Morley ABY Switch

My name is Bill Wenzloff. I work in the engineering Department at Morley. I read many of the reviews on this page and noticed a common misconception that I thought needed to be cleared up.
Our ABY box cannot CREATE a ground problem between two amplifiers. It can certainly make the difference in grounding between two amps apparant. This is an easily solved problem. When two amps are not ground in the same method you need to do one of two things.

1) Lift the ground on one ogf the two amps using the Ground Lift switch on eith amplifier.
2) Lift the ground on one amp by using a plug adapter that converts a three prong plug to a two prong. You can pick there up at any hardware store pretty cheap.

From time to time there are people who have pretty expensive setups with many pieces of gear involved. We work with these people individually to make our box work with thier set up. All at NO CHARGE to the customer. For any other concerns beyond that. Please feel free to call. You will find our customer service to be great.

Pretty easy. Practice a lot with it before you go on stage with it. It COULD get confusing in the heat of a big jam, but not likely. i use it to switch between a Marshall 2x12 combo and a Fender Bullet Reverb w/talkbox. Works great. Really simply. I hate undoing the four screws to change the battery, but it's a minor annoyance.

I lifted the ground on the Fender to eliminate the ground hum. I've used 3 different switches and this one had the least amount of 'bleed-through' between amps. Sounds fine.

Typical Morley, very heavy duty.

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Remember to isolate the grounding your amps to elimiante the ground hum.

Very easy to use- two switches, one to switch from outputs A to B, and one to switch between one output and both outputs. This switching configuration is very practical- while sometimes in the heat of the moment it is possible to hit the wrong switch, once you are used to the system, it gives you a lot more flexibility than other boxes that use a single switch for each channel. As far as the battery goes, while it is a pain to remove the back of the box to switch the battery, you dont have to worry about it that often, and if the battery does start to go, the lights get dimmer for a while first so you can change the battery between sets or at home before it dies completely. The leds are hard to see in bright light though- I dont know what else they could have done to make it easier, though- it is a common problem with effects pedals.

So I am using this pedal to switch between separate effects chains, and it does have one massive disadvantage- HUM!! I fist noticed this on a recording session, and it took valuable time to locate the source of the problem and deal with it. Very annoying! Onstage it isnt as bad, but one you switch a distortion box on after the morley, BAM- huge hiss. As always onstage, it is never that bad once you are playing but between songs and sections, it is annoying to have to remember to turn off the distortion to get rid of it. On the plus side though, this box does offer very quiet, instantaneous switching. Also, I just read on the Morley website that they are updating their ABY boxes to deal with the hum problem- another fifty bucks might need to be spent when that happens, in which case this will be the best ABY routing box I know of.

Used it for a long time without backup- excepting the hum problem, never had to think twice about it.

Never dealt with them.

I play a lot of ambient music, hip-hop/funk, and acid jazz, and using a lot of different sounds in the same song is standard for me. Right now I have three different effects paths I use, and really want to add a fourth. The ABY box is the best passive switcher for relatively cheap i have been able to find. I also use a DOD AB box, which is ok as well, but I really miss the Y function while I;m using it, and the LED's to determine which channel is on. If custom routing boxes were'nt so expensive, I'd upgrade to one of those, but as long as I am spending all of my money on new toys for my sound, my morley will stay in my chain.

Brought it home, opened it put in a battery. No big deal except as others have said, 4 screws??? A battery compartment with a pop off lid would be a better idea.
I'm using it to switch amps but you could use it to switch between two instruments into one amp.

I had problems...first, it wouldn't switch so I pressed each switch 20-30 times to clean the contacts and it got better but was still acting up. Thinking cold solder joint I opened it up and removed the board. One of the component leads was not trimmed properly so I nipped it off, reassembled it and it worked fine.
It WILL not solve a ground hum. You have to get a EB Tech Hum Eliminator for that. Mine doesn't 'pop' when switching so if you have that problem try taking it apart. (Unscrew the nuts on the jacks and the board comes out).
It works but for $50 I shouldn't of had to repair it.

The switches are the japanese star lead, pc board OEM type. These will probably last a few years depending on use. The leds are battery powered only...without a power plug on the housing, so even if you have a wall wart, you would have to take a trip to Radio shack and get a receptacle and drill and mount it.
I would use it on a gig only because it could be disconnected and you could manually switch amps between songs.

I haven't dealt with them.

I had a musicians friend mag and the dealer matched prices.
I think for a cheap switch it's OK. When the switches go, I'll get 2 heavy duty Carling switches and hardwire them to the board. I might also get a power supply and go to Radio shack for a connector depending on how long the battery lasts if I keep it. I haven't decided yet.
But for my needs, it adds the ability to switch between two amps on the fly. I really will only use this a little, because as I said earlier, some amps will hum when connected and I hate using lots of tone sucking things in the input.
This is worth the extra money as compared to the DOD A/B switch.

Easy enough, except for loading the battery in it.

I bought this unit to switch from my Lexicon Signature 284 amp to a Marshal 50. I wasn't too fond of the thing from the start. I don't like having to remove the box screws to insert the battery. The switching was noisy, but, as a Morley rep told me recently, that's what you can expect with a passive switching unit. When playing live recently, an electronic minded friend of mine and I were trying to find the source of a strange hum in my rig, and ultimately bleeding into the sound system. We determined the new Morley was involved. When my friend touched the Morley and my rack together, the hum subsided. We ended up having to ground the Morley to the rack with a wire screwed into the case and to a rack screw. I don't have time for this silliness. And finally, I couldn't see the LEDs for nothing in daylight, and didn't know which rig I was switched into, so it was "poke and hope." So, back it went to my dealer.

Seems dependable. Heavy metal case.

Morley's customer support rep was very helpful in explaining the pros and cons of the various switching devices, including their own device.

I would have to think twice about this approach to amp switching. I will be running MIDI soon, and maybe that's the way to go -- with a MIDI controlled switching system in my rack. Nonetheless, the Morley will do what its supposed to do, albeit with the aforementioned drawba cks, in my opinion.

The unit is fairly easy to use, although the input jacks were noticably "rough" in accomodating normal 1/4" jacks.

There is an audible "click" sound when swutching channels, making this unit unsuitable for more quiet musical applications

It is generally reliable, although it does require the use of a 9v battery. The chasis seems strong and reliable.

This is a switching mechanism for christsakes! I'll probably return it and get something less noisy for channel switching, although the price is pretty reasonable. I guess you get what you pay for.