Tone and FX before/after Hilton pedal?

David Doggett · Posted 18 Apr 2003 7:41 am

Okay so I got my new Hilton pedal. I had come to like the tone control convenience on my Matchbox 7A/Steel Driver unit, but since I wont need a Matchbox with the Hilton, I got a little seperate tone control unit to clip on the guitar leg in front of my Hilton. Also I wanted to still use the Steel Driver for distortion, and I wanted the tone control in front of that.

The new tone control has no battery but seems to be a single pot. Well naturally that pot cuts some of the highs the Hilton now allows through, even if you turn the tone control all the way to the treble side (10)and lose the mids and lows. I am playing a Fessy U12 with BL-710 and a Nashville 400. With my old Goodrich pot pedal and Matchbox I was getting tone I liked with the amp settings near flat and the Matchbox tone between 4 and 5, depending on the room and the other intsruments. Now with the Hilton I need to turn the amp mid and bass up a notch and the high and presence down a notch, and the new tone control between 4 and 6. But to get the mids and lows the way I like, I don't seem to be getting the famous highs the Hilton provides (and which are very clear running from the guitar to the Hilton to the amp, with nothing else in between).

Maybe I shouldn't complain. I thought I was getting acceptable tone from the Goodrich pedal and Matchbox, and I mainly bought the Hilton to be rid of pot scratchiness and pot replacements. And I have accomplished that and have tone as good or better than before. However, it seems like I am sacrificing some of the Hilton highs for the convenience of having a tone control on the leg of my guitar. Is there a better way to do this? Keith? Anyone?

Finally, there is the problem of how to use the Steel Driver with the Hilton. Normally it clips on the leg and is between the guitar and pedal. It has a switch to toggle between the Matchbox 7a section and the distortion section. This has the design flaw that the tone control on the 7A does not work on the distortion section. So I thought my new separate tone control would solve that problem. However, the only way to switch off the distortion is to toggle over to the Matchbox 7A section, which I no longer need with the Hilton. I suppose I could open the unit up and run a wire from the switch to the out jack to bypass the 7A section when the distortion section is not in use. Any other ideas on how best to set up a guitar mounted tone control, the Steel Driver and the Hilton pedal?

Pete Burak · From: Portland, OR USA

I too recently got a Hilton pedal, and am wishing the Tone control on the bottom of the pedal could be operated from a leg clip.
Maybe one of the output jacks could be converted into a mobile Tone Control?

[This message was edited by Pete Burak on 18 April 2003 at 08:52 AM.]

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

Thanks for using my pedal. Your guitar pickup signal needs to be run to a pre-amp first. If the signal from the pickup is run to some "tone sucking" devices first,then on to my pedal, you can't magically get back what was lost by the "tone sucking" device that was first in line. It is best to put a pre-amp, that works good with steel guitar, first in the signal chain after the pickup. In theory that works best! Now to the "REAL WORLD". There are all kinds of little plug in boxes, like the DD3,DD5 delays, the Holly Grail Reverb boxes and a million other little boxes. The problem then becomes this: "What was the signal input of the box that you are putting in the signal chain designed for?" Was it designed for a really small signal coming from a pickup? Was it designed for a line level signal, like one coming from a pre-amp? You can bet that 99.999999999999% of these little boxes were NOT designed for steel guitar, but were designed for 6 string standard guitar players. The only solution is to try different hookup methods and see which way sounds best. I designed the inputs of my pedal where it will work with either a line level signal, or a low level pickup signal. Peavey Electronics designs their equipment that way also as much as they can. Some of these little effect box makers don't design their little boxes where they work "good" with a line level signal. In many cases these little boxes only work good with a low level signal. Meaning, you have to run to them first. Then, you are pluging a 10 string steel guitar into something that was originally designed for 6 string standard guitar. In simple to understand "layman's" terms, most of these little box makers cut corners and the input don't work as good with a line level signal! Most tone controls will cut highs unless the electronics were designed so they don't. In the situations-posts- above, the tone controls should work better after my pedal. Most of the famous players who use my pedal never touch the tone control on my pedal. They leave it off. To adjust tone, they adjust either their effect unit or their amp. The tone control on the pedal was not designed to be turned inbetween every song. It was designed to be set and left alone, and the player adjust tone on an effect unit or amp. If you notice, the newer guitars, none of them have tone controls. Used to be in the old days all the guitars had tone controls. Wonder why? Because these controls milked highs off, and modern guitar makers know this. That is why they don't put tone controls on guitars unless you order one. The best solution, if you must have a tone control, is to put it "after" a pre-amp.
Then, a tone control has a more difficult time altering the signal, and milking off highs, because it will be a stronger line level signal. Just my humble opinion. Again thanks for using my pedal guys! I have been really blessed to have so many great shows like; Shania Twain,Tim McGraw, Clint Black, Merle Haggard, Mel Tillis, Roy Clark and hundreds more using my pedal. I feel really blessed with such great players as John Hughey, Hall Rugg, Herby Wallace, Doug Jernigan, Tom Brumley, and hundreds and hundres of players I have always admired using my pedal. I feel especially honored by the many Steel Guitar builders who now recommend my pedal with the steels they build. No matter how good the player, I always feel it is a real honor every time I see someone using one of my pedals. I hope I can live up to the faith you have put in me. Thanks!

