Visual Sound H2O V2 Review

After my old Ibanez delay pedal died I was on a lookout for a decent delay unit and the H2O was always near the top of the shopping list. I’ve owned Visual Sound products previously and I’ve always been impressed with the build and sound quality. I’ve never been a fan of “chorus” effects though but the ability to mix delay and chorus when desired was quite attractive.

Features:

The pedal is housed in a large casing and is surprisingly heavy. I’ve never managed to mount it onto a pedalboard though which was a bit of a hassle as it meant I had to carry it around everywhere with my cables and strap etc.

You can approach this pedal with the mindset of using two pedals housed into one unit. The H2O V2 features Echo & Chorus effects with the ability to use these separately or together. Large footswitches makes it easy to select your desired effect and you have a fair amount of flexibility with regards to the Chorus and Echo settings. You can use battery power but I’ve been using the Visual Sound 1Spot power supply for years so I can’t really comment on how long batteries last with this unit.

Ease of use:

The H2O V2 is very easy to use and within seconds I found suitable delay and chorus settings that worked either as isolated effects or when blended together.

Sound quality:

Prior to using this pedal I’ve always used “digital delay” so going to an analogue echo sound was a bit weird at first but I soon got used to it and it did add a warmer aspect to the tone.

The chorus is fun but I’ve never been a chorus fan and to be honest with you, I’m still not. When I first got the pedal it seemed I was using chorus over pretty much everything as I was amazed how much it fattened the sound (especially in guitar solos). It was only when listening back to recordings of a jam session that I realised how much the chorus effect was completely dominating my tone. To be fair to the product though, that was purely down to the settings I used and I quickly learnt an effect like chorus should really be used in small doses to enhance part of a song.

Reliability:

This pedal, like most of the Visual Sound products, is built like a tank. I can’t see this breaking in a hurry and I’ve been told that Visual Sound have excellent customer service.

Overall rating:

If at the time of purchase Visual Sound offered just the Echo side of the pedal I would have bought that instead. Their new “GarageTone” range now offers the “Axle Grease Delay” which could be worth investigating.

Visual Sound comes across as being more personable than the larger manufacturers and I don’t have a problem in using their pedals. Next time though, I’ll leave the chorus well alone – it’s just not my thing and probably never will be.