by **zoinks** » Thu Apr 12, 2007 3:55 am

Exothermia wrote:
Mike wrote:He wants to control drive, not volume.
You don't know very much about electronics do you...

its not going to get purdy.

Pens · Post by **Pens** » Thu Apr 12, 2007 6:02 am

This is going to be fun...I could explain now the difference, but I think I'm just going to let Mike handle this one.

euan · Post by **euan** » Thu Apr 12, 2007 6:40 am

TAKE COVER!

mickie08 · Post by **mickie08** » Thu Apr 12, 2007 8:00 am

Too late to take cover...

Time to kill a small child and assume their identity...Otherwise...You be Fucked......

Post by **Mike** » Thu Apr 12, 2007 8:56 am

Three controls on the pedal - Volume, Tone and Drive/Distortion. Of which Mickie is wanting to control the overdrive by foot, hence connecting the volume pot controls to the wah pot prrrrrobably would be a shit idea, wouldn't it?

Pens · Post by **Pens** » Thu Apr 12, 2007 4:09 pm

That wasn't nearly as nasty as I expected. I came back to this thread expecting an inferno.

Mike in a good mood, or just short on time?