Visual Sound 1 Spot

You buy this thing, which is very small and takes up almost zero room on a power strip, you buy the 4-pedal daisy chain, you plug it in. It works, there's no noise and there's no more batteries! If you have more than 4 pedals, you buy another daisy chain!

I have the 1-spot plugged into a Dunlop Crybaby brought up to TEESE RMC1 specs by AnalogMan, a Guyatone TZ2 fuzz, a Danelectro Fabtone into a Highway 1 Fender strat and a Crate amp. I have a Uni-Vibe that needs 18 volts and which I have to keep on a separate wall wart. I am going to add another daisy chain for a Guyatone OD2 overdrive, a Guyatone MC3 chorus and Guyatone ST2 compression/sustainer when I can afford them!
Bottom line? No noise, no muss, no fuss. Heaven!

I have the 1-Spot permanently plugged in and haven't looked at, touched or noticed it for 6 months.
I don't gig, but anybody doing this for a living plans for ALL contingencies, right?

Never needed/contacted Visual Sound, but check other comments here. Sounds like they stand behind their gear.

This is one of those true "no brainers". Want to clean up your pedals but can't afford one of those fancy powered pedal boards? Do yourself a favor: buy a DC Case & Cabinet Company pedal case for $69 (under "PB-2" on ebay), buy a 1-Spot plug and a daisy chain and have have yourself a powered pedal board and case for around $100, all included!
And for those of you outside the US, the 1-Spot supports 110 to 240 volts and 50/60 Hz!

Plug it in and connect to pedals. Technical data on package. No manual necessary. Mine came with the power supply and the daisy chain bundled as a package.

Powering a Wah, OD, EQ, Reverb, & Delay with a fat tele to a classic 30 mostly. Effects sound like they have a brand new battery.

Seems reliable enough. It's smaller & lighter than I thought it would be...which is a good thing to me. Connects are solid. I always keep batteries with me.

Never dealt with

Play blues, rock & contemporary christian. Been playing 30 years, too much gear to name. I would buy it again pretty quick. Love the simplicity, and it's compatibility with so many brands. Meets a huge need and is a GREAT alternative to expensive power boxes. 10++ here. One of the best values around.

well, you just plug it in, how difficult can that be?

cleared up hissing sound on my compressor caused by previous "el cheapo boss" adapter. all other pedals sound fine, no noise at all.

i've only had this 2-3 months, but no problems so far

none needed, however, i purchased mine through music. friend and it took over 6 months, that wasn't so cool. i would definitely try to order through different channels if i had it to do over again.

i think it's a great idea. i live in an old house, outlet spaces are scarce. solves that problem with no noise added. i've been playing about 6-7 years now. mostly blues/rock stuff. i use this with a strat, epi 335, gibson blueshawk, hamer, with no ill effects. it powers vis. sound rt. 66, fulltone ult. octave, maxon phaser (awesome phaser by the way)

Anyone reading this review should know that this is a retraction, correction, whatever you want to call it, of my previous review. My new One Spot is totally great! Serously! Read Below.

Transparent . . . I can't hear any noise from this unit. I play mahogany planks with humbuckers, so my guitars are pretty quiet, but I push my signal through a pile of processors, so I tend to pick up some noise there, but the One Spot itself doesn't add any noise.

So far, it's been 50/50. The first One Spot I got really didn't work right, and I returned it; it had to be defective. I wrote a review of THAT One Spot, and gave it all 1's. I've since gotten a replacement One Spot, which has worked with no problems.

I reallt wanted to test my new One Spot, so I loaded it down with my most power-hungry pedals, drawing nearly 400 milliAmps without a buzz or a burp. Very impressive. I'd like to give my new One Spot a 10, but I'll have to settle for a 7, right now. I've only had it a few days, and haven't really put it to work until today.

