Meris? Blade Runnery? Ottobit, Polymoon & Enzo!!

[Inconuucl]

Also try some fingerpicking please. :P

[baremountain]

Excuse the text wall, but here's my thoughts after spending several hours running stuff through this bad boy. Hopefully the paragraphs make it easier to read.

As it should, the Enzo works great with a guitar. To quote UC, I'm not much of a meedly-meedly guitarist myself (much more of a weedly-weedly fellow if I may say so), so I was mainly using it for simple riffs and melodies. It transforms everything you put into it into a glorious gauzy ball of warm synth. The voicing of the synth is absolutely stunning. I've used a few other guitar synth type things (various PLLs which are obviously different than this, the Eventide Pitchfactor's Gsynth, a brief moment with an Infinite Jets, the Line 6 FM4, and a few others I'm not thinking of rn) and none of them capture the warmth available on the Enzo, nor the tonal control. This is probably the Enzo's strongest point. Also, in a complete reversal of what I've come to expect from guitar synths, the Enzo is pretty dang responsive to dynamics in Mono & Poly modes, though you'd be best to turn off the triggered env/env follower to hear that. The built in delay line is absolutely beautiful, and doesn't come off as sterile/cold like many digital delays do. In fact, in stereo I think I prefer it to my Nemesis.

I will admit the evelope section is kind of a mystery to me, as one side is labeled "Decay" and the other "Attack", and I'm not sure what that means given that ostensibly the "Decay" side is a triggered envelope of varying lengths (input volume must die down below a very low threshhold before it is retriggered) which is prone to leave you audio-less if you're playing legato, and the "Attack" side is an envelope follower of varying slew. The manual does not do a great job of explaining this part of the device, and, though it suggests you're able to do things like control the direction of the envelope on the filter, I'm not sure I get how exactly one would go about that. My limited understanding of how the knob works did allow me to get some sick lead sounds in Mono or some great filter swells in Poly, but I want to learn to more purposefully control over this parameter for sure.

Tracking - I put in all kinds of chord shapes in Poly and I will say it does track decently, but there are moments where it wavers, particularly when fed dissonant intervals (minor seconds/seconds seemed to trip it up). Even without those intervals, there's the occasional hiccup with harmonically simple material, but I noticed that mainly in Mono mode, and it could be attributed to improper muting/string noise. Ringing notes do not go over well in Mono at all. Sending processed signal in did not create as many cool artifacts as it did weird aberrations that weren't pleasing or representative of what I was sending in.

As bacegchsbis pointed out, the Arp is dope, but could certainly benefit from some kind of subdivision choices. I spent relatively little time in Arp mode because of this. I think they seriously missed out on an opportunity for something great with the arp into the in-line delay because your delay time is fixed to the same length as each arp step.
I haven't given Dry mode very much of a shot at all, so I'll mess around with that soon.

I've also messed around running synths in and it's pretty stellar at producing an accompanying voice. I'm working on a cover song right now that's basically 3-6 simultaneous tracks of OP-1 sounds, so I bussed a few of them through the Enzo & initially got chaotic mud out. That mud mainly cleared up once I removed pad-like voices that bled between chord changes from the bus, but there was still some funky business with occaisional ghost notes being triggered in the Enzo. Still, it really warmed up a verse section that I thought sounded kinda cold/lifeless, so I'll definitely be using it outboard some more.

In summary, I'm absolutely pleased with the tone & the feature set, but you have to make some involved decisions based off the source material you're putting into it, especially with the envelope section & sustain. The alt functions are somewhat easy to remember, but they could have done well to include the names of those functions in parenthesis or something. I don't think I've ever played a guitar synth that was as rewarding as this one, so I'll definitely be holding on to it. It's not the skeleton key that I got the impression it was from some of the initial videos, but it's arms and legs above the competition IMO. I worry I harped on the bad stuff more than I sung its deserved praises, but I suspect y'all wanna know its shortcomings.

[Muse FTW]

Great breakdown. Certainly tempered my expectations a bit.

[Sasquatch]

Someone please play a whole bunch of fast meedly-meedly notes through theirs to see how well it really tracks. The P&E review said it tracks amazingly, but they still didn't play anything actually demonstrating that. I wanna know if it can cop some Keith Emerson or Jan Hammer-stye stuff besides "just" scoring Michael Mann movies.

Here is some fast nonsense. Hopefully this gives you a better idea

https://soundcloud.com/angelo-mazzocco/meris-enzo-mono-mode-bridge-humbucker

[Sasquatch]

Someone please play a whole bunch of fast meedly-meedly notes through theirs to see how well it really tracks. The P&E review said it tracks amazingly, but they still didn't play anything actually demonstrating that. I wanna know if it can cop some Keith Emerson or Jan Hammer-stye stuff besides "just" scoring Michael Mann movies.

