Tips for Creating Beautiful Volume Swells

Volume swells are simple to play. Just follow these guidelines to get you started.

Jason Houtsma is the co-founder and guitar teacher at Worship Artistry, where he is helping musicians of every level answer the call to worship with passion and confidence. Jason has been leading worship and writing music since he was 15 years old and currently serves as Worship Pastor for Mosaic Church in Bellingham, WA. He is husband to Alli and father to Bjorn and Asher.

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volume swell tips

Thanx Jason, I appreciate this short video. I've been working with volume swells for several
years and although I thought I had pretty well figured out how to do it (and what pedal
parameters to use) but I hadn't thought about putting the volume pedal b4 the effects in the
signal chain. I'll give it a try cuz I was never "completely" happy with how mine sounded.
I have been using my Noise Gate and a lot of Compression to hold the volume back along with
the pedal and its worked pretty well but this idea might just make them better. Thanx, Terry

I think you'll

be happy with the results.

Good info!

Thanks for the tips, Jason! I never liked my swells and I think it is, at least partly, because I was strumming early to try to get the swell coming in on 1. My volume pedal is currently set with an audio taper sweep. Would swells be better with a linear taper?

Clint