I hope I don't need a backup, but I expect to buy a few connector cables, and hopefully, integrate the One Spot into a pedalboard. In the future, if I found that I needed another AC adapter, I would probably get another One Spot. If you're wondering why I would get another One Spot when the first one didn't work, it's because of customer service.

So, here's the important part of the story. After I wrote my review of the defective One Spot, I decided to write to Visual Sound. I went to the web site, found out how to e-mail them, and sent an e-mail describing how the One Spot didn't work for me. I got a return e-mail from Bob Weil, the president of Visual Sound, who is another guitar player, and a real gentleman. He told me how sorry he was that I'd had problems with the One Spot, and convinced me that I should try another one. He described his effects rig, which he was driving with a One Spot, and he was cleary getting enough power. So . . . I got another One Spot . . . it works great, but more important, I know that Bob Weil stands behind his products. Hey, he didn't have to respond to someone who said, "I've already returned the One Spot." How many company presidents care about a customer who spends $30? I totally respect Bob Weil, and I feel confident about buying his products. How much more can I say? Give him a 20!

Like I said, I got a defective One Spot; I reviewed it as being basically "a hunk of junk." That one probably was. The new one totally works. It does everything I wanted it to do, and even though I didn't appreciate getting a defective One Spot, my contact with Visual Sound was overwhelmingly positive.

It doesn't work, how's that for ease of use? If you don't feel like reading the rest of this review, here's the short version; don't buy this piece of junk!

Although the One Spot isn't a sound effect, it had a noticable effect on my overall sound quality; it made everything sound like garbage. If you've ever heard the sputtering sound of a pedal with a dying battery, that's what the One Spot does.

I bought the One Spot to replace a rat's nest of adapters and cables powering my effects pedals. The rating for the One Spot promised 800 milliAmps, which should be enough to power a long chain of pedals, or even a couple of 200mA pedalboards. As if. When I plugged in some low-powered analog pedals (Wah, Distortion, Chorus and Attack Delay) it seemed to work alright, but the total current draw was around 50 mAmps. When I replaced the Wah with a Boss Bass Synth pedal (85mAmps), nothing would work. As soon as I plugged in any pedal with a current draw of 50mAmps or more, the whole chain lost power. I tried different pedals, from Guyatone, Boss, Danelectro, a whole pile. No matter what I tried, I couldn't get the One Spot to deliver even 100mAmps of power; I don't know who told the folks at Visual Sound that this piece of junk puts out 800mAmps, but someone should have checked. As far as using this thing at a gig, there's no way.

Never contacted them, I just returned the thing to the music store.

I've been playing guitar for longer than I'd like to admit. When I first learned to play guitar, the song to learn was the Animals' version of "House of the Rising Sun." Yeah, I'm that old. I've been using and collecting effects since the 1960's, and it's been a long time since I've bought anything as bad as the One Spot; actually, I'm amazed that this thing got to market at all. There's just no excuse for something this simple to be so badly made. I never got to make music with the One Spot, and I suppose I should be glad it didn't fry any of my pedals. In spite of having gotten my money back, I resent having my time wasted. I spent quite a bit of time trying to make the One Spot work, and then had to make an extra trip to return it. The idea of the One Spot is a great idea, but this product doesn't even come close. The one other person who reviewed the One Spot seemed very happy with theirs, which is cool, but I'd be interested in knowing what kinds of pedals they used it with. When I took mine back to the music store, another guitarist told me that his bandmate bought one, and also brought it back. That one barely worked for about two hours, and then fried, taking a couple of pedals with it. I guess I was lucky.

The 1 SPOT is a 9V adapter that only takes up ONE SPOT on an outlet strip or wall outlet. Plug all of your effects in and go. I bought the optional 4-plug extension cable so I could use it for my whole pedalboard.

No adverse affects on any of the pedals.

I've been gigging with it for about 4 months with no problems.

I replaced 4 wall warts on my pedal board with this thing. If you have a pedal board and want to tidy it up or are tired of replacing 9 volt batteries, go buy one of these things. Now.