Truetone H2O V1

Purchased from Musician's Friend online for $130.00 (US). After I borrowed a rack fx box from a friend, I fell in love with the chorus and echo for both guitar and vocal work. I wondered what it would be like to have better thicker chorus and more control for my vocals, so after reading a few reviews I thought about the H2O, and I emailed the company to ask if they had tried vocals. They responded promptly that they knew of someone using it for vocals but hadn't tried it. I decided to give it a shot.

It's very simple to use, and it inspired me to play for several hours from the moment I plugged it in with my guitar. Worked fine with my mic, and I was able to get some very spacy vocal sounds.

After playing it for a few months now, both the effects sound a little "canned", just a little. When I first turn it on there is a loud ringing sound, so I have to turn it on before the amp if I don't want to hear it. When switching on and off both effects, there is a slight pinging sound, so I wouldn't want to use the swithces live on the fly (which sort of defeats the purpose of having foot switches).

When it was only a few days old, I pushed the unit across the floor with my foot and two of the rubber "feet" fell right off. There was enough glue to stick them back on, but now I have to be careful, and I'm sure they will fall off again, and I will have to glue them on with something better than what came from the factory. The body of the unit is very solid; knobs and switches very sturdy and smooth and look and feel as if they will last about fifty years.

All in all this is a pretty nice box and the effects are fine for live performance if you don't mind the slight ping (or don't use foot the switches). I have done some interesting recording with it, and I want to like it more, but they really need to improve on some basic things in my opinion. I might trade mine, I'm not sure yet.

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

This is an interesting take on delay pedals. It basically is a digital delay. There is a single input and output, which are both 1/4" instrument inputs. This pedal is not capable of being edited with a Computer. There are also no MIDI capabilities and there is no way to rack mount this pedal.


UTILIZATION

This is one of the more difficult pedals I've had to try and use. I find that quite often when I'm reviewing some pedals, I remark at how much I like the ease of use, and how I find the manual unnecessary. I had the complete opposite experience when using this. First of all, the manual doesn't explain anything, which would be fine if the pedal weren't so strange.

SOUND QUALITY

I don't really think this is my favorite delay. There are times when I love the tone that I get out of it (A nice, wet delay, not one that is marred by excessive echo, or one that sounds too huge). However, it seems as though the pedal robs me of volume as well as tone when I have it on. Beyond that, when I need to get loud, this thing is NOISY. I really can't have that as I tend to have enough noise problems as it is. Using a noise gate doesn't even seem to work well. Since I play rock music, and need distortion, I can't crank the noise gate up too much without robbing me of serious tone. However, that's exactly what I need to do in order to even remotely tame this thing. It's very frustrating. However, I will say that beyond the noise, this pedal has a unique and interesting sound.


OVERALL OPINION

I have found that I don't really need the sounds that I can get out of this thing anyway, which is why I ended up selling it back. I was surprised later to find that other people had reported having good experiences with this pedal. I would say that if you are interested, definitely try it with a power supply as opposed to a battery. I would also recommend buying a noise gate in tandem, so that you can tame the noise. Not every gate is going to work with this guy. This pedal is a risky purchase that probably shouldn't be anybody's first foray into delay pedals.

Visual Sound make some great effects pedals for the gigging and recording musicians. This is a cool little pedal if you need two effects combine into one small little unit. Basically this is a chorus pedal along with the delayed tpedal in one. You have 2 foot switch stops on the box as well as a separate side for controls for each of the two effects. This is a cool little pedal that has stereo outputs and has a fantastic tone for any setting.

