Morley Diamond Distortion

The manual of course was completely useless. I've yet to find a manual that gave GOOD sound suggestions for their pedals. Besides that this pedal rocks. Three knobs, one button..pretty cut and dry. this is not rocket science, the way it should be...as most of us started playing guitar to avoid having to have a real thinking job for a living ...

I only have one setting I use for it...Drive and Tone cranked and level around 9:00 or 10:00 (lots of volume past that). This pedal is AWESOME for a very transparent mild overdrive/distortion. It's almost like a boost that muddy's the sound just a little bit. Sounds really awesome with a strat or telecaster. No real experience with humbuckers through it...the sound quality is great at certain settings but you have to find them. I really love the tone I get with this and my TS9 run together too. Though I was hoping for a real distortion when I got this (Marshall Guv'nor style), I'm very happy with the results.

This thing is built like a friggin tank!! It would survive a nuclear holocaust. I would and do gig without a backup (that's partially because i can't afford to gig with a backup). I have no worries about this thing going out on me any time soon.

I e-mailed Morley several times to get a copy of their manual for this pedal and couldn't get any response. They've got electronic pages for all their other manuals, but not for this pedal.

I play a combination of blues, rock, and country. I also play Contemporary Christian which is a combination of all of those and this pedal finds use in all the styles I play. I've been playing 2.5 years and have had this around 2 of those years. If it were stolen I'd track down the losers that stole it and beat them with it (since I know it won't hurt the pedal).

pretty simple set-up. gain, volume, and e.q.

a "9" you say??, yes!, for the fact that this works great in my small to medium watt tube amps. i use it after my boss bd-1, and sometimes alone when i dont need a ton of overdrive. that is not this pedals cup of tea. i us it as a mild overdrive to play blues and old rock. it really kicks my fender bassman into that srv/jimi land!. if you plat hard/heavy rock, this aint the pedal for you. but if you need a cool, mild overdrive/boost, this can bring out some really cool tones.
its pretty quite to boot.

nerver had a prob here.

n/a

for blues and some rock, this pedal is a great value in regards to bang for the buck. mine was bought in a pawnshop cheap and has done nothing but reward me with great sound. highly recommend!.

It is pretty easy to use, the jacks are a little tight but they warned me about that.

It IS really weak and muddy, but thats only if you use it by itsself.
I play a squire strat with a washburn humbucker into a Boss DS1, into this diamond distotion, into a morley crystal chorus, and then into a yorkville bass amp. The DS1 gives my sound its uniqueness and dynamic distortion, and the diamond boosts it and fills out the low end. I play alternative/punk/metal, and these two pedals sound wonderful together, and if you have either one of them, get the other to give you that razoredged biting distotion.

Yes i can depend on it greatly

it's a stomp box

OKay my review seems to be very different then other peoples, but i ran this into like a home made little like practice amp and used some really old 70's guitar, (silverstone i think,--- I tried this in a guitar store) but this sounded amazing, like nice low gain overdrize. Normally i play with really really heavy dist. like mesa boogie triple ref. or like heavy OD with a lot of effects but playing this thing made me wanna change styles of music. the open cording was so sweet it wasn't harsh at all, it was just gorgeous.

great pedal

They don't get much easier. Drive, tone, level, that's it. Gets a 9 instead of 10 because the battery is hard to change (but it lasts a long time).

I gave N/A for sound quality because it really depends on the purpose. I use it mainly for BASS, not guitar, and it's the best bass overdrive stomp box I've tried (and I've tried Pro Co Rat, Boss bass overdrive, Tube Screamer, Danelectro Daddy-O...) A bright P-bass with a pick through the Morley gives a nice aggressive sound without killing all the low end, like nearly all pedals do. I can do a reasonable job of sounding like the guy in NOMEANSNO. I'd give it an 8 for bass. It doesn't get a 10 because I'd like just a bit more upper-mids to get a little more definition, and the low end is a little bit mushy.
BUT, for guitar, it has serious limitations, and I'd only give it a 5. It responds to dynamic playing moderately well, but not as well as some other boxes (e.g. Pro Co Rat, Danelectro Daddy-O). It sounds like it's trying to be a moderately overdriven Fender amp, and it does a tolerable job of that, but nothing to write home about; personally I think my Danelectro Daddy-O has a much better tone and is much more versatile (but not as good on my bass). Also, there's not much range to the distortion settings-- the drive control set to 1 doesn't sound all that much different than 10. People who want severe distortion will find the Morley to be decidedly wimpy. It doesn't have much midrange, which suits my bass tone pretty well, but it's not always what I want for guitar. And if you play dense chords, like I tend to on guitar, you may notice some ugly intermodulation distortion. I don't know what it sounds like through a tube amp-- I haven't got one.

It's built pretty solid, but it has a weak point: the plastic input jack can wear out and the contacts get loose. I showed up for practice one day and the input was suddenly very come-and-go. If you had it mounted to a pedalboard it would probably last forever, but if it's kicking around in a bag, watch out for those jacks.

I called Morley to ask if I could get a new one so I could repair it myself. All it took was the one phone call--I got the new jack in 2 days by mail, free of charge, no questions asked.

Again, it's hard to say. If I lost this one, I might very well go out and buy one right away, because I haven't yet found a stomp box that works this well for bass overdrive. But I still think there must be something that sounds better--probably something with tubes which costs a lot. =). If I was looking for a guitar pedal, I'd rather have a Daddy-O or a Rat: they're more responsive, have better tone, and are more versatile, and they're both real solid.

Well, its very easy to use... 3 knobs that are very easy to figure out what they do since they are marked but you wont get a killer distortion out of here until you modify it. Its weak! I had to modify it to get a heavy distortion but stil not as strong as I would like so I am using it through a dirty channel to get more... If you modify it add a phaser in it too sounds great!

There is no noise throught my GFX1200 head on any setting. I am running a Hamer double cut-away with a Seymore Duncan '59 at the neck (dimebag darrell Pantera) and a Di Marzio Super Distortion at the Bridge (Randy Rhoades {passed on} of Ozzy Osbourne) and using a few other effects and the amp is a Crate GFX1200 head w/ a DSP effects board and 2 Crate 4x12 cabs. For my taste in music (Metallica to Rush to Eagles) its TOO weak!!! its very weak until you modify it... you cant get the tone of my fav artists like Rush, ZZTOP, and Hendrix.

I have had no problems so far with it and I would use it on a gig as long as I have my amp to add more distortion.

Never delt with them.And since I voided my warrenty by modifying it and changing the board to where the only way to get more distortion out of it would be to change the chip I wont ever deal with them on this pedal.

For the style music I play its not a match at all... its TOO weak... I have honestly heard better distortion on a Dean Markley 25 watt Practice amp with an 8 inch speaker!!! I have been playing for 6 years on lead/rhythm guitar, and bass for 6 years. No I wouldnt buy it again unless they gave it more Raw Power!.