Visual Sound Visual Volume VV10 10th Anniversary Edition

Pretty easy to use. A few things here:

Active mode includes a clean boost knob. If you use the pedal BEFORE distortion, it will take some time to adjust the knob so that it doesn't distort your signal. We're talking minor change in sound here guys, nothing big, but it does make a difference. When you set it up correctly, it can really add to your sound, especially solos.

To access all the settings, i.e. active/passive switches, clean boost knobs and tension adjuster screw you have to unscrew the pedal's bottom plate. This is a problem as you will probably want to adjust the clean boost knob in active mode, especially when changing from clean sound to distorted and so on. Hence the relatively low score.

LEDs are very useful, and pretty accurate, you can actually return to an exact volume simply by looking!

Manual OK, nothing much though. Contains illustrations on where to position the pedal, and very short explanation of the settings. The advertising is more pages than the info on the pedal itself. Could be much better.

I think that it also has AC protection on it, that is, even if you plug an AC adaptor (line6 for example)by accident, it won't burn the pedal, it simply won't work.

My setup is: Gibson M-III, Korg Pitchblack pedal tuner, Visual Volume pedal, Ibanez Weeping Demon WD7 wah pedal, Line 6 POD (usually emulating a Marshall JCM 800) and a BOSS DD6.

On active mode you have a pure tone buffer circuit which strengthens your signal so that it can sound as if you're pluged straight to an amp, even with loads of pedals or long cables. It is actually pretty amazing, your sound is so much brighter. It works no matter where you put the pedal in your chain of effects. Like I said before, take time to adjust the clean boost knob in active mode. The pure tone buffer also has a thing (can't remember what it's called, RF locking I think) whereby if VV10 is first in the chain, you won't hear radio programs through the amp!

Passive mode is simply like using your volume pot on the guitar. It DOESN"T have the pure tone buffer circuit, and you can't use the clean boost knobs. To be honest, can't say I can find a use for it, active mode is pretty amazing.

Very nice and gradual change in volume (or gain if you use it before distortion like me). What I love about using it before distortion is that the gain changes differ according to your pickup i.e. it will clean your sound better with single coils rather than humbuckers, which in turn offer a nice subtle thick "dirt" when you back off the pedal a lot.

Only complaint is that when you fully back it off, and then slowly start to push, the initial, quite volume kicks in quite suddenly.

Haven't had it for long, better not say just yet. It looks quite sturdy though, seems like it will last quite a bit. HOWEVER, the internal circuit seems a bit "loose", but like I said, I haven't had it for long, although I used it everyday. Best to check the other reviews on this one.

Got to be one of the best out there, they answer emails within the day. Have heard a lot of people that talk to the engineers themselves when they call Visual Sound. I have also heard people getting their stuff repaired and serviced for free, even though they're past their warranty.

Even through emails, their answers are very friendly. You really get the feel that whoever answers the emails really knows what he is talking about. An example to other companies. WELL DONE VISUAL SOUND!

I have been playing for 12 years now. I play a lot of classic rock, blues and heavy metal. I love the VV10 for using it before distortion. This way you can really fine tune your gain level, especially with the pure tone buffer and and clean boost knobs brightening up your signal.

Compared to other volume pedals I tried when searching to buy one, this one easily had the best volume sweep from start to finish. One guy at a particular shop was talking about the best volume pedal currently on the market.

I hate having to unscrew the bottom plate every time I want to adjust the clean boost knobs, very annoying. I imagine that if you play with only ONE kind of sound (eg ONLY distortion) then that doesn't matter. But if you change sounds, its annoying, you probably will want to adjust the knob.

Would definetly buy another one if stolen.

I wish you could adjust all the knobs and switches from the outside, in the spirit of the Ibanez WD7 weeping demon wah pedal.

All in all I'm satisfied with it, worth every penny, you will love the brightness and slight boost it adds to your solos, really makes difference. Fell in love with the customer support, I can safely say I am happy to own this.

I give it an 8 because despite the almost excellent sound quality and amazing customer support, it's annoying having to unscrew it all the time.

very easy to use
I got it new for 100$
I tried few other volume peadals that didnt satisfied me

no sucking of tone, which is the most important thing
I have had other pedals that I sold not because of badeffected sound but they were sucking the presence of my tone which is very irritating for serious player.Very usefull thing is doubled input jack/ I can have my main guitar plugged together with my backup guitar and change them in case of need immediatelly. When there will be 5 seconds between bridge and chorus I can even change it in one song and dont need to unplug cables. Im kidding but its possible. I am broke so I use cheap led diode tuner that I dont have to go thru just using tuner out socket. Nice function again. ?Is there any better volume pedal? of course there is but I dont play as backup guitarist in Stones so I dont need one. Boutique volume pedals can rock and I would definately go for sum kinda custom shop made If I`d have spare 300$. This rocks for me now Did I mentioned boost function -very nice stuff for tele players kix amp in the *** in way of tubescream.

solid aluminium enclosure
Other reviewers here mentioned problems with volume pot in it..I dont know mine is new

Well I live in forests 1000 miles from civilization so it wouldnt be usefull for me anyways

great pedal, nice ebay price, and yeah..do not use passive mode /feed it from your AC it will do a good job

Hey, it's a volume pedal. Just plug the cables in the right way, and have at it. The shape of the volume changes works perfectly for me: it is easy to get the exact volume I need, and to find it again. Love the tuner out feature.

