Mission EngineeringVM-Pro Buffered Volume Pedal - Black

UPDATE:I have since bought the VM-1 volume pedal (passive) and it is excellent. It does everything I wanted perfectly. The sweep is perfect, it is quiet and there is no tone suck (and it is cheaper). This is the volume pedal I would recommend if you are doing swells.ORIGINAL REVIEW:This pedal is not good for volume swells. It uses a linear pot which causes it to be extremely sensitive to the initial part of the sweep resulting in a sudden jumps/spikes in volume. If you are trying to do smooth, even swells through a delay where the guitar is is prominent in the mix, you do not want to get this pedal. It will result in sudden uneven jumps in volume effectively ruining it. I am talking about literally a movement in millimeters causes an almost step-function rise in volume and trying to effect this kind of control live is just impossible. I have talked with technical support in Mission and they basically admitted that this is the case. I was told that I was just one in a very small group of people who call with this complaint (maybe once a month) whereas the remainder of people just use this as a kind of volume control in the mix. Well I guess that maybe true, but if you are like me -- trying to do basic swells where the guitar is the main component of the mix, this pedal is basically useless. It will cause sudden spikes in volume which the delay will then just repeat over and over ruining the swell.The pedal really looks to be a very well constructed, quality product, and Mission's technical support really is great. The buffer on this pedal is very good. But that is irrelevant if the main function of the pedal -- even logarithmic swells -- doesn't work (I was told I should get the passive version of this pedal if I wanted logarithmic swells). I hate to complain about this pedal for these reasons, but that fact that it is so expensive and so bad at doing what the simple task it is supposed to, I am leaving this review for the other people like me who are looking for a good pedal that will do prominent volume swells. This is not the pedal for you. Save your money. Perhaps Mission will make a version with a logarithmic pot. And by the way, trying to swap out the pot is difficult to impossible as it is a custom-made pot and I have yet to find any replacement pot which would fit the pedal assembly (plus it voids your warranty). I wanted to like the pedal and I tried everything I knew to make it work. But it doesn't (for me at least).

This is my first volume pedal, so i dont have any context for comparison other than my expectation. I play bass with active and passive basses and i use overdrive, compression and other effects pedals. I noticed that my tone does not seem to affected by this pedal and it works with both my active and passive basses. I gave it 4 stars because the swells are not as good as id hoped for. While i can make it work, I thought that it would be more gradual over the span of the tilt. That said, it very well could be my expression pedal not allowing the volume to quiet itself. More experimentation is needed.

I didn't find any use for this pedal outside of regulating the volume. I was hoping for more of a crybaby effect, but it just wasn't there. If you want a good pedal, and to have this as a more expensive volume pedal beside it, find that one first - and skip buying this one.

I have always been a fan of volume swells. I always lacked the patience of rolling back and forth on the volume knob. Even though I have a kill switch on my guitar. I saw this pedal on a proguitarshop demo video. I had to have it, after listening. The sweep of the pedal is easy to get accustomed to. There is three modes inside the pedal. Haven't tried any yet. So far I use this pedal as a volume sweller in my songs. Works amazing. So much creativity comes along with this pedal. This will always stay with all my other pedals

Strong, built like a tank. Everything works as it should.

Great pedal. Does everything advertised and does it well. Fast turn-on in the very beginning of the travel may take some getting used to for super-slow swells, but this pedal is where it's at.

I heard about the VM-PRO with Buffer through ProGuitarShop. I was at first hesitant to pay a handsome amount for a volume pedal, but I needed one and the Buffer sounded like an interesting idea.When I finally plugged it in I realized an immediate difference in my sound. My clean sound was a lot fuller and somewhat louder than usual. With four to five pedals in my chain, I had become accustomed to signal loss to the point where I absolutely needed a clean boost just to make my guitar sound like it was running straight through the amp. Not only did it completely make up for that loss, but depending on my guitar, my clean sound may sound like it's being slightly driven, which may not be everyone's cup of tea. For this reason, there are internal switches designed for it to interact well with different sounds in your rig, and so the buffer won't upset pedals of a certain variety (older fuzzes, for example).The only complaint I have is that no matter how the pedal is set, the buffer seems to upset my distortion channel on my Mesa by creating a mild but noticeable buzz. However, it also revived the channel's signal to the point where it no longer sounded like a fuzzy Hiwatt but more like a modern, glassy Mesa with a contour knob.As far as its volume pedal purposes go, I really can't offer any critique. It follows the familiar, friendly design of a Crybaby and it works fairly smoothly. The real reason I spent a good amount on this pedal and the reason it's become a must on my pedal board is the buffer. No other buffer I've heard truly makes up for signal loss in such a noticeable way. It's almost become a crutch now.