Ernie Ball VP Junior 25K Active vs VP Jr Passive Volume Pedal

monkie

monkie

New member
Hi everyone,

I'm going to buy me a guitar volume pedal for my guitar today and don't know which one to get. I don't want to spend too much just for volume, unless the difference is very obvious or is that much better. Can someone tell me the difference between the two? Looking forward to your suggestions.:D

Thanks in advance.
 
Don't have a volume pedal, myself. Saw a post somewhere where it is apparently easy to make a Cry Baby wah double as a vol. pedal, and I think Dunlop makes one that does both- if I feel the need for a vol. pedal that would be the way I would go.

Sorry I can't be any more help.
 
The active has a 25k pot, and is better if you have active pickups in your guitar or are putting it after a string of buffered effects (such as Boss pedals). The passive version (which is a bit of a misnomer, as they are both passive) has a 500k pot (or 250k - their pot selection is pretty random for some reason) is for passive pickups and/or older style non-buffered effects.



Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
stevieb said:
Don't have a volume pedal, myself. Saw a post somewhere where it is apparently easy to make a Cry Baby wah double as a vol. pedal, and I think Dunlop makes one that does both- if I feel the need for a vol. pedal that would be the way I would go.

Sorry I can't be any more help.
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Sounds like a good idea. I have a wah pedal too. How is this possible? Can you give me a link to that post if you can find it again?

Thanks:D
 
Light said:
The active has a 25k pot, and is better if you have active pickups in your guitar or are putting it after a string of buffered effects (such as Boss pedals). The passive version (which is a bit of a misnomer, as they are both passive) has a 500k pot (or 250k - their pot selection is pretty random for some reason) is for passive pickups and/or older style non-buffered effects.



Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
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What's the difference between active and passive? I have an Ibanez sr900 active bass that uses 9 volt batteries. Is that what they mean by active and passive. I'm not so sure on guitars. I use a friend's Laguna Le guitar, is that active or passive? How can you tell?

Thanks
 
I've got the VP-Jr passive and like it a lot except for one thing....the kevlar string inside it broke after a couple of years, and although Ernie Ball sent me a new one gratis, it was hard to replace. I guess that's the Achilles tendon of the thing - the rest of it is built like a battleship.
 
jfrog said:
I've got the VP-Jr passive and like it a lot except for one thing....the kevlar string inside it broke after a couple of years, and although Ernie Ball sent me a new one gratis, it was hard to replace. I guess that's the Achilles tendon of the thing - the rest of it is built like a battleship.
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I read somewhere online from another user that said it's pretty easy to replace. How easy do they break?
 
monkie said:
I read somewhere online from another user that said it's pretty easy to replace. How easy do they break?
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The first one lasted 2.5 years, the second one I've had on for 1.5 years....I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop now. When I emailed them to replace the first one, I asked for 2 strings, but they'd only send me one (for free, though)

I had my old cheap Boss volume pedal way longer than that, until some nuts & washers fell out, and I decided it was time to get a better pedal.

A couple of things I do like about the Ernie Ball though: The swell rate is conducive to guitar playing, there's a switch to switch between 2 swell rates, and there's an extra jack for my tuner, so I don't have to put it in my signal chain.
 
I just bought the Ernie Ball VP JR two days ago. It's actually pretty good and does exactly what I wanted. I just need to get used to controlling the volume cause I sometimes turn it up too fast and turn it down to fast.

Can someone tell me what the tuner input does? How does that affect my tones?

Thanks
 
monkie said:
I just bought the Ernie Ball VP JR two days ago. It's actually pretty good and does exactly what I wanted. I just need to get used to controlling the volume cause I sometimes turn it up too fast and turn it down to fast.

Can someone tell me what the tuner input does? How does that affect my tones?

Thanks
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It's actually more of a tuner "output." It sends your signal (pre-pedal, I thnk) out to a tuner. [note--I don't even have one; but I've been researching them too] So you can hit the pedal to turn down your rig, but signal still goes to your tuner so you can tune on stage.
 
WhiteStrat said:
It's actually more of a tuner "output." It sends your signal (pre-pedal, I thnk) out to a tuner. [note--I don't even have one; but I've been researching them too] So you can hit the pedal to turn down your rig, but signal still goes to your tuner so you can tune on stage.
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Thanks WhiteStrat, I think I kinda get it now. What if you put the tuner before the volume; then you wouldn't need to use the tuner output? Well, I'm still in the process of researching for a good tuner.
 
monkie said:
Thanks WhiteStrat, I think I kinda get it now. What if you put the tuner before the volume; then you wouldn't need to use the tuner output? Well, I'm still in the process of researching for a good tuner.
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That's true, but you'd still want to kill the volume after the tuner, so your audience isn't listening to you tune. But now the tuner is in your signal chain--one more possible point to lose some tone or have a battery problem. By having it "stem" off the volume pedal, it's out of your signal chain.
 
WhiteStrat said:
That's true, but you'd still want to kill the volume after the tuner, so your audience isn't listening to you tune. But now the tuner is in your signal chain--one more possible point to lose some tone or have a battery problem. By having it "stem" off the volume pedal, it's out of your signal chain.
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I've heard quite many times people saying that tuners (particularly the Boss TU-2 tuner) that they usually suck tones; is this true? I was actually looking into getting myself one TU-2 but that kind of threw me off. Any thoughts on that?
 
monkie said:
I've heard quite many times people saying that tuners (particularly the Boss TU-2 tuner) that they usually suck tones; is this true? I was actually looking into getting myself one TU-2 but that kind of threw me off. Any thoughts on that?
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I wouldn't know--I don't use a tuner pedal. But if it's true, that would explain why they thought it was a good idea to put a separate tuner output on the volume pedal. Now if the tuner sucks tone--it doesn't matter.
 
WhiteStrat said:
I wouldn't know--I don't use a tuner pedal. But if it's true, that would explain why they thought it was a good idea to put a separate tuner output on the volume pedal. Now if the tuner sucks tone--it doesn't matter.
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Thanks for the explanation WhiteStrat.:D
 
If you get a volume pedal with the separate tuner output, it doesn't matter if the tuner sucks tone or not, because it's not in your signal chain. And as Whitestrat correctly pointed on, with the VP-jr, even with the pedal volume off, you can tune silently on stage. That's a good feature.

BTW, I use a Sieko $30 tuner and it works great. I don't know if it affects my tone, as I've never connected my signal through it.
 
monkie said:
What if the volume pedal is on, can you still tune silently?:)
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You mean if the volume pedal is "up?" Then no, because your guitar isn't silent.

I think maybe the separate tuner output is confusing you. Here's how it works--when you step on the pedal to turn your guitar all the way down, the tuner output is bypassed--in other words, your guitar signal goes to the tuner output (and thus your tuner) but not the main output. So your rig is quiet, but your tuner is getting signal. Now you can tune (visually, of course) while no one can hear your guitar.
 
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