MOEN Pretty Dolly

$80 AU - brand new off eBay Australia.

Just 3 knobs like delay pedals of old - Blend, Time & Repeat. Manual is rather useless and not required. Put the Pretty Dolly into your effects loop or in the front of your amp and you're away. Mine's brand new and has a black back and side and a yellow face mottled lightly with black spots. Very easy to use, so high marks here.

This unit has a digital/analogue hybrid circuit but nothing about it sounds digital. The repeats are warm and become more distorted as they go on. Too many repeats don't sound good with this type of unit. The pedal also easily self-oscillates after the repeat knob is turned past 3 'O clock. Fiddle with the time knob at the same time and you'll get some very nice Tommy Bolin-esque Echoplex-like noises.

I run mine 2nd last in my amp's effects loop, just before a regular digital delay which is last in my fx-loop chain.

The 1st thing I realised after I tried it was that I wouldn't be able to use this unit for clean timed repeats. In fact, you're best off just finding a setting that fattens up - but doesn't overpower your original input signal - and then just leaving it on. This is what I do and it sounds great with humbuckers or single coils. I have mainly just set all the knobs to around the 50% mark, maybe around 40%-45% for delay time and that's it - warm, spongey, fat echo that really complements a meaty distorted rock tone like Eddie Van Halen's or Billy Gibbons'.

On clean settings you also get some nice warm ambience, but this thing doesn't sound like a digital unit, and if you're aware of that and like lower-fi vintage style echo then this unit gives good bang for the buck. With the time knob low, it does a great 50s slapback echo too, which sounds pretty damn authentic when coupled with some chorusing effect to simulate tape warble.

If you want crystal-clear delays get a regular Boss or even a Behringer digital delay. I use a Behringer DD100 for clear, hi-fi sounding timed delays but I think the Pretty Dolly is best used as a tone enhancer for "brown" sound echo only. High marks for what it is and what it costs. Sometimes, for spacey stuff I stick the Behringer DD100 on as well and I get some great sci-fi sounds.

Unit casing is metal and very, very solid. The 1st unit I got had a dodgey switch and had to be returned to the eBay seller I got it off. He said he got a whole batch with bad switches but he sent me a new one from a different batch and there's been no problems yet. Time will tell. I've got the Moen Shaky Jimi too and that seems pretty solid and reliable, so maybe my experience is a one off. Wont leave an opinion though!!

China - good luck. They have a good website though. So cheap anyway, you could just buy another.

I play rock, blues, a little jazz and fusion and folk-rock stuff and this pedal has a great retro-vibe to it. I just about alweays leave it on now. With my core rock sound + this pedal I can nail an A-Z of classic rock tones. This pedal sonically lives up to it's lo-fi advertising slogans, and I find it just adds bucketloads of spongey warmth to my sound, and I think it's just really good value for money. So, I'm gonna give 90%.

Easy to use. Nice standard delay controls, mix, time (up to 550ms), repeats.
Can get to self oscillate by switching repeats to max. And easier with high mix and low repeat time. Does need some feed to kick off the SO.
The DC power supply is not a standard BOSS one so you'll probably need to find or make a converter for it.

Sound quality is fine for low repeats. But rapidly loses tone beyond even the 3rd repeat. This is fine for me as weird sounds and tones during self oscillations are what I want it for.
And for people using it as simple low repeat delay the tone is ok for that too I'd guess.

Seems tough, nice case, I havn't openned it up yet but the accessable parts look good and solid. It does rip through batteries pretty quickly if you use it on high repeats but thats not too surprising.
I bought it in large part to pull apart and experiment on so frankly I won't be surprised if I break it. :)

I'm pretty happy with this. If I paid any more than I did I'd be pretty cross but I read the reviews and wasn't expecting long high quality repeats. For weird noises its pretty awesome. Gradually turning up the repeats and the mix it goes from nice pretty delays to sirens to weird screaming then you mess with the delay time and fly your spaceship around the galaxy. Then turn down the repeats again, let it desaturate and start to hear your guitar again.
Would I get another one? No, I don't think so. I'd get another cheap delay, like a Belcat DLY-303 with better tone and modify it to SO or else get a good delay. While it does self oscillate and that is what I bought it for I don't think I'll get addicted to MO_PDs weird tones, but hey I might.
For a cheap spacerock delay its fine.

