Overall Rating: I play jazz fusion and now use this volume pedal for swellings in my solos, and for making chords grow smoothly behind a soloist. I have been playing since the mid-60s. I had a Colorsound volume pedal in the mid-70s and the volume cam...
Overall Rating: I play jazz fusion and now use this volume pedal for swellings in my solos, and for making chords grow smoothly behind a soloist. I have been playing since the mid-60s. I had a Colorsound volume pedal in the mid-70s and the volume came very early for that pedal too, so I¿¿m used to it, so to say. With the minimum volume knob it is possible to handle that, IMHO (see above). It gives a very clean sound, and no scratching so far. I have put some oil on the screws that holds the rocker, to get rid of the very silent screeching from the rocker. It also made the rocker run smoother, which made the swellings easier to handle. So, yes, I¿¿m quite happy with this pedal.
Sound Quality: I use this Morely volume PVO pedal in front of my Blues Deville 2x12, and run it only in the clean channel. I have put it last in a chain of a Boss OD3, a Boss DD3 and a Boss Chorus. The amp has a GE JAN 5751 in V1 so the amp distorsion is minimal. The signal coming into the volume pedal therefore is already "finished" and there is no change of the sound if I pull down the volume slightly with the pedal.
There are some negative reviews of this pedal here, and it seems that some of these are based on experiences of the pedal not put in front of the amp. Thats strange since it is said very clearly at Morleys homepage that "The PVO is designed for use in front input of amp only". Only Morleys PLA (Little Alligator) are to be used in loops, not this one. At Morleys homepage it can also be seen that this pedal has a very low current draw of only 2.5 mA. If this was a distorsion or chorus pedal, which that we put on and off, it is so low that there is no need a for a AC adaptor, but since this pedal is "on" all the time an adapter probably is still necessary.
I must say that this pedal sounds very good and delivers exactly what I want it to do.
Reliability/Durability: I`ve only had it for some weeks, but it seems to be reliable. I¿¿ve heard many musicians complain about their volume pedals becoming scratchy after some time, but perhaps this optic solution is the solution of that problem? Too early say, though.
Ease of Use: This is a very easy pedal to use, from a technical point of view. There is only a "minimum volume" control. The swelling technique can be difficult to handle, though, and is up to the player to control. I found that putting the minimum volume at zero (7 o¿¿clock) makes the swellings coming too fast. When put at 12 o¿¿clock the swellings are easier to control. One can then hear pick attack in the background, but the listeners don¿¿t hear them, so that¿¿s OK for me. The pedal has a very transperent and nice sound otherwise.
Customer Support: No contacts with Morley.
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