Live Wire ABY1 Guitar Footswitch  

I wanted a passive ABY as I have a minimal rig with this set up and I didn't want to fool around with something I had to plug in to work. I am switching amps, not guitars with this rig. I am running a Fender Champ 600 (5 watts) and a Kustom 5H (also 5 watts) into a 4x12 cabinet I re-wired to do 2x12 independent each side. So I got this ABY to switch between the 2 amps. I like the fact I can put a battery in it to run the indicator lights, but I don't have to and the ABY won't be useless if the battery dies. And I would imagine the battery will last awhile as LED's are typically extremely low draw power misers.

Yuck... made in China. I truly was considering a DOD (some USA, some not) a Radial (Canada) and a Morley (USA) but either they weren't ABY's (DOD was an AB) or they were lacking features or were power dependent or just simply out of my price range. This ABY had the best blend of features and was in my price range. Out of the box there was paint missing from the finish. Not a big deal as this is made to be stepped on, but it's stuff like that why Chinese made gets a bad rap. Really, if what you see on the outside is hosed up, what kind of poor craftsmanship is lurking on the inside where you can't see? I've only had it for a day, so we'll see how long the internals hold up. I won't be surprised if it doesn't make it a year. Switching is fairly silent, no huge "POP"s like with some stuff I've stepped on, but I wouldn't say it's absolutely silent either. Pretty darn close though. Come to think of it, it may actually be silent and I may be thinking of the loud snap of the switch.

This is the cheapest ABY out there with the features of comparable units. So if the thing holds up I imagine it is a "very good value". Of course, if it dies anytime in under, say 2 or 3 years MINIMUM I would renig on that opinion. It does have a 2 year manufacturers warranty as well, so that adds to the value.

I possibly could have spent a lot more money and purchased what "might" be a better ABY, or I might have just been taken for a bigger fool. I did a lot of reading on different brands of ABY's. It seems they ALL have inherently some of the same problems. Do the high-dollar ones "dial out" some of the bugs more? Do they actually work better? I have seen ABY's in the 3 to 4 hundred dollar range. I have had to "dial in" or "tune" this ABY to my rig, and I am still fiddling with it, but it seems to be adjusting better and better. For example, I was getting a nasty squeal from the Kustom and I found if I move the ABY away from the amp/cab the squeal goes away and I can turn the amp up some more. I have also read better quality cables help. Now, I'm not going to go buy a couple $50 cables, but probably just about anything is better than the "free with guitar purchase" cheese cords I am using at the moment. They're all I have in a long length to move the ABY away from the rig to prevent the squeal. Get it? And there appears to be some bleed through from one channel to the next, but I'm not 100% certain on that, it could be my ears, I really need to get an ear right up against the speaker to know for sure. And then there's other cans of worms I haven't opened yet like tubes and speakers having incompatibility issues. So, what I'm getting at here is this ABY may or may not be "plug and play" for your set up, and you may have to tune your rig to make it work. I'm willing to take the time to do that because if I can get Fender clean and (generic) Marshall crunch tube tone out of the same rig, I will be on cloud 9. And when I stomp the "Y" switch and get BOTH sounds at once... it's fairly unreal. But it does what it says it does for sure at a decent price. I can't comment on reversing it to do 2 instruments into 1 amp, thats not why I bought it and probably never will use it in that fashion. 

Doesnt work well

indicator lites weak and switching confusing

little value  at a big price

dont buy it.

I owned this pedal for a bout 4 months and used it in my riga regularly. There was a slight bleed of sound, but it was not enough when playing at club volume for me to notice. Iwas happy with it while it worked. One day, one side just quit. This pedal is made in China...I suspect mass production and cheap parts are the reason it failed.

I have learned this lessen before about quality over price, no more will I buy the cheapest item. This time I'm going with Lehle....

It was good for a while but ultimately failed

Well even if it was a good "value" becuase of the price, because it failed, the value is low

Any product that fails after a few months is junk

Let me start by saying that I haven't really broken in the Live Wire ABY1.  It's currently set up in my rig for single switching (on/off) from my guitar to my amp.  It's being used in place of a Ernie Ball VP so that there is no popping/clicking between guitar changes.  Set up is guitar into 'B' channel and 1/4" goes out to my amp.  Then I can hit the 'A or B' switch to mute the guitar during changes.  It also allows me to have my Line 6 Variax XPS mini power supply connected at the same time my other guitars are connected.

I did attempt to connect two amps to the ABY1 however, my attempt at doing so was rather unsuccessful.  When 'A and B' was active, providing a signal to both amplifiers, I got a ton of humming and overall noise from my solid-state 2 X 12.  There was no noise from my 2 X 12 tube amp.  I have read one review where the issue was a bad 1/4" guitar or patch cable.  I have not checked my effects rig and cables yet and plan on doing so to see if that solves the problem.

Even though it's only being used as an on/off switcher at the moment, it's a little quicker than using the VP and I can get a couple of different setups out of it.  I just need to figure out what the issue is with the excess noise.  For now, I'm happy with my purchase.  I'll continue to use the Live Wire ABY1 in my rig.

The features would be nice if it had worked correctly.

First time I got to use it it bleed through on both channels and rely brought the out put down.

Mine is worthless to me as I bought quite awhile ago and when I finally got to use it, it didn't work.

I should have spent more than $50 on an ABY switch.