The Ernie Ball Active No Loss Mod is not a pedal you buy off a shelf: it is a modification performed by JHS Pedals to an Ernie Ball volume pedal. JHS describes it as a fix for the problems it laid out in its own "Volume Pedal Woes (Active/No Loss Mod)" article, saying the mod "cures all the issues" that article exposed1.
What it does
A stock passive volume pedal works by using the pedal's potentiometer as a volume control in the guitar's signal path, which can load down the pickup and dull the tone as the pedal is rolled back. JHS's mod addresses that by making the pedal active, so the volume action no longer costs you signal or treble the way a passive one can. JHS frames it directly: "We exposed this in our Volume Pedal Woes (Active/No Loss Mod) article and have developed a mod that cures all the issues"1.
The mod also adds a practical routing feature. JHS installs its Little Black Buffered Splitter circuit, which "give[s] you two truly isolated outputs for tuner and mono out"1. In practice that means one output feeds your amp and the other feeds a tuner, with the buffered splitter keeping the two paths isolated from each other.
Power
Because the modded pedal carries active circuitry, it needs power. JHS says to "use any standard 9v power supply and your good to go!"1. A stock passive volume pedal needs no power at all, so this is the main practical difference once the pedal comes back from the mod.
Where it sits among volume pedals
The Active No Loss Mod is one of several ways players deal with passive volume pedal tone loss. Other active designs, such as the CNZ Audio Active Volume or the Sonuus Voluum, build the active circuitry into a purpose-made pedal, while stock passive pedals like the Ernie Ball 250k Mono Volume Pedal remain the baseline the mod is designed to improve on.
Videos
BUZZBEE TV
Sources (1)
- ERNIE BALL ACTIVE NO LOSS MOD, JHS Pedals