This unit is very easy to use and is very versatile in coloring the full range of sounds delays should. Bought new and manual was included and easy to read, very little detail but not really needed.

As stated the range of sounds, from a bit of slapback to full repeats are very good.I miss it in the mix when it is not on.
I have an Arion Analog Delay and a small Dalenctro somewhat in the same price range and the Pretty Dolly blows them away.I also have a digital delay that I use for harsher delays, but the Pretty Dolly does stay on most of the time. Is it best delay ever made? Of course not. That is why there are units out there for 200.00 or more.Great value for the price? yes!

I see with limited reviews posted that the jury is out on long range quality. I too have only had it about 3/4 mos. I don't play out, but do play everyday and I have it on all the time with no problems at all, and I'm not sitting waiting for the thing to blow up. No reason not to gig with it, but who doesn't have a backup something? I would have something handy to fill in in case an issue occurs.

I'm not sure if the others were trying to deal with a supplier overseas and not the actual manfacture or not. CFX Zone is the real maker of Moen and I have spoke to them about the product a few times via e-mail with good response time. Have not tried to deal with a warranty issue yet. Sure that might be logistically hard at this stage in their development. My did come from a US seller so I think I could get something done.

The Pretty Dolly does what I want it to do. These Moen effects are built in large housings.Hard to kick them around. They look good and sound good, again for the price range.. hard to beat.I usually run through an 80's Fender Strat and Fender SS amp so the effects becomes very apparent running through a fairly clean signal.I also have the Moen Fuzz MOO, Violent Metal and the Shaky Jimi
(Uivibe clone) which I will also review after checking them out a bit more, but I like them all. I'm sure I could live with out one if it dies for the right reason, but I would buy again.

Straight forward setup, very easy.

It did sound nice but it stopped working on me shortly after I got it, just like the other Moen pedals I bought. I had a pedal geek friend take it part to see if he could fix it, he told me it was not an analog. It was a good sounding delay when it was working but it's not analog, it's digital.

Like I said above it stopped working about 2 weeks after I got it home, it kind of fizz out and then it wouldn't power up at all. Total waist of money.

This was my second experience with Moen's customer service, it took them weeks to get back to me, then they blamed me and said too bad. Just what I expected since the same thing happened when I emailed them about the other pedal.

The pedal sounded nice when it worked but they get a "Big 0" for the total lack of respect for their customers.

The knobs arte easy to use of course. Here you don??t need much brain.

It is really LO-FI!
Not in the bypass mode, that is really good.
But the effect itself is a tone sucker.
First there is a really big volume drop, when it is engaged.
The tone of the guitar changes dramatically and gets muddy.
Ok, you also can say warm, but the high end and defintion is not there anymore.
The delay effect sound is very poor, even more lo-fi than a bad analog delay. When you turn up the delay level the repeats become very noisy and destorted. The repeats have nothing to do with the original sound.
I think you can only use it as a vintage lo-fi effect with short echos to get a warm thick tone. The longer repeats really suck!

I had (I will send it back to the ebay dealer) power supply problems.
First it did not function at all, only the bypass!
Also with batteries there was no effect.
I checked different wall warts and it runs only with one.
That is poor quality. Greetings from China!

Costumer support from China? Forget it. The ebay-dealer told me that I do something wrong with the device. I think his answer was wrong.
He praised it as a brand new analog delay in his desription. Now he will get it back, brand new...

That thing is useful for only one purpose: lo-fi joke with good bypass!

It's real easy, 3 knobs: Blend , Time, Repeat. It doesn't go extremely long, but it's great for all standard use! Didn't read the manual, offcourse,... :-)

For an analog delay at this price, you can't go wrong. It delivers all classical sounds, and holds it clearness good with some distortion,...

No problems here, I just got it,...

Great! They sent me allmost immediatly, and packed with some newspaper, for humidity issues,...

Delays are usable for all kind of stylesa, and because I am a professional player, I play all styles of music, except classical. I have a variety of amps, and this pedal works with all of them, because it's so transparent