Lightweight volume pedals?

K2000 · #1 12-09-2010, 02:41 AM

I have a couple of the Ernie Ball (VP and VP Jr.) volume pedals, and they work great. However, they are so incredibly sturdy that they are a little too heavy for me to lug around, with all the other stuff I have to lug around too (sometimes on the subway

)

Does anybody make good volume pedals that are significantly less heavy? Key word being 'good'... I have a lightweight RFX volume pedal which is noisy and not very smooth. The EB's were a definite step up, but I would like to lighten the burden... a lot lighter if possible.

hemoglobinia · #2 12-09-2010, 07:52 AM

A million-dollar question, isn't it?

On the sturdy side of things I have a Korg XVP-1, my favorite, which I vastly prefer over the Ernie Balls. Huge and heavy, it's not transportation-friendly.

There's the EB VP Jr that sits in my current FX board -- small, but much heavier than I'd like it to be.

I still do own a Boss FV-50 or whatever it was called, one of those plastic things. I'm not particularly fond of the action on that thing.

My current compact pedal of choice is a 30-year-old Yamaha MP-01. The "MP" stands for "Mini-Pedal"; the frame is identical in size to other PSE-01 stompboxes from the '80s. The pot on my unit hasn't crapped out on me yet, although I do suspect that replacement would be a hassle. It's an Alps but a double-pot with different impedances, one A- and one B- curve.

K2000 · #3 12-10-2010, 03:44 AM

Thanks for the reply...

Well allrighty then... every once in a while, somebody will post that they are interested in building pedals, and ask for suggestions on what pedals might be useful to build. For Pete's sake, somebody please make some high quality, light weight volume pedals.

Gabeja15 · #4 12-10-2010, 05:22 AM

I cant say if its any lighter, but it is certainly smaller

http://www.morleypedals.com/dmmv.html

Hoover · #5 12-10-2010, 07:29 AM

Somewhere in my gack box I have a ~20 year old Morley volume pedal that was one of their ultra-cheap series: stamped/bent metal chassis, monofilament string attached to a cheap linear potentiometer, looked like it was about the same length as that MiniMorley DMMV that Gabeja15 linked above but even narrower, I probably paid $40 for it new. Weighs nothing. Ironically, I stopped using it when I got the incredibly sturdy Ernie Ball!

**TheMutt** · #6 12-10-2010, 10:01 AM

If you're handy with a drill press (or know someone who is, or who has one) you could bore out some "speed holes" in your EBVP to lighten the load.