Marshall PEDL10021 TSL 5-way Footcontroller

Let me start off by saying that I don't actually own a Marshall TSL. I did though buy this switch to rewire to work for my Peavey Ultra, which used to have a tiny footswitch that was much too small to have three buttons on. Anyways, I bought a non-working TSL footswitch off of Ebay, and when I got it I was amazing by how cheap this thing was made.

The footswitch shell itself is very sturdy, being bent sheet steel. That's really what I bought it for anyways, the shell. I didn't care about the guts, since I had to rewire it to work with my Ultra anyways, but I did feel the need to share with others just how cheap everything was. The actual footswitch cable was thin and I can't imagine that it would take any abuse at all without shorting out very quickly, and the connector on the end of the cable that plugs into the amp was also pretty chinky.

When I opened up the footswitch, it was immediately evident that the cheapness did not stop with the cable and connector. The actual footswitches that were mounted to the circuit board were also some of the cheapest I've ever seen. You see threads all the time about TSL footswitches dying because of a bad cable or a broken switch, and it's no wonder why.

Overall, I have to say that this has to be just about the cheapest footswitch ever made. I just can't recommend that you buy this if you have a TSL, though I'm not sure if anyone else makes a TSL footswitch besides Marshall. If I owned one I would definitely be looking for somebody who did though. It really is no surprise to me at all that this thing stopped working, I'd almost bet that somebody stepped on or rolled a cart over the cord and killed it just like that. And oh yeah, did I mention that you get to pay around $150 for this footswitch? For that kind of money a footswitch should stand up to many years of gigging, but I can't imagine this one lasting any more than a year.