? for Keith Hilton

Eddie Freeman · From: Natchez Mississippi

Keith, is there a best way to hook up your pedal to a solid state system.
I am now using the 3 wire method, that is I go from guitar to pedal in, pedal out to lo input on my NV112. from pre EQ out to DD2 in, DD2 out to pre EQ in. I know there are several ways to hook up, but would like your in put on what you think. Thanks.
PS..Thank you for making all our (pickers) lives a lot better, especially your V.P, now we can keep our minds on playing instead of soldering pots every couple of months.

Jack Stoner · From: Kansas City, MO

I'm not Keith but let me put my 2 cents in.

The original reason for the three cord hook up was to avoid the old pot volume pedal and the changing load on the pickup and thus changing tone. By going direct from the guitar to the input you placed a constant impedance load on the guitar and thus avoided the tone "sucking" (as Keith calls it) from happening. Then the volume pedal (or what else) was run in the low level effects loop (or Pedal In/Out as labeled on the old Session 500).

With the Hilton Volume Pedal (and maybe others) there is a constant impedance placed on the guitar's pickup, just like going direct to the amp. In addition there is no tone or volume level loss going through the Hilton. Thus there is no need for the three cord hookup.

Actually, in tests I did with a Nashville 1000 (the Nashville 112's preamp is identical) I found that the three cord hookup using a Hilton caused tone loss.

Eddie Freeman · From: Natchez Mississippi

Thanks Jack,that helped me a lot.You know sitting in your music room, den, whatever trying to set your tone,no matter how much time is spent on tweaking all the controls, when we set up at the gig, it never is the same.
Jack, do you remember Dean Bass? He was a long time Bud of mine and spoke highly of you and the Fla. steel club you guys have going. I used to play guitar for Jimmy Crawfords' dad in and around Ocala
back when he was a dj on I think,W.H.O.T?? in Ocala
Dean was our steel man then.......

Jack Stoner · From: Kansas City, MO

Eddie, thanks. I'm not a Florida native, I'm a "Florida Retiree".

My start in bands was in Biloxi in 1959. We also played on the old Jimmy Swan Saturday afternoon TV show at WDAM (Channel 3) in Hattiesburg

Keith Hilton · From: 248 Laurel Road Ozark, Missouri 65721

Thanks for the kind words Eddie. Jack is a good friend and has a lot of experience in electronics. I respect what Jack says. OK-here is my 2 cents; The 3 cord hookup menthod is best used for pot pedals. It is difficult for me to tell a person how to hook up, because there are so many variables involved. Today's player usually have more than just an amplifier involved. And-there are many different amplifiers being used. Here is the best advise I can give; Try different hookup arrangements and see which method sounds best to you. You certainly will not hurt the Hilton pedal, as there is input and output protection. I would advise having the volume of your amp set low--at first--when you try each hookup method. Here is some advise; Some cheap effect units are designed to see the low level of a magnetic guitar pickup. These effects do not function well when fed a signal from a pre-amp. Just about every powered device has a pre-amp, even battery powered devices. Some devices will cause problems if put them in the wrong place. For example: I bought a Boss Tuner and thought I would come off of my steel guitar to the tuner first in the signal chain. Bad decision, because it altered my tone so bad I could not take it. This Boss Tuner would work better further down in the signal chain, where it could not alter tone--- maybe after the EQ. Eddie, my advise is to experiment, listen and hear what you like best. Your sound will be different in the back bedroom, as compaired to a large dance hall so beware. Hope this information helps.

Eddie Freeman · From: Natchez Mississippi

Thanks Keith, I was starting to think my DD2 was the reason for the bad tone I was getting, thanks again
to you and Jack both

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