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Topic: Hilton volume pedal |
Jack Willis
From:
California, USA
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Posted 27 Apr 2011 5:08 pm |
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I received my most anticipated Hilton pedal yesterday. Today I removed my EB VP jr. from its well worn spot. After a few adjustments and shifting of cords it was ready and waiting. From the first note I knew this was money very well spent. It is amazing how much this improved the sound and tone of my guitar. From the sustain to the clarity, from the taper(?) to the build quality. I have been playing for only a year so this is old news to most of you but it is new and exciting to me!
Just my ten cents worth......
_________________
Mullen SD10 pre RP, Milkman 40w mini steel, Wet reverb mono, Profex II, Yamaha keyboard, lots of books about music theory and PSG. |
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Jack Willis
From:
California, USA
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Posted 27 Apr 2011 5:13 pm Hilton volume pedal
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Thanks Fred Justice....
_________________
Mullen SD10 pre RP, Milkman 40w mini steel, Wet reverb mono, Profex II, Yamaha keyboard, lots of books about music theory and PSG. |
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Storm Rosson
From:
Silver City, NM. USA
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Posted 27 Apr 2011 5:34 pm
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 Yep unfortunately u will receive only the BEST SERVICE and parts and anything u could need from Keith Hilton, he stands behind his products 110%....great guy ,great pedal, enjoy....Stormy  |
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Fred Justice
From:
Mesa, Arizona
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Posted 28 Apr 2011 4:46 pm
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Jack your welcome, I'm glad your enjoying the new Hilton.
Satisfied customers make me feel gooooooood.
_________________
Email: azpedalman@gmail.com
Phone: 480-235-8797 |
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Jesse Leite
From:
Ontario, Canada
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Posted 29 Apr 2011 8:01 am Re: Hilton volume pedal
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| Jack Willis wrote: |
| ...my EB VP jr... |
Congrats on the Hilton
I play an EB Jr. right now too. I've heard only great things about Hilton pedals but they are just so expensive. I've considered replacing the pot in my EB Jr. with a good pot like you might find in one of the Goodrich pedals. Another thing I don't like about the EB Jr. is the circuit board... not sure if Hilton and Goodrich pedals have such complicated circuits? Is the circuit board really necessary? I would think one would get a more natural tone with just a pot; no extra components?
The Hilton has some sort of photocell potentiometer right... no pot to wear out so I hear?
_________________
Playing an '81 BMI SD-10 4&6 through a Peavey Delta Blues 2x10 all-tube amp.
E9 Fretboard Reference Booklet (Chords & Scales PDF) |
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Storm Rosson
From:
Silver City, NM. USA
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Posted 29 Apr 2011 8:44 am
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Yes, the Hilton is a "light" or optical pedal  |
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Fred Justice
From:
Mesa, Arizona
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Posted 29 Apr 2011 9:20 am
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Stormy, the Hilton actually works with infra red, kinda like a cash register scanner. There is no light in the pedal.
_________________
Email: azpedalman@gmail.com
Phone: 480-235-8797 |
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David Mason
From:
Cambridge, MD, USA
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Posted 29 Apr 2011 6:17 pm
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Ummm, if your EB Jr. isn't scratchy by now, DON'T TOUCH THAT POT! For several years now, there has been a great dearth of good pots for steel pedal, and I believe Goodrich are one of the companies still shipping pedals with a Mexican pot. It may fail in a month, it may fail in a day... but fail it will. There is obviously a great hurrah when someone discovers a stash of the old correct Allen-Bradly pots, I forget the number... and they will cost you dearly.
There is one modern pot that virtually all the "pot aficionados"* on this site use, and that's a Dunlop 470K pot. They're a little tricky to install, the soldering connectors are just little nubs. Tom Bradshaw and a few others have them, and Forumite Greg Cutshaw kindly wrote a slide show and even a dramatic movie about installation!
It appears Tom is now installing a Dunlop pot in the Goodrich!:
http://www.songwriter.com/bradshaw/potentiometers.php
http://www.songwriter.com/bradshaw/goodrich_pedals.php
http://www.gregcutshaw.com/Goodrich%20120%20Pot/Goodrich%20120%20Pot.html
*(ahem) |
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Eddie Freeman
From:
Natchez Mississippi
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Posted 12 May 2011 10:22 am Hilton Pedal
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Jack, i've had my Hilton going on three years now
and haven't had a bit of trouble with it. The tone
and ease of use still amaze me, I don't see the need for a back up, so I am selling my Goodrich120.