UTILIZATION

Features

Normal/Lush switch on Chorus channel
NOS BBD chip
Speed control
Width control
Delay Time control
800ms of analog-voiced digital echo
Echo time control
Repeats control
Effect level
Two output jacks
Use effect channels separately or together
Diecast aluminum housing
10 million cycle switching
Easy battery access
Circuit protection



SOUND QUALITY

The chorus tone is very lush and watery which sounds very good and clean setting. You have a switch for normal and lush which allows you to dial in a little bit different voicings for the chorus tone. On the other side it has a time, repeats, and the overall effect volume level. It also has a short and long switch that allows the repeats to be staggered or repeating over a long period of time. This is a pretty good up pedal for the money but it's certainly not to be a high-end pedal either. But really, who gives a rip about high-end pedals, I think the most pedals over 400 or $500 don't really do much anything different than some of the hundred dollar or $200 pedals. Pretty much tone is in the hands anyway so if you get this sound that you're looking for for $150 for $200 that I suggest going with that.

OVERALL OPINION

At new you can find these pedals for right around $190. That's a pretty good price for two different effects in one pedal. So it doesn't take up a lot of space on your pedal board as well. I recommend this pedal to someone is looking to free up some space on their pedal board and doesn't want to spend a whole lot of money to do it.

The Visual Sound H2O V1 is a “home plate” shaped chorus and echo pedal. The pedal has a solid metal housing and two sturdy switches. One switch is to engage the chorus and one to engage the echo. They can be used separately or pressed together. The unit has a single input, but has outputs that can be used for mono or stereo. The chorus has three knobs to hone in the sound; speed, width, and delay time. The echo has three knobs and a switch; delay time, repeats, effect level and a switch for short or long delay times. The pedal can run off of 9 volts of battery power or a power supply.

UTILIZATION

The idea behind this pedal is great; two pedals that are commonly used in conjunction with each other that can be used simultaneously or independently housed in the same pedal. The pedal seems to be built very well from the outside, though I have had issues with reliability with this pedal. The echo side of this pedal has never let me down, the chorus side is another story. I had used the pedal one day during a practice session, and the following day the chorus side of the pedal just would not work. Signal still passed through the pedal and the echo side worked fine, but when trying to turn on the chorus side there was no effect to the tone whatsoever, even though the LED was turned on. My first impression was that it was a switch issue, but after talking with Visual Sounds customer service I found out the issue was probably something with the board. The people at Visual Sound were very helpful, so there is a plus on their side. Though I bought the pedal used and had no warranty for the pedal they were willing to send several emails and schematics so I could check a few things on the pedal. In the end I sent it to them and for a bench fee of 25 dollars they were able to get me back and running. Not bad customer service for an old product bought on the used market. This may have been a fluke with my pedal, but at least if a Visual Sound pedal goes down you know you’ll be able to get it fixed without having to buy a new one.

SOUND QUALITY

The chorus side of this pedal is very lush and warm sounding. It can handle swooshing and swirling sounds to make a clean sound very lively and dreamy, or it can do an almost vibe pulsating sound. You can cope several different styles of modulation out of the chorus side, but it does a very smooth Pink Floyd type chorus very well. The echo side of the pedal does around 800 ms of analog voiced echo. Since it’s trying to sound analog it’s a little on the warmer darker side of the spectrum, so you aren’t going to get those crisp clone repeats like you would from a Boss digital delay. I find it to be very natural sounding with a nice taper in the decay. Slapbacks or medium length echos are available, but the pedal is not capable of super long delays. This doesn’t bother me because the pedal is right in the range of delay I use. The one problem I have with the sound and the pedal as a whole is the volume boost I get from the pedal. There is a very noticeable boost in the volume when I use this pedal. Though it is less noticeable with different amps, it is still apparent

OVERALL OPINION

Overall this is a nice sounding pedal if you want warm liquid tones and short delay times. The volume boost on these early pedals leave the pedal useless for me at a gig, but for use during an entire song or recording it wouldn’t be bad. If I had it to do over again I would not buy this pedal, especially at a new price. I like the idea of the two in one pedal for using the switches, but as your tastes in sound change you might end up using only half of the pedal and it takes up a lot of pedalboard real-estate. I feel it’s a little over priced and the volume boost is just ridiculous at this price point. I believe it has been addressed in the new versions of the pedal though. Visual Sound as a company earned some points with me through their help with fixing my pedal, but this pedal is lacking in areas that have made me turn to other pedals.