I'd don't hear any tone loss (I'm using it in active mode). The boost is very useful as well.

This pedal seems under-engineered inside. I had the same squeaking problem that a previous poster mentioned. Visual Sound sent me a new pot, but when I took it apart, it wasn't a bad pot. Rather, the mechanism had been assembled poorly, and was rubbing against the inside of the case. I moved it around, squeak gone. Still, the pedal doesn't have that smooth feel of my Morley pedals.

Visual Sound returns emails promptly, sends out parts immediately. Fabulous!

I play every week in a worship setting. We run everything direct - no amps. I use a volume pedal on every song. My setup is Stereo Guitar - magnetic pickups - SansAmp Tri-AC - Visual Volume - AB box - H2O Chorus/Delay - DI. The peizo bridge pickup goes to an acoustic preamp - Volume pedal - AB box. Since the pedal is stereo, it can control both the electric and acoustic channels. I use my guitar's volume knob to dial in the exact amount of overdrive for a section of the song, and then rock the volume pedal to get to exact volume needed. For a pedal this expensive, I would have hoped for a smoother rocking function, and a better build quality. But this is the only thing out there with these features.

Easy to use, but for a volume pedal it's more complicated than usual.

In passive mode you lose a lot of top end. I'm guessing that they used a loz-z pot, like maybe a 25k.

In active mode, with the buffer activated, the sound becomes a bit brittle and a bit too brite. I.e. The buffer amp isn't very musical sounding, in my opinion. Lots of guys won't notice this, but I did, right away.

I've toyed around with many buffer circuits over the years and the only one I've heard that really sounds good, so far, is the one made by Axxess Electronics, the BS2.
I've got one of these in front of a low impedance Boss FV300L right now and, tone-wise, it's the perfect sounding volume pedal across the entire taper. But the taper itself seems to change a bit for the worse with the buffer in there.

My old Boss FV300H, the high impedance model, used to sound good enough (bit of high end loss, but not too bad), but it's been dying on me. The new model that they've replaced it with, the FV500H, doesn't sound nearly as good.

Oh well.

The VV10 squeaks, physically, when you move the treadle.
Doesn't seem to be a way to lubricate it to make it stop.
This makes it useless to me in the orcghestra pit, or on a jazz gig, or on any gig really.

Also, the black paint they used was peeling off straight out of the box.

The design feels cheap and and I can't imagine it not breaking down within a year or 2 of normal regular usage.

I hear they're pretty good with support.

Too bad. It's got some great great design ideas, with both the leds and the built-in buffer. I just wish they'd done a bit better job.

It would be helpful too if the leds had more variety in their colors.
In an orchestra pit, with your eyes mostly on the music and the conductor, being able to quickly glance down and seeing a different color associatecd with your level would be easier than having to parse all those blue leds.

Once it is set up and plugged in, it's a piece of cake. It has a nice, even, no-nonsense swell rate, no sudden jumps or volume decreases to get used to.

I use this pedal in active mode only (the default); the boost is adjustable by removing four screws on the bottom panel and tweaking a few controls.

Two very minor issues keep this from getting a 10: the labels for the jacks are on the bottom panel, so if you have the pedal attached to a pedal board you might want to apply your own labels to the front panel where you can see it. Also, I wish it had a minimum volume setting and some kind of tactile "center detente" so you could feel when you were in the middle position without having to look down.

I haven't tried it in passive mode, but in active mode there is no treble loss. I tried a Boss FV500H and a Morley PVO before I bought the Visual Sound and was very disappointed with both of those pedals. I check for 'tone suck' putting the amp on the clean channel, my Carvin CT6M in split pickup mode, and total quiet in the room. I then back off on the volume pedal and play a few open chords on the high strings. Under these conditions, the other pedals sucked tone; the Visual Volume does not. Along with the smooth taper, I give this a 10.

The build quality, as far as I can tell, is excellent. I have also had a Jekyll & Hyde for a few years and have had no problems with it.

Visual Sound's customer service is the standard that all music equipment manufacturers should strive to achieve. I emailed them a few questions before and after the sale and received immediate and accurate responses.

