Question About Effect Pedal Behavior

[CarryOn]

Hi - my first post here.

I'm primarily an acoustic player, but I'm getting more into electrics, and all the bits and bobs that go with that, and I'm frequently stuck trying to figure some things out, and I'm hoping I can get some help here, as well as contribute as I learn more.

Here's what I'm having a problem understanding today: I just got a Vox Stomplab IG guitar/amp modeling pedal. It has about 10 categories, like Blues, Rock, Jazz, etc and within each category, 10 presets for different guitar/amp combinations.

The main controls are a selector knob for each category, a Gain knob, and a Level knob. The way I differentiate gain and level is that gain is the strength of the signal going out to the amp, and level is the level of the sound coming out. There are also two footswitches, to allow cycling through the presets in each category (up and down).

I have this connected in the most basic way possible; guitar connected to the input, then the output connected to my amp. I have the volume knob turned all the way up on my guitar.

Here's the behavior I'm having a hard time understanding: with both the gain and the level knobs turned all the way down to 0, I still get plenty of sound out of my amp, and I can cycle through the presets and it changes the tone, so I don't think it's acting like a pass-through. With the pedal turned all the way down, shouldn't that cut any signal going out to the amp?

The second part is this: if I'm playing and adjust either the gain or the level (or both), the sound immediately cuts to almost nothing and doesn't come back unless I change to a different preset.

Are these normal behaviors for a pedal like this? The only thing I can think of is that I'm running it off a battery until I can get a power supply, and maybe the battery is running out?

Thanks for any help. I appreciate it.

[paulp1960]

Good luck with that pedal. I gave mine to a friend and bought a Zoom G3 instead for double the price.

The Vox pedal sounds pretty good but is real difficult to get under the hood.
If you can master the manual you will get there. But I didn't have the patience.

[muscmp]

carryon: welcome to the AGF!

here is a google link to your pedal. you may want to review some of the youtube videos as well as comments made thru various forums.

it doesn't appear that you have bypass in that pedal so the signal will not be cut off. you may be just going barely thru the pedal to the amp.

the second part of moving the gain or level knobs i do not understand. have you gone thru the manual?

https://www.google.com/search?q=vox+...utf-8&oe=utf-8

play music!

[jricc]

Originally Posted by paulp1960

Good luck with that pedal. I gave mine to a friend and bought a Zoom G3 instead for double the price.

The Vox pedal sounds pretty good but is real difficult to get under the hood.
If you can master the manual you will get there. But I didn't have the patience.

Welcome to the forum.
Don't know about the Vox pedal, but the I'll second the Zoom G3, easy to use and really good sounding.

[CarryOn]

Thanks, guys.

I've gone through the manual, and it's not that involved until you get to the point of defining your own presets. I don't plan on doing that, so the other info is pretty basic, as in "Gain is for adjusting the gain. Level is for adjusting the level."

I'll check out those YT vids. I watched some before I got the pedal (which was free through an employer incentive program), but I wasn't looking out for any odd behavior.

[paulp1960]

Level is the output loudness but gain usually distorts the pre-amp.

So for clean sound you want less gain and more level and for a dirty sound more gain and adjust level to suit.

But these are "soft" knobs not hardwired to gain and level and they can adjust other parameters as well.