Re: Volume pot value?

Posted by Frank_NH on Aug 01, 2016; 2:39pm
URL: http://guitar-fx-layouts.238.s1.nabble.com/Volume-pot-value-tp32269p32291.html

The issue of how to size the output pot is an interesting topic.  My understanding is as follows (some please correct me if I'm off base).

Think about the volume pot as a separate stage in your pedal chain:

Pedal --> Volume Pot --> Amp or other pedal.

What matters from the standpoint of not losing signal strength is to maintain a low impedance output coupled with a high impedance input.  If your amp (or pedal) has a high impedance (say 1M ohm), then anything lower like 100K and below will work.  However, if the output impedance of your pedal circuit is largish (lets say 10K - 50k), then you won't want to go much below 50K.  It all depends on the circuit.  If you put a buffer at the end before the output pot, I suppose you can go small e.g. 10K.  

I think 100K has become a "standard" output pot for general pedal circuits because it's a good compromise between the output of the pedal circuit and the input of the downstream device (e.g. amp).