Rather than a volume control, could you rig up say a 3 way switch that applies varying degrees of resistance and/or capacitance to the signal from the pickups so one position could be clean, then crunchy then full output? I don’t know if this is possible but I don’t see why it wouldn’t be. You could even make each position adjustable via pot/trimpot. Would certainly take the unpredictability out of it.benadrian wrote: Mon Feb 10, 2025 3:05 pmAbout a year ago I was sick of worrying about gear, so I just decided that I was going to go "no pedals." I set the gain a bit higher on my amp than usual, set my guitar volume to about 7, and off I went. Practices were super fun. I was paying more attention to my playing and "singing." I was just more present overall. I kept this up until the Caterwaul show in May. I just went guitar, cable, backline amp. It was rad. I don't know if I'd EVER done a show like that before. It felt great.Owen wrote: Mon Feb 10, 2025 12:25 pm I don't have any solutions at the moment, but I want to say, I SO wanted to be a guy that just messed with my volume knob to get the right saturation, but failed miserably and was just never happy doing it + felt awkward on stage. I wanted to simplify, but in trying that I just wasn't getting what I wanted. So now my board is basically a tuner, 3 different gain stages (that are all friendly with each other after a lot of trial and error; one of those pedals stays on 90% of the time, leaving me with only two big foot switches to hit), a delay, and reverb. Here's to finding a solution that works for you!
But yeah, like you the volume knob is sometimes unpredictable, and the rhythm sound is a bit of a compromise with the volume at 7. So I went back to my classic setup; guitar amp set for medium gain, an overdrive to push into saturation, and a gate. I roll off the volume to clean up more, but it still seems a little meh. I've since thrown in another overdrive. So I'm kind of doing what you're doing, but there's just no cleanish sound unless I turn down. Your set up also sounds a lot like what Kowloon does as well... the "all boost" pedalboard.
Re: Small questions that don't fit anywhere
2312I've done this, kind of, with a parts Esquire.Nico Adie wrote: Wed Feb 12, 2025 9:02 am Rather than a volume control, could you rig up say a 3 way switch that applies varying degrees of resistance and/or capacitance to the signal from the pickups so one position could be clean, then crunchy then full output? I don’t know if this is possible but I don’t see why it wouldn’t be. You could even make each position adjustable via pot/trimpot. Would certainly take the unpredictability out of it.
Position 1 was pickup straight to jack.
Position 2 was volume and tone in the circuit.
Position 3 grounded the output jack to work as a kill switch.
This gave me two levels, and it worked nicely.
The above sounds like a bit much... but if I'm going to be putting a buffer on the inside anyway, I could definitely make something work. If I do this, I'll need to figure out how to implement it in teh normal control set, or if I want to drill a hole. I don't want to end up with some kind of Frank Zappa guitar.