If you lock the potentiometers on your stompboxes, how do you do it?

[HotRats]

Title says it all I guess.

I have some pedals that are set and forget and I put some tape on the knobs to keep them in position.
It works and doesn't bother me at all but I'm curious about other players' solutions, if any.

Currently OCD settings are fixed.
ParaEQ is almost fixed and I want to prevent to accidentally screw it up*.
Boost/Line Driver (used as volume boost in the loop) settings are adjusted a bit based on overall volume and then secured.

*Few days ago I accidentally turned the mid gain knob of the ParaEq all the way up (+15db in the fx loop) mid songs and I though the amp was about to die.
It took me some time to figure out what was going on and was not funny. At all.

 

[newholland]

isnt there a company that makes knobs with a grippy rubber on the bottom you push to the body if the pedal? i know one sells a gear that stays static and grips to another geared knob.

 

[SillyOctpuss]

Get some rubber washers and put them under the knobs.

 

[metropolis_4]

A friend sent me this, I thought this was an interesting idea

 

[mbenigni]

O-rings on the shafts under the knobs, for added friction.

If you buy a bzillion, at least one is sure to fit. (The last one you try, obvs.)

 

[HotRats]

A friend sent me this, I thought this was an interesting idea

View attachment 55799

That's clever!

 

[dronerstone]

Haven't tried, but there's these... https://www.peacepoti.com/

 

[BFRaid]

Haven't tried, but there's these... https://www.peacepoti.com/

I have them on my Wampler. I kept hitting the bottom row of knobs every time I stepped on the switch. They work great.

 

[HotRats]

Haven't tried, but there's these... https://www.peacepoti.com/

I have them on my Wampler. I kept hitting the bottom row of knobs every time I stepped on the switch. They work great.

Nice and elegant, than you.

 

[Sascha Franck]

Pardon my ignorance, but what's this guy doing?

 

[HotRats]

Pardon my ignorance, but what's this guy doing?

View attachment 55833

It's a custom pedal I had made specifically for the silver jubilee.

I have to make premise to explain what it does and why.

The silver jubilee is not a real 2ch amp it's more of a single channel with two modes. It's awesome but might need to be "tamed" if you want to use it live as a 2ch amp or under certain circumstancies, if you will.

As you can see it has a shared input gain and eq.
Then there's the lead master control wich is a volume control for ch2 only and its porpuse is to balance ch2 volume with ch1.

While the amp sounds best with lead master maxed if you max it you don't have room for boosting volume in the loop for solos therefore you have to keep it around 7/8 depending on your needs.

Reducing the range of the lead master control makes balancing Ch1 and Ch2 more difficult, and since the gain is shared, the higher the gain setting is, the more you need to raise the lead master control to balance the volume difference.

tl:dr

Here enters the custom pedal, a pedal that does the same thing I used to do using different pedals when I had a programmable switcher in my board (or within the Helix when using it in 4cm)

The pedal does 3 things:
1. swtich amp channel and turns the red led on when ch2 is selected (like the amp does);
2. activate an active volume control when ch1 is selected;
3. activate an eq when ch1 is selcted;

Pedal is true bypass so when is off is not in the way.

Having an active volume control and an eq makes things more flexible in terms of volume balance and allows me set the amp eq for ch2 and then do eq changes for the clean channel only (I scoop the mids going for a fenderish sound).

I play 95% of my gigs on ch2 and use the volume control for cleanish sounds but in certain songs I use the clean channel or the clean channel with ocd turned on (with gain a 0) just the get some light brakeup (because I set amp gain between 3 and 4, too low for having some brakeup from the amp itself).

 

[Sascha Franck]

I actually kinda thought it'd do something along these lines when I've noticed the switching out. Quite a clever idea, @HotRats!

 

[HotRats]

I actually kinda thought it'd do something along these lines when I've noticed the switching out. Quite a clever idea, @HotRats!

Thank you man.
It all started with my old big board when I added a programmable switcher, the swithcher had a amp control out and allowed me to experiment things that led me to this.

I'm a big fan of custom made utility pedals.

 

[dronerstone]

Thank you man.
It all started with my old big board when I added a programmable switcher, the swithcher had a amp control out and allowed me to experiment things that led me to this.

I'm a big fan of custom made utility pedals.

Couldn't agree more.

That box looks rad, and the builder seems top-notch!

I remember getting in touch with a bunch of folks when I realized I needed a custom build... Joe of JDM was the first to actually understand my idea, and what I got about a month later completely exceeded my expectations.

Whenever people ask me what it is, I realize they somewhat quit the conversation as soon as I begin to explain how it works.

Not complicated for us here, but out there in "the real world" the concept of a loop switcher with a parallel analog octave-up, A/B blend knob, separate volume controls and toggles for high-cut/phase is not getting the appreciation it'd deserve.

 

[HotRats]

Couldn't agree more.

That box looks rad, and the builder seems top-notch!

I remember getting in touch with a bunch of folks when I realized I needed a custom build... Joe of JDM was the first to actually understand my idea, and what I got about a month later completely exceeded my expectations.

Whenever people ask me what it is, I realize they somewhat quit the conversation as soon as I begin to explain how it works.

Not complicated for us here, but out there in "the real world" the concept of a loop switcher with a parallel analog octave-up, A/B blend knob, separate volume controls and toggles for high-cut/phase is not getting the appreciation it'd deserve.

Now we need a picture and a full explenation of what the pedal does and why

 

[dronerstone]

Now we need a picture and a full explenation of what the pedal does and why

JDM "OLST"

Side jacks are in/out
Top jacks are send/return

It's a loop switcher with a built-in "Green Ringer" style analog octave-up:

- loop and octave don't affect each other
- mono input, parallel split/processing, mono/summed output
- "loop" knob controls volume of the loop signal, can act as a boost
- "octave" knob controls octave signal, will get gnarly when pushed
- "blend" knob blends between the two, fully CCW is loop only, cranked is octave only
- "hi cut" toggle dampens treble of the octave circuit
- phase toggle to counteract shenanigans


I realized I'm drawn to drive sounds with just a sprinkle of upper octave, which is what I did in the past with a Boss LS-2, but with all the jacks and cables it was always a PITA trying out new drives and integrating them into the rig, on top of that I got to a point where I used combinations of 4-5 pedals to get 2 or 3 different drive sounds... overkill, imho, and lots of tap dancing.

With the OLST, I just put the drives in the loop and mix in a hint of octave -> DONE :)

Works nicely for raunchy "edge of breakup" even with the drives switched off, since it can boost the loop and the octave's still there.

A stellar and enlightening box, if you ask me!

And Joe's not only a wizard and uber-geekmaster, but also a friendly guy and great communicator with a good sense of humor.

 

[HotRats]

That's sick!

 

[gearJunkie]

phase toggle to counteract shenanigans

 

[dronerstone]

View attachment 55893

Local slang term: "Phasenschweinereien" (German for "phase swineries/piggeries")