Thats how much faith I have in my Hilton. |
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Jesse Leite
From:
Ontario, Canada
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Posted 18 May 2011 9:05 am
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| David Mason wrote: |
| Ummm, if your EB Jr. isn't scratchy by now, DON'T TOUCH THAT POT! |
After about two years of on and off playing, nope it's not scratchy yet. It did get a little squeaky on the axle, but a little bit of sewing machine oil did the trick. The reason I might consider getting another pedal is because of two reasons: 1) My EB Jr. has a 250k pot. I'm told that a 500k pot will improve my sound, although I wouldn't know for myself until I tried it. 2) The EB Jr. has some friction to it. I had my foot on a Hilton for all of 2 seconds (sat behind my teacher's PSG) and the first thing I noticed was how quiet and effortless it was to move. I almost couldn't tell if I was moving it or not.
_________________
Playing an '81 BMI SD-10 4&6 through a Peavey Delta Blues 2x10 all-tube amp.
E9 Fretboard Reference Booklet (Chords & Scales PDF) |
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Bo Borland
From:
South Jersey -
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Posted 18 May 2011 12:09 pm
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The Hilton pedal is all that and more.
There are plenty of players who prefer the pot pedal sound, but I decided after replacing pot after pot and never finding a suitable replacement for the original AB, that I would prefer to play and not do pedal maintenance.
In the 3 or so years my Hilton has been in action I have had only one problem, the power cable was cut.. I did a little pool table surgery, played the gig and sent it to Keith for a transplant the next day.
It came back in perfect adjustment with an upgrade I did not expect. |
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Jesse Leite
From:
Ontario, Canada
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Posted 25 May 2011 10:12 pm
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| Bo Borland wrote: |
| The Hilton pedal is all that and more. |
I wouldn't doubt it. The issue for me is price. I know as a steel player I play an expensive instrument, but I am cheap. I wanted an ibanez TS-808 pedal for my 6 stringer so I found a schematic and made my own clone. I've considered modding my Ernie Ball volume pedal by either upgrading to a better 500k pot (mine is 250k I think) OR changing the pot over to some sort of photo cell or infrared potentiometer like the hilton pedal (whatever it uses). Thing is, mine's not scratchy yet so I don't want to tamper with it yet.
| Bo Borland wrote: |
| There are plenty of players who prefer the pot pedal sound... |
Hmmm, wonder why? Is there a drastic difference in sound? Also, would a 500k pot really be a big improvement over a 250k pot?
_________________
Playing an '81 BMI SD-10 4&6 through a Peavey Delta Blues 2x10 all-tube amp.
E9 Fretboard Reference Booklet (Chords & Scales PDF) |
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Georg Sørtun
From:
Mandal, Agder, Norway
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Posted 26 May 2011 1:57 am
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| Jesse Leite wrote: |
| Bo Borland wrote: |
| There are plenty of players who prefer the pot pedal sound... |
Hmmm, wonder why? Is there a drastic difference in sound? Also, would a 500k pot really be a big improvement over a 250k pot? |
A pot pedal puts a certain degree of variable load on the PU, as the pot is coupled in series/parallel with whatever comes (first) after it - the amp's input "impedance" in the simplest set-up.
A 500K pot results in lower PU load/higher resistance around the mid-volume point than a 250K pot, because there's a higher resistance in series with the cable and following load - the amp. At the max-volume point the 500K pot in parallel with a typical around 250K amp input resistance also of course loads the PU less than a 250K pot will, but the audible difference between the around 180K load with a 500K pot and around 125K with a 250K pot isn't that great.
And ... don't forget the cable before and after a pot pedal when trying to calculate load on the PU.
The Hilton OTOH has a built-in pre-amp, which means there is no change in PU load along the pedal-travel and the input resistance/capacitance in amp or whatever follows doesn't really matter.
Any reasonable good somewhat high input/low output resistance around 1:1 gain pre-amp unit between PU and pot volume pedal, will have the load-stabilizing effect of the pre-amp in the Hilton pedal. In combination with a pre-amp the pot-pedal should ideally present a low resistance to the pre-amp's output, while if there is no pre-amp preceding it the pot-pedal's resistance better be quite high. Whether or not there's an appreciable audible difference between the Hilton pedal and a pot pedal preceded by a pre-amp, depends on the exact specs of the pre-amps in question.
I normally use a pre-amp with 1M ohm input / 10K output resistance followed by a 22K pot pedal. With an as short and good as possible cable between PU and pre-amp the PU load is constant high and almost purely resistive, and the resistance across the cable to the amp is variable but always low enough to keep cable capacitance out of the equation.
This combination sounds good to me no matter which PU/PSG I play, as I am sure a Hilton with its built-in pre-amp would too.
I am not fond of having only a pot-pedal on a cable of varying, often excessive, lengths going from PU through pedal to amp or effect units, as that means the cable capacitance will play too much of a role in PU load and resulting sound.
Of course, some like the pot pedal/cable "tone-effect", but then they better make sure they keep the PU, pot pedal and cables constant so as not to change/mess up the "tone" parameters of the combination they like. |
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