David Doggett · Posted 19 Apr 2003 9:08 am

Thanks for the great reply, Keith. Now I fully understand the situation. My clip-on tone control was made by Goodrich for steel, but apparently before you raised the bar with your hi-fi pedal. The highs were never there with the old style pot pedal this tone control was designed for, so one would never notice anything missing.

For those of you who have never heard it, the Hilton pedal gives unbelievable highs. It's amazing what we were missing. The presence control now takes on a whole new life, and in fact you have to pay closer attention to the treble and presence controls to keep from getting string noise and a tone that is too bright. But I wouldn't go back, it's just that now one has more of a tone palate to work with. And the action is smooth as silk. Thanks, Keith.

David L. Donald · From: Koh Samui Island, Thailand

What is being called "highs" IMHO is the upper harmonics of the strings. Not just more volume level in the upper end.

This has to be one of the main reasons (besides GREAT techinque) why guys like Buddy and the other greats have great tone. They have worked with their techs to pass as much of the strings full harmonic range out of their speakers, or direct boxes.
You can remove highs in the mix to mellow it out, but not add them later if they aren't there to begin with.

Run as pure a signal to your pre amp as you can, and then put a small line level Eq. patched into the pre amp loop. Put that on the steel's leg.

One interesting thing about Keiths pedal taking line in also, is that you can put it after a pre amp patched effects unit.

Steel-preamp- loop-out to effect(revb.)-Hilton- loop-in to pre amp -poweramp.

This alows your signal in the reverb or effect to be raised or lowered WITH the steel volume, maintaining the same signal and effect ratio and it's signal to noise ratio.
Then you can fade in the total signal.

As opposed to fading the steel in and out of a big reverb space that never changes.

I sometimes have a Tube Screamer before a pedal and fade a fully distorted signal up with the fade in.
Or sometimes after the pedal and then the signal becomes progressively more distorted with higher level.

David Doggett · Posted 19 Apr 2003 11:24 am

Right, these highs are mostly above the highest note played on the guitar. So they are overtones (and bar and pick noise) and are typically controlled by the "presence" control. They give the instrument a new "timbre," more like an acoustic instrument. And you can really hear your strings go dead as they get old, and brighten up when you put on a new set.

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

This is an interesting topic for me. Let me tell an interesting story; I once played in a band with a guitar player who had a Fender Mustang guitar. The Fender Mustang was the cheapest standard guitar Fender made. The fellow had altered the wiring, and pickups, to where the guitar had a certain sound. It also had a bad hum/static problem because of his wiring. This guitar player bought himself a Gibson guitar that cost over $4,000. Back then $4,000 was like $15,000 today. At first, he was very proud of the high dollar Gibson, but it was not long before he heard something missing in the sound of the $4,000 Gibson guitar. This fellow worked on the wiring, and pickups, of the Gibson guitar for about 2 months. Finally,after working and working, he finally got the expensive Gibson guitar sounding just like he wanted. He finally got that expensive Gibson guitar sounding exactly like his old cheap Fender Mustang guitar. To us guys in the band,the sound was identical to the old Fender Mustang guitar, right down to the hum and static problems. This fellow's last name was Evans. For years and years after that, anytime we got a hum or static in any piece of equipment we called it;"The Evans Factor!" Getting used to something new is sometimes difficult. The interesting thing about tone controls is that there is so many kinds of them. All the way from simple, to active and complex. I am working on a new active signal splitter for two instruments. This is for plugging in a fiddle and steel together. Or, steel and standard guitar together. I see from this discussion that a good tone control would be a great idea. If a steel and fiddle were run through a splitter to the same amp, it might be a nice thing to alter the tone of one of the instruments.

David Doggett · Posted 19 Apr 2003 3:16 pm

Yeah, Keith, you are definitely onto something - keep at it and give us a good tone control we can clip on the leg of a steel before or after the pedal.

Most of us play with our amp behind us. No matter how carefully you make your amp settings during sound check (if there is a sound check), you always need to tweak it once you start playing. Also, you might want to shift to a little brighter sound for a shit-kicker and then a darker sound for a ballad, or double-neck players need to shift the tone a little when they switch necks. And there are things that just happen while you are playing, like the bare room at the beginning of the set fills up with sound absorbing bodies by the end of the set, or the bass player cranks it up, whatever. For all these little adjustments it is a pain to stop playing, lose your place with the bar and your right hand grip, take your feet off the pedals and volume pedal (unless you are really young and agile you can't turn all the way around without all this), avoid getting caught on a knee lever, peer through the darkness (with old feeble eyes for some of us), find the correct little knobs and wearing finger picks slightly change three or more tone settings.

Usually all you need is a single knob to shift everything slightly higher or lower without changing the relative settings on all the tone knobs. I think I would want such a single "master" tone knob even if I had a preamp next to me with a full set of EQ adjustments. There are plenty of times you just want to shift everything a little one way or the other without messing with the whole EQ setup.

If you build it, they will come.

[This message was edited by David Doggett on 19 April 2003 at 07:22 PM.]

David Doggett · Posted 20 Apr 2003 8:42 am

Bumped so everyone can see Keith's replies.

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