Nope, definitely not. Mine came in today and I spent a good amount of time with it. The tracking is not bad by any means but to be honest it’s not as good as I expected. And to be fair I had extremely high expectations from Meris, but the tracking on my old HOG2 was considerably better. I could shred on that thing. It’s also not super clean in poly mode playing more complex chords, and this is with it first in the chain and a P90 with vol/tone completely open.

All that said, the Enzo sounds fucking incredible. The filter is amazing and the actual quality of sound that comes out of this thing is unreal. Arp mode is super cool but it’s also kinda lame that you can only control the tempo via tap, and there is no way to change the tap subdivisions. If you want fast arps you’ve gotta hammer that tap switch. I’m sure it can be done in some way via midi but I haven’t looked into that.

I got this to replace my superego+ and it’s looking like it will. It sounds amazing for pads and freeze type sounds, but I am disappointed that I can’t get it to sound as good as my HOG for synthy/fusiony Kurt Rosenwinkel lead stuff.

Awesome! Glad that you got it, and I'm glad that you are loving the sound quality. The HOG uses a different method, sort of an additive synthesis, to alter the sounds of your guitar. The Enzo actually looks at the frequency spectrum to assign notes to a real multi voice synth (with lots of filter options, ring mod, delay, etc...) It is a trade off, the HOG is much more forgiving to different styles of playing, but the Enzo will have a more faithful synth sound (if that is what you are going for). I say why not have both! That goes for 13-pin / tripleplay guitars as well, all are great tools in my book.

For the Enzo, try the Poly mode with higher Sustain settings. The controls are all very interactive and the performance will change a lot depending on your settings, I tried to give it the widest array of possibilities. Also, if you have a way to get MIDI in and out of the Enzo, I spent a lot of time crafting 16 presets to give you a broad spectrum of starting points for all it can do. And lastly, Mono mode on the Enzo is the best way to get faster single note stuff going.

[Sasquatch]

Ok that arp functionality is very very cool in theory.

Check out this clip in dry split mode:
https://www.meris.us/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Meris_Enzo-Split_Signal_Arpeggiatior.mp3
It becomes very, very easy to believe there's wild potential here.

I wanna hear that with some weird dissonant chords or some jazzy stuff.

Okay here is the Enzo in Poly mode with some outside chords. The Enzo is also in Split output mode, I did this mainly so you can hear exactly what I am playing.

I am recording the Enzo directly at the outputs, so you are hearing just my dry Bareknuckle bridge pickup alongside the synth sounds

https://soundcloud.com/angelo-mazzocco/meris-enzo-odd-chords-in-poly

Still not sure why my embedded soundcloud links don't show up properly

[Jwar]

I want an Enzo so freaking bad. Sigh. Soon? I hope. ahaha

[jrfox92]

I just wanna know if the Enzo can cop Space Station sounds.

[coupleonapkins]

I just wanna know if the Enzo can cop Space Station sounds.

Reinhart sez at least one (at 28:49) so far? In this vid:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tczK7bQCLo

[bacegchsbis]

Awesome! Glad that you got it, and I'm glad that you are loving the sound quality. The HOG uses a different method, sort of an additive synthesis, to alter the sounds of your guitar. The Enzo actually looks at the frequency spectrum to assign notes to a real multi voice synth (with lots of filter options, ring mod, delay, etc...) It is a trade off, the HOG is much more forgiving to different styles of playing, but the Enzo will have a more faithful synth sound (if that is what you are going for). I say why not have both! That goes for 13-pin / tripleplay guitars as well, all are great tools in my book.

For the Enzo, try the Poly mode with higher Sustain settings. The controls are all very interactive and the performance will change a lot depending on your settings, I tried to give it the widest array of possibilities. Also, if you have a way to get MIDI in and out of the Enzo, I spent a lot of time crafting 16 presets to give you a broad spectrum of starting points for all it can do. And lastly, Mono mode on the Enzo is the best way to get faster single note stuff going.

Hey thanks for shedding some light on that! Those were all initial thoughts so admittedly I do need to spend some more time learning how the Enzo really ticks. I was playing a lot in mono mode last night and I was actually able to get some really cool Metheny synth guitar sounds happening.

Still working a bit on taming poly mode but it’s starting to feel a little better each time. It really is amazing how much you guys are able to get into one small box especially given the price and sound quality.

Would there be a way to send midi clock and use an expression pedal simultaneously? I’d love