Morley VBO Volume Boost

I got this free from a friend. thought it looked awesome. big and sturdy.

its a great volume pedal with a sweet boost built in. a footswitch for the boost, a gain knob for the boost function, and an on/off switch.

i use this in front of all my pedals into my ac30cc2. amazing amp.

its great for volume swells. the sweep is a little fast, but its perfect for me.

the boost is insane. it has so much volume on tap. i have the boost set beflow 12 o clock and its still boosted. it sounds really rad.

its a freakin tank. i could probably throw it into the ocean and still use it after i fished it out 5 years later. big metal box. awesome.

gotta get some spare bulbs for it, but other than that, its great.

never had to deal with them.

its a great pedal. i wasnt really into volume pedals until i got this for free. now i use it all the time. plus the boost is great.

if i broke this or lost it, i would scour ebay or craigslist for another. its great.

On/off toggle switch, on/off footswitch for boost and intensity knob on the side. Very easy to use.

Adds no noise to my sound but you can hear a high frequency hiss when the boost footswitch is selected and intensity is set to maximum. This is normal because the boost is a small pre-amp that amplifies everything. An equalizer pedal would probably resolve that little problem. The volume sweep goes from zero to loud (great for Roy Buchanan type sound).

Yes, I can depend on it and I use it without backup. Built very robust. It's quite old and still works like the day it was built.

I play blues and blues/rock and this pedal is very handy for quick volume adjustments and volume swells. I had bought Morley volume pedals in the past and sold them for a profit. I regretted selling my volume pedals and bought this one last year. I won't sell this one. At first, I was a bit leery of the "boost" function but this function really works well even though I don't use it much. It's an early model (low serial number) made in California. All chrome construction. It's in new condition. This pedal is about the same length as a Vox or Dunlop Wah but a bit wider. Looks great on stage. It plugs into AC via a heavy duty 8 foot cord and adds absolutely no noise to my sound. Unlike most wah pedals, the instrument and amplifier connections are on the same side. This I appreciate very much because the volume pedal is the last pedal in the effects chain and makes for a neat arrangement on stage. The pedal does exactly what it is supposed to do and does it very well.

Volume pedal with on/off toggle switch, boost footswitch and knob for boost intensity.

I am using this with a variety of old tube amps and vintage guitars. The pedal is not noisy unless the boost intensity is set maximum and the pedal is in toe-down position. The volume control is ok when the boost switch is off. With the boost switch on, the volume varies greatly depending on how far you adjust the intensity knob. With the boost switch on, the pedal actually becomes a pre-amp that overdrives the amp.

This is the old style, all chrome, huge pedal that Morley was famous for. It's in "like new" condition. It probably has it's original #387 bulb inside. I should go to Radio Shack and buy a spare.....they cost less than 2 dollars.

From what I have heard, the service is great. All the owners' manuals and wiring diagrams are right there on their web site. I have not used their service department. Parts are available directly from the company and the parts list is on their web site too.

I play anything except "punk". I am in my mid fifties and started playing when I was about 16 so I have played all kinds of styles. Now I mostly play blues. I use this pedal with guitar or harmonica. I needed something to vary the volume of my harmonica microphone. The pedal works so great that I use it with guitar for volume swells (a la Buchanan). Makes my guitar sound like a pedal steel guitar. This all-chrome pedal is large and heavy. Another nice touch....the instrument and amplifier jacks are both on the same side. Uses 110 volt power supply. Consumes 15 watts.

This is a vintage Morley VBO (Volume BOost) pedal. It was manufactured by the Tel-Ray Electronics Mfg. Co. under the Morley brand name. The circuit board version is RW-1B.

Its very simple to operate: plug the 120 VAC cord into the wall, plug your patch cables into the pedal where it says "Instrument" and "Amplifier." There?s a switch to turn-on AC power to the pedal and a stomp switch to bypass the pedal. The pedal is used as a conventional foot-operated volume pedal. There?s an additional potentiometer on the side of the pedal labeled "Boost Intensity" that controls the amount of gain that the pedal produces. At low settings, the pedal acts like a volume pedal. At higher settings, the pedal provides user-selected amounts of gain. The signal output is always clean, but the strength of the signal is strong enough to overdrive a tube amplifier?s inputs if you set the boost intensity high enough. <grin>

I was amazed by how good this pedal sounds. I bought this pedal as a lark, thinking that for US$40 it was worth its weight in parts even if it sounded bad. Much to my surprise, it provides a very smooth, CLEAN, and quiet volume control. This is characteristic of the Morley pedals which use LAMPS and LDRs (light dependent resistors) instead of potentiometers to control the volume. As a result, the lamp/LDR pair never develops a scratchy sound that is so common with Dunlop type volume pedals.

The pedal uses a false bypass mechanism, but does not fall victim to "tone sucking" that is characteristic of the Dunlop type pedals. This is because the pedal uses buffered pre-amp at its input.

The best surprise in this pedal was the utility of its signal boost function. The pedal provides plenty of clean boost ? enough controllable gain to provide just the right amount of overdrive to your tube amplifier?s preamp stage, resulting in beautiful preamp distortion.

Lately I?ve been using my VBO as the final pedal in the effects loop of my Mesa Boogie Mk IV, primarily for the purpose of controlling the output of my echoplex. When used in this fashion, the pedal provides adequate control to prevent run-away echo. It also provides the added benefit of being able to provide controlled overdrive of the amplifier stage of my power amp, facilitating the sound of power tube distortion at controlled volume levels. Excellent!

Vintage Morley pedals are built like a 1940s Mack truck. The case is so solid that you could drive a dump truck over them and be confident that the pedal would continue to function. Unfortunately, the Vintage pedals? Achilles Heel is caused by their use of an incadescent bulb as the light source for the lamp/LDR pair. As a result, the pedal will fail if and when the lamp burns out. I bought my used pedal and it worked flawlessly until the lamp burned out. Unfortunately the time at which the lamp burns out is totally unpredictable, and miniature lamps of this type are kind of hard to find. For this reason, you may want to stock-up on a few spares at your local electronics store and keep them inside the pedal.

If the pedal ever fails on you (the pilot lamp goes out) TURN THE PEDAL OFF IMMEDIATELY! If you fail to do this, you will burn out the resistor that supplies power to the bulb and you?ll be faced with a circuit board repair. This is a problem that is unique to the Vintage pedals, as the current line of Morley pedals use LEDs as the power source, which have a practically infinite lifespan.

If you need absolutely reliable gear for gigging, go out and buy a new Morley pedal that uses the LED light source. If you want an inexpensive Vintage pedal for other applications, keep your eye out for one of these. They?re dirt cheap and quite a bargain.

Once my bulb burned out, my pedal was toast. I called Morley at 800-284-5172 and within 5 minutes a copy of the VBO pedal?s schematic was printing out on my fax machine. Their tech support staff even offered to mail me a free type 387 bulb to replace the one that had caused my problem. As a result, all I need to do to repair the unit is to replace one resistor in the power supply and the unit should return to function. Excellent!

Overall, I give the unit a 7-8 as a straight average of the four categories. The only reason that this pedal loses points is because it relies on an incadescent lamp, which could burn-out without warning. This is a characteristic of Vintage pedals that is not shared by the new pedals that use LEDs as their light source. If you need absolutely reliable gear for gigging, go out and buy a new Morley pedal. If you want an inexpensive Vintage pedal for other applications, keep your eye out for one of these. They?re dirt cheap and quite a bargain.