Ernie Ball announces the worldwide availability of the Most Valuable Pedal (MVP), an active volume pedal with 20dB Boost.
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This pedal is designed to be flexible enough to handle both guitars and basses, and it will work with both active and passive pickup systems.
Ernie Ball chose an interesting name for this pedal, but a good volume pedal can indeed by your most valuable pedal. The seemingly simple but effective additions to this volume pedal give me the impression that it can live up to its name and that gigging musicians actually had a say with its design.
Routing flexibility is one of the first things that the MVP is designed to bring to the table, since it works with both active and passive pickups you can use it with anything from acoustic-electric to modern guitars and basses with active pickup.
Thanks to its active electronics, the MVP can also be placed anywhere on your pedalboard chain, be it at the end for complete control or at the start of your effects route to use it for tone coloration.
The pedal provides two useful controls that lets you customize the range of sweepable volume. The first of which is the Min control, it lets you set up the heel position or starting position from zero to 50%. This quite nifty when you require various volume levels within a song to emphasize certain parts. For example, you can set the Min to around 50% so you can simply go to the heel position when doing basic rhythm duties and rock the pedal forward for certain melodic elements.
The Gain control lets you set the toe position from 100% or boost the signal with up to 20+ decibels of gain. This allows the pedal to double as a reliable and controllable boost pedal. Having real time control over your level of boost is critical especially when you play at different venues, you can properly apply the right amount of boost in real-time as you rock the pedal.
A tuner output is also available, which allows you to separate your tuner pedal from your signal chain. The volume pedal will not affect the guitar signal that goes to your tuner. Setting both the Min and Gain controls to zero turns the MVP into a standard volume pedal, in case that is what you are familiar with. The Ernie Ball MVP is housed in a sturdy aluminum case and utilizes traditional belt and potentiometer system.
The MVP active volume pedal is currently retailing for around $130. You can visit Ernie Ball for more information.
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