The Vintage Goodrich model 120 LO-PRO Volume pedal is probably the very finest Volume Pedal ever made. I base this on so many people's opinions, and my own personal use, & my use or trial of virtually every volume pedal made, except a few 20-30 $ plastic pedals.
I have had the opportunity to play almost everything and owned many. I was 12 when I started teaching myself guitar, having took classical piano and pipe organ for 9 years prior.At 14 I started teaching in a store. Later another store, and then opening my own shop 3 years out of hi school while trying to finish jr. college. This is a bit long, but I hope you will take away some useful Ideas that you haven't heard of before.
Then 1 store became 4, and later the 4 became a superstore. 32 years of Brick & Mortar retail and 10 yrs. online store, I had an accident that was going to take a bit of time to heal.I got shot in the femoral artery in my left thigh. 400ish stitches later, I was alive.Now there is 2 online stores and no brick and mortar.
I tell you all that to qualify my statements of saying I have played virtually every volume pedal. Owned many.But the Ernie ball,Morley,
Visual Sound, Dunlop, & the many that have went thru my shops and my Vintage Business /used to keep 150+ vint. pedals / has given me the chance to try out almost everything./sans perhaps another 50+ on other continents.
The Vintage Goodrich, is still in demand, as evidenced by the fact someone is making black ones-new-for the price I am asking for this Vintage item. Meaning you can play this one for years, and re-sell it, and probably make money, while the new black ones will depreciate a lot.I personally know this pedal probably has a few hundred thousand cycles left on the Pot. This pedal uses the pot that is rated at- a million cycle life. And by the way in the pictures, those areas that look like black smudges on the chrome part are mostly shadows and the bottom base is aluminum, and there are some light oxidation smudges, but if you want it to get shinier, use some metal or silver cleaner. But few people are looking under the top pedal and besides, your foot will mask a lot of those, but the shadow may make some fake ones-my idea-just play it and keep the chrome pretty clean.
This one I thought I must have sold or someone borrowed it. But a place
I was playing, which I had to stop as my Dad & Mom both passed in less than 5 months apart in the mid 90's and I was in my 30's. Alas about three yrs. ago, I was back at the place I was playing then, & they had put the Goodrich up and saved it for me. So its been on vacation since 1995 until about 4 years ago.The pedal was not very old then so it has actually seen very little use.
Until you have used one-you won't understand. If you say, I have a volume pedal but I don't use it much. Well,you probably would use it a lot if you had a great one like this. You can do smoother volume swells and drops than using the knob on your guitar. Its like my first car,a 1966 Pontiac GTO that we re-did and then changed the color to what I picked out, and Dad & I did the paint job and body work-and all that helped me learn to do guitar finishes. The point of the GTO is this-no one needs that power, that sound, or a 4 speed--not at all--but if you got a car like that , you are going to find the floor with the gas pedal regularly and its just 1 of those things you get or just can't get at the time.
I think the most wear on this is the paper decal on the end of the pedal. lol But it has some dings and wear, but you can look at the black pebbled grain surface your foot rests on, and see there is virtually no wear.So use the pictures as a guide to condition, or simply know there are some marks on it.Let me give you some different views on how to use a volume pedal in a guitar set up that are not common.
Also , in the pictures you couldn't really tell that this is a very comfortable lo profile pedal . when you have it rocked all the way back, your heel is sitting 1.5 inches off the floor. So its a very comfortable pedal to use a lot. And its overall mass helps it stay in place in case you don't have room on your pedal board. I never mount my wahs, expression pedals, or volume pedals on a commercially produced pedal board as you have the height of the pedal, and add in the height of the pedal board & you have a very uncomfortable pedal to use--and you will use it sparingly. I mount my volume pedals and wah and any other long pedal on a 6 or 7 space blank rack filler panel. then they are sitting literally on the floor and you can get 4 full size long pedals on this aux. Long Pedal 'pedal board' . If you want it angled, use the 2 rack screw holes on each side and make it angle up by attaching it to [2] angled strips of wood. & you can set it at an angle to your main pedal board and its very comfortable to use and only 19 inches wide of course.
Now, you don't need to read anymore. The rest of this is to challenge you to think.Besides the obvious use when placed in front of the amp-meaning if you have an amp with a hi gain amp or use mostly pedals for your sound, you can set the amp clean and turn yourself up when its lead time or you have some snippets you add while playing live or even in the studio. If you play out live and have a soundman, lazy or not, something will possibly distract him or your not his favorite person, so he doesn't turn you up when he should, well now you have an edge, you can do a little tweaking yourself. Just don't ever have your pedal or your guitar wide open, so you can control what happens out front. also if your guitar is in the monitors, or ears, keep yourself a little weak in the monitor mix or you will run band members away from the monitors or knock your ears for a whack because you get too loud when you turn yourself up. OK here are more ideas.
1. Put a passive volume pedal in your efx loop of your amp. Active pedals can induce noise or sometimes a pop. this is an optimal place for a volume control, because you can control how loud you get and since your pedal is in line between the pre-amp tubes and power amp tubes, you can experiment with how hard you want to hit the power amp tubes with the volume of the preamp via a passive volume pedal. Lots of amps,in the efx loop area, have a volume control in and another out,as a lot of guys will use some modulation effects--Delay, reverb, etc in their loop.
Keep the loop in mind, because that is where we are headed again. So we all know a delay and Reverb-uses the input signal to drive the effect in the loop. My Boogies have pre and post volume knobs on the loop. If we turn down -basically anywhere we may get a little less delay, or a little less reverb than we would want. Be it the guitar volume control or what every, the depth of efx in the loop can change if you turn down. Some amps may keep the voltage to the loop stable, but maybe you don't want as much verb, or short delay on every song.
So try this. Put a volume control pedal before your efx that are running in the loop. This will allow you to change the volume /voltage/ that hits your efx processor or pedal that you use in the
loop- and this can give you the control over your efx unit. Pull the pedal back and you get less reverb , rock it down for more reverb / or delay or chorus or all 3. You are now in control of the sensitivity of your efx unit and you have so much control --that you never dreamed of. Yes its a little more thinking and work, but it doesn't hurt us to work a little more for the money we may get paid. Being truthful, a lot of times, we are tired and just want to get the gig over with. But you may get your second wind --because something like this gives you inspiration-you have a new element of control that most folks just wouldn't want to think about.
but if that is totally true, quit looking at all the cool amps, cabs, spks, pick-ups, guitars etc that are for sale on Reverb......Lets face it.....We spend more money on gear than we have to, because the people we have to please the most is one person. And that person is ourselves.
I know this is a long read but....and this is the last blurb and I have pretty much told it to you already.......just connect the dots......
leave the volume pedal before your efx unit in the loop on your amp. Now take a 2nd volume pedal and put it after the efx unit......and you have some way cool control. besides being able to control the depth or strength of your efx unit, now with volume pedal #2 after the efx unit, again, you now have total control over the /voltage/ volume that you hit the power amp section of your amp. This is a truly usable total; live MASTER VOLUME.......
If you wish to try any of these places to get absolute control of of it all, become the master of your entire rig, with only volume pedals added to what you are doing already.... Well you may be on your way to way out there like I get sometimes, and many times I get more ideas from an idea.....and you could be about to enter the ' Purple " IF 6 was 9 " Haze ' zone and you could turn into a playing ; ZONEBIE Thanks if you read it all and thanks if you didn't . Alan
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