Got Morley Optical Volume pedal at GC sale

[bassbenj]

Went to labor day sale at GC and bought Morley optical volume pedal for $50. I love this thing. It's the perfect volume control pedal for a passive bass. Even though it has a battery, the circuit is passive using the resistive properties of CdS cells in response to light from LEDs. No added hiss or noise. Yeah, a volume pedal isn't much of an effect, but not adding anything at all to the sound while controlling volume is exactly the effect I wanted.

[AndyLES]

I bought mine on sale a few weeks ago from GC too.

I also like it, as it is fairly transparent. My only criticism (of all Morleys, to be honest) is that the actual usable sweep taper of the pedal is quite narrow.

[bassbenj]

I noticed the narrow range as well. So naturally I investigated. I took the pedal apart to see if maybe an "adjustment" to the optical slits was in order. But as I played around with it, I discovered that the "range" only seemed narrow at low volume levels. As you cranked the gain and got louder the pedal started to work better at the low settings.

The bottom line was that for now, I put it back together and decided I'd better try it out on the gig in actual conditions before I start chopping on anything! It may turn out to still need some "adjustment" but time will tell.

[toobalicious]

Originally Posted by bassbenj

I noticed the narrow range as well. So naturally I investigated. I took the pedal apart to see if maybe an "adjustment" to the optical slits was in order. But as I played around with it, I discovered that the "range" only seemed narrow at low volume levels. As you cranked the gain and got louder the pedal started to work better at the low settings.

The bottom line was that for now, I put it back together and decided I'd better try it out on the gig in actual conditions before I start chopping on anything! It may turn out to still need some "adjustment" but time will tell.

you are obviously aware of this, but the sweep range can absolutely be adjusted by slightly rearranging the LED position. it made all of the difference in the world to my morley wah pedal, which also suffered from having a narrow usable range.

[bassbenj]

Originally Posted by toobalicious

you are obviously aware of this, but the sweep range can absolutely be adjusted by slightly rearranging the LED position. it made all of the difference in the world to my morley wah pedal, which also suffered from having a narrow usable range.

Yes. In fact I noticed that one LED was sort of bent down a bit on it's wires so I pulled it back up hoping it would widen the range, but it didn't seem to change it to any great degree.