Last weekend I was setting up onstage and stepped backwards with the full weight of my heel onto my JVM foot controller. A few songs into the set, two of the buttons stopped working properly - they wouldn't step through the gain modes. I struggled on and managed to finish the gig, but the pedal needed fixing.
Now, the 6-button JVM 410H foot controller is a pain in the arse - it's badly designed, the switching is a bit laggy and glitchy and the worst fault is that the indicator LEDs that tell you what buttons you have pressed are all tiny and crowded into a minuscule panel at the top right-hand corner of the unit. This is utterly useless.
A friend of mine with a JVM 410C modded his pedal so that he had big, bright LEDs over each button. A logical upgrade, so I messaged my usual tech about repairing the switch but modding it at the same time. My usual tech was on holiday, so started googling. It turns out that all modern 4-series JVMs come with a new, redesigned footswitch - the PEDL-91005 - and this one has the LEDs where they should've been put ten years ago.
I ordered one, hardly daring to hope it would be any good, but I'm here to tell you it's every bit as good as I hoped. Not only is the LED situation rectified but the switching is now lag-free and glitchless. I can't remember being so pleased with a new device and I can't wait to use it live.
If you have a 4-series JVM with the old footswitch, dump the switch and get one of these - they're that good.