Marshall VT 1 Vibratrem

Easy, but subtle. Some of the sweet spots are in surprising places. Always use a PSU.

Single coils, tube amps and usually a helping of spring reverb to get the surf twang. There's a little gain boost when you activate this pedal i.e. zero vibe/trem settings, but sometimes its kinda nice, I think there's also a little more from the low mids too. Noise levels are fine. With a shallow vibe setting its almost into chorus territory and at the other extreme you can get square wave chopping. Its one of those pedals where it really pays off to play with all permutations rather than going straight for a setting as you imagine it. Sometimes I've been convinced I needed a fast trem sound, and then ended up with a smooth vibe setting. I'm not such a fan of stereo guitar rigs so I've not explored the second output much.

Nice metal casing and surprisingly soft switch action.

If you are a vintage trem connoisseur, this proabably isnt the box for you, but it doesn't really do anything wrong either. With a little OD and spring reverb it delivers all I ask from it.

Once I got the power supply sorted out (bit of a mission), this was a great sounding pedal. The tremelo is easy to figure out and to get a good range of sounds from. The vibrato was easy to use and does all it should - long as you like vibrato. The manual was basic but good and supplied all the info needed.

The sensitivity of the unit to input voltage made a real bitch to work out initially so this drags my rating down from a 9.

I am running a Maton JB6 (like a 24 fret SG) with Rio Grande humbuckers (Texas special neck, Texas BBQ at the bridge) and a Fender, MIA Traditional Model Stratocaster (very average pick-ups)through the vibratrem to a Mesa Boogie Nomad 55 (running el34's), 2x12 combo.

The tremelo sounds really good and goes all the way from a mellow retro-lush through a the clean channel to a really deep stabbing stacatto that cuts through really piled on distortion. This unit does really well and sounds as good as any Boss TR2 I tried and a lot better than a whole heap of other brands (to my ears anyway).

I found the vibrato less useful. However, it nails the Led Zep No Quarter thing and adds a really de-tuned weirdness (in a good way) if you are playing the bridge humbucker with heavy amp distortion.

The pedal is quite quiet - you can hear the oscillator quietly modulating in the background when the amp is in high gain mode and nothings being put through it.

I really like the volume boost that this pedal introduces - compensates well for the usual tremelo volume drop these effects introduce.

NOTE. This pedal sounded like shit when I first got it. I would put a new battery in and it would sound good for about 20-30 mins then you could only get any effect with the depth at max and using square wave (like many of the previous reviews)using my pedal power supply just produced the same shit sound. What I eventually figured out was that the pedal is really sensitive to input voltage, it would only work between 8.75 - 9.5 V. It ate the batteries and so dropped below the voltage range quite quickly, and my power supply was putting out 10.3V (above the range). I bought a decent Boss power supply (puts out exactly 9V) and end of problem.

Once I sorted out the input voltage thing the pedal has run just fine (moderate amount of use). The voltage thing drags its rating down for me as you can't use it with a battery backup.

No comment

Overall, I thing this is a really good tremelo pedal, I like what it does to my sound. It does everything it should, the controls are sensitive and it produces a good range of sounds. I find the vibrato less useful - though it has its moments.
I seriously compared it to the Boss TR2, Line6 tremelo modeler pedal, and some cheaper knock offs - the Marshall had the edge on them (to my ears).

I suspect you would have to pay WAY more for a better sound. If it were stolen I would replace it with another on the basis of sound value for money - but the supply voltage thing did really piss me off. I think Marshall needs its arse kicking for that one. NONE of my other pedals are so sensitive.

Damn good value for money

Mode (Trem or vibrato), depth, rate, shape (triangle smooth or choppy square)Easy to figure out.

This pedal definately has a old school analog sound. Those seeking a modern sounding clean digital tremolo look elsewhere. It's sorta dark. I'm using it with a assorted collection of usual pedals i.e. comp-dist-tremovibe-tube dig. delay-tube amp. Works well getting a little kick from a compressor and judicious use of comp gain so it doesn't get too noisy. Not a noisy unit on it's own. Sounds pretty good for a 75 buck pedal, not boutique quality. Who wants to pay a couple hundred bucks for a trem I might use a couple times a night. Cool effect to have on tap, though. Slight boost on volume when you activate pedal. I like it, trems often drop volume when kicked in.

Has a kinda peculiar hump back shape like a old Ford, but cool metal finish, and seems built well. Would I gig without a back-up trem, uh yeah. Only had it for a week, I withhold judgement on reliability.

no occasion to deal with customer support

It's a good vintage sounding tremolo/vibrato for not a whole lot of dough. It's an effect I don't use a lot, but I would miss not having one on the board. If you're like me, and are looking for an inexpensive good sounding tremolo, this is worth a listen. The vibrato effect didn't floor me, but it could be useful in certain situations also.