Vibrato Control vs Pedal

[jordan86]

Curious if someone would be kind enough to clarify if there are tone/technical differences between turning the intensity control all the way down vs using the vibrato pedal to disengage it completely. My ears hear an ever so slight difference, I presume the pedal shorts something and defeats it entirely. Can anyone else comment further. I presume defeating effects the power tubes somehow? Circuit is an AA1164 Princeton.

[Latole]

My opinion is it gives the same result. The difference is that with the pedal you can do Reverb On-Off without stopping playing

[vampwizzard]

Youre not passing signal through that portion of the circuit, removing whatever filtering is inherent to the trem circuit. turning the intensity all the way down blocks a portion of signal into the trem circuit but its still making its way through.

For more on the blackface princeton, see robrob's page: https://robrobinette.com/AA1164_Princeton_Reverb.htm

[vampwizzard]

My opinion is it gives the same result. The difference is that with the pedal you can do Reverb On-Off without stopping playing

I agree

[sluckey]

Curious if someone would be kind enough to clarify if there are tone/technical differences between turning the intensity control all the way down vs using the vibrato pedal to disengage it completely. My ears hear an ever so slight difference, I presume the pedal shorts something and defeats it entirely. Can anyone else comment further. I presume defeating effects the power tubes somehow? Circuit is an AA1164 Princeton.

Yes, there is a difference. The footswitch absolutely kills the oscillator and there will absolutely be ***ZERO*** tremolo effect. Turning the INT to zero does not disable the oscillator. It simply connects the wiper directly to the 25µF bias filter cap which is an AC ground. If that cap is not performing perfectly you will hear a little bit of tremolo even with the INT pot set to zero. Also, if the INT pot is faulty you may still have a little bit of tremolo even when set to zero.

So, there are two conditions under which you may still hear a bit of tremolo effect with the INT pot set to zero. I don't consider either condition a show stopper. Use the footswitch if you absolutely want to turn the tremolo off.