Fender ABY Footswitch

This review has been entirely rewritten. Initially it was very uncomplimentary because of the horrendous ground loop hum and sensitivity of the footswitches that led to all sorts of crackling.

It turns out that it was faulty, because the replacement worked just fine. No hum, no buzz, no crackle, no adverse effects whatsoever. Just clean and noiseless switching. Great! Or at least, that is what I thought.

To save time in case the second one turned out to be just as noisy, I also ordered FIVE other ABY foot-switchers, hoping that at least ONE of them would work! This enabled me to run some side-by-side tests of each one of them to determine their respective pros & cons.

The HUGE advantage the Fender ABY box holds over all the more esoteric and more expensive models is its passive operation. No need for an annoying little 9v PSU & cable, just a 9v battery to power the status LED's. I anticipate that, running just those two LED's, the battery will be good for many years !!

BUT, BUT, BUT ... the tests revealed that the Fender is a tone sucker. And not just a little bit. It sucks all the presence and punch out. Great for a jazz lounge ... maybe.

FYI, I did take the opportunity to try the other units but his particular review must deal only with the Fender ABY box. The other units listed below are reviewed on their respective pages:
1. Lead Foot ABY
2. Old Blood Noise Endeavors AB/Y Switcher
3. Radial Engineering Tonebone Twin City ABY
4. Morley ABY PRO Selector

If you want my conclusion, the ONLY one worth considering out of this selection, if you want clean, transparent, colourless operation with no ground loop issues or snap, crackle and pop, is the Morley. But you will have to dig deep, it ain't cheap.

Finally, thank you Thomann for your excellent returns policy that has permitted me to conduct a meaningful comparison after the first unit proved faulty.

I need to switch guitars on stage regularly. To switch guitars without the constant plugging and unplugging, the footswitch is great to do that seamlessly and smoothly.

The great thing about this device is that it is heavy duty and feels indestructible. Shit happens during performances, especially if you play in rowdy bars. You may never know what type of emotions you might coax out of your audience.

The cons is that both A and B lights are blue. There will be venues where it is dark as hell. So I might not be able to see which button I am stepping on.

I have not used it to switch the outputs but I'd imagine that it would be similar to what I have done.

Overall a great handy product to have. At that low price range, it is unbeatable! The hard metal casing certainly makes it feel twice as expensive.

The footswitch is not as good as I thought. When I opened the battery compartment the screws threads broke. I managed to solve the problem. All good to plug and play. I use it for two guitars. For A or B mode is perfect, but in A and B mode the instruments volumes are very low. If you turn one guitar volume the other guitar is also muted.

Pro: very good for A or B mode.
Cons: A and B mode is useless, and the battery door screws threads broke on the first unscrew trial.

The order delivery from Thomann fast and in time. The five stars rating was for Thomann good work.

What a great, no nonsense piece of kit. I'm delighted. It does exactly what it's supposed to do and requires no annoying power unit. I installed a battery to run the LEDs but the footswitch works perfectly well without, so even when the battery runs out, it still works, just without the indicators. I'm using it to switch my condenser instrument mic between channels on the desk, giving me a perfect volume boost for solos. As a saxophonist I was sick of blowing solos at backing volume, when the guitarist and keyboards could play their solos at boosted volume. The Fender footswitch passes phantom power to my clip-on mic and my solos are now out front where they belong. A simple, elegant solution, to a, age-old problem. Perfect.