The Vision guitar arrived in a particularly large box which allowed room for a great deal of packing material twixt guitar box and outer box. It was as I was emptying this packing material (polystyrene Wotsits to be precise) into the dustbin that I noticed the two dark objects tumble like guano in a snowstorm into the bin. Upon retrieving them I noticed that I had become the happy recipient of two Vision effects pedals, the DS-1 Distortion pedal and the PH-1 Phaser.

I opened the boxes. Both pedals were very similar in appearance being mainly of a grey hue, with three knobs each and rubber pads on the underside and the actual pedal area. Each had a red LED to indicate when they were in operational mode and each had a simple slide-open battery compartment on the top between the pedal area and the knobs. The pedal activation of the units was a solid and sure operation meaning that when you stepped or stamped on the pedal it would come on or go off without any hesitation and, what's more, you could really stamp on them without detriment to either pedal or foot. The Phaser had yellow markings and the Distortion has reddish pink ones so I'll turn to that one first.

The aforementioned three knobs represented in this case Level, Tone and Distortion. All three are self-explanatory. The distortion adjustment did also affect the level which is to be expected and is easily sorted out. The tone allowed for a sound ranging from a gutsy rumble to a screaming circular saw rasp. The distortion ranged all the way from cleanliness to fuzz but it must be said that distortion only really became evident past the half way mark on the dial. Nevertheless it was a sturdy little pedal capable of giving all the distortion I will ever need.

Now the Phaser had knobs representing Rate, Depth and Feedback. Similar to the distortion on the DS-1, the rate alterations only really became noticeable past the 11 o'clock mark but within the remaining scope the variation was perfectly adequate ranging from a hangover, dream-like effect to a rapid oscillation that was great when used with a cheap keyboard to give it an organ-like whirr. Slower rates were also effective with a keyboard for a swelling organ effect. Depth just refers to the intensity of the effect on whatever you might be playing and feedback is a strange sort of control which adds a screech to the sound which is sharply effective up to a point but with the rate up to a maximum and the feedback high it sounds like you're accompanying a performing budgerigar. Interesting concept. By the time I'd finished toying with this idea all the cats in the neighbourhood were clawing at my door.

All I could tell them was that I'd just been playing with two great effects which were both simple and versatile. Very good value.

DS1 PHASER £44.50
PH1 DISTORTION £36