Question about Fuzz Faces and volume pedals.

Jaded

So I'm guessing this has been covered before but, I'm looking to use a Fuzz Face and control the amount of fuzz with a volume pedal. I already have a home made germanium FF (which I'm looking to replace with the Hendrix one) and a volume pedal I bought on the cheap (only cost me £14, didn't want to spend £70+ in case I didn't like the idea). 

While I'm enjoying the uh... "concept" ...it doesn't react in the same way as it did with the volume knob. I had it set-up before with a Boss LS-2 boosting the FF to the point it chokes out (in a maestro fuzz kind of way) and by the time the volume knob is turned down to around 2-ish it sounds like the FF is bypassed and with all the various overdriven, distorted, splatty colours in-between. Now with the volume pedal I can go from the blown out sound to a pretty distorted sound and if I set the LS-2 to a unity volume the pedal will take it from an overdriven type of sound to mostly clean... 

I know vaguely that a volume pedal doesn't work in the same manner as a guitars volume knob (something to do with it being a different value/taper)? ...and I know that the Morley volume pedal doesn't use a potentiometer, so would that be able to work in a manner closer to the guitars volume?

If it helps it's a pretty similar reaction when I'm using my Cobain Jaguar with the Super Distortion/PAF combo or one of my other Jaguars with single coils.

ICBM

What volume pedal is it? Some of them do have a totally different pot value from a guitar volume control, and some of them also don't go to 'full up' even when the pedal is fully forward either.

Jaded

It's a cheap "Bespeco VM 14L" (link). I'm guessing this will be one of those that doesn't go full up... for the price I paid I can't complain really. 

ICBM

Wrong impedance as well - you need a 'high impedance' (250K or higher) pedal for guitar. This will matter even if you're putting it after the LS-2, since a Fuzz Face circuit needs to see a high-impedance source.

Jaded

Ah... that'll be it then! I should have probably done some more research first. 

Do you have any recommendations for a decent volume pedal? Or would you say one of the Morley ones would do the trick? Sorry for all the questions!

ICBM

The Morley should work - although it will be buffered, which may not work so well with the fuzz - but I would make sure you try a Morley pedal of some sort first. Personally I hate the physical travel on all Morley pedals and find them more or less unusable - toe-down is literally that, very awkward.

The Boss FV50H (small plastic one similar to the Bespeco but better made) or FV500H (large metal one) are pretty good - not the L models which are also low impedance. The Ernie Ball ones are supposed to be the industry standard but to me suffer from the same problem as the Morley, but in the opposite direction, heel-down is too steep. All these do cover the full pot travel though, possibly apart from the Boss 50H.

Jaded

I'm currently running an LS-2 directly before the fuzz, so I guess the buffer issue shouldn't be too much of a problem. I use a Morley wah (only reason I went looking at their volume pedals in the first place) so I see what you mean about the physical travel of them but it's never really bothered me too much but I'll definitely look into the Boss ones as they don't seem too pricey at all! Cheers!