I play classic rock only, but like to fool around with different styles and tones both clean and overdriven. I want a volume pedal to be unobtrusive and intuitive and not alter the sound, and after a couple of expensive experiments, I'm glad I finally tried the Visual Volume. As for the LED's - they have limited usefulness. They are extremely bright, which is a plus, but (a) you have to look down to see them (of course!) and (b) if you wear baggy pants or bell bottoms, they can get obscured. I try to keep the pedal in the center position and I look down when I get a chance to see where it's at. Other nice features include stereo in/out and a tuner output.

This will be one of the first (if not the first) reviews of this pedal here at Harmony Central, since it was just released and I was fortunate enough to snag one. Since this is just a volume pedal (but one with several unique features), I will bypass commenting on patches and such.
The pedal is very transparent, adding nothing to the sound except for volume control. It is very easy to use, especially considering the LED's that are resident at the left side of the pedal itself. The LED's correspond to the loudness of the signal. You can get a visual marker (hence, Visual Volume!) for certain settings without having to just remember "kinda" where the setting was. The lights are bright, so seeing them on a brightly lit stage or outside should be no problem.
All the jacks are well marked, so hook up is not a problem. There are two inputs (left and right), two outputs (left and right), and a tuner out. There is also a 9V adaptor jack so one needn't waste batteries (according to the manual, this thing will go through a 9V pretty quickly due to the LED's). The plethora of jacks allows for several things. Mono-in and mono-out would be the most common way to use this pedal. Mono-in and stereo-out allows for the guitar signal to be split between two destinations (two amps, an amp and an amp modeler, etc.). You can also use two guitars going to one output destination, or you can used two guitars input into it and have them output to two separate destinations (an electric to an amp and an acoustic to a DI). It also can be used as a CV pedal (to control things on a keyboard, or to control settings on an effects unit) if you have an insert cable to make it happen.
One of the cooler things about the unit is the switchable preamp. If you take the bottom plate off, there are two switches that allow you to use it in either passive or active mode. In active mode, there is a dial for each channel to control the gain. This is cool if you are using two guitars with differing outputs to match up the signals, or to bump up the signal if you are using a lot of pedals, thus compensating for signal loss.
The tuner out is a feature included on many volume pedals, and it is a welcome feature on this one as well. Just rock the pedal back to silent mode, and tune away silently.
The pedal feels great under your foot, and travels very smoothly. The potentiometer is easily replaced when it wears out (which will happen to any brand of pedal sometime).
All in all, I rate the ease of use at a "10".

My setup is as follows:
Parker Fly Deluxe or Godin LGX-SA --- Peterson StroboStomp tuner --- Visual Sound Jekyll and Hyde --- Visual Sound Route 66 --- Visual Sound H20 --- Yamaha MagicStomp --- Digitech JamMan --- aux inputs of a Roland VG8-EX --- mixing board.
This is a transparent volume pedal. I heard no scratches or artifacts as I ran it through its paces. I tried it both in passive and in active. Let me tell you, active mode can really boost the signal! This would be great for sending a tube amp into beautiful overdrive, or for juicing the signal for longer cable runs or through several pedals (which is what I do).
This pedal makes it easy to do volume swells ala Phil Keaggy or Larry Carlton. Just set a long delay with some regeneration, push the pedal to silent, hit a chord or note, and slowly push the pedal down. Lovely!
If you put the pedal before an overdrive, just remember that the overdrive tone will change as you alter the amount of signal that the overdrive is getting. This actually might be a cool thing, allowing for different sounds with the distortion/overdrive pedal just by changing the amount of signal it gets. This is the same as turning your guitar's volume knob down for rhythm and up for leads, except it is done all with one's feet!

Visual Sound has a great reputation for building high quality effects. They have a very low repair return rate overall as a company, which means that they make very dependable products. As an owner of every pedal they make, I can vouch for their quality. I would definitely gig without a backup.

The company is very quick to answer email questions. Bob Weil, the president, even answers some emails personally. Bob is a great guy. All the people there are friendly and helpful. From what I have read here at Harmony Central, they are also quick to take care of problems, should they arise.

I play in the CCM genre. This pedal allows me to do everything I need a volume pedal for and more. I have been playing for almost 30 years, and have owned Ernie Ball volume pedals (two of them, and they both functioned the same way - no smoothness to the volume sweep). I own all the Visual Sound pedals, a Voodoo Lab Sparkle Drive, a tc Chorus, lots of amp modeler gizmos, a few amps, and lots of guitars.
I would definitely replace it if it were lost or stolen.
I love the feel of the pedal; the smoothness of the volume change; the versatility of the input/output section; the switchable preamp and gain capability; the tuner out; and the LED's! It has everything I really could want in a volume pedal.
I highly recommend this pedal. You will not find a more versatile volume pedal or a more well-though-out design and feature set, all from a company that is run by people of the highest moral and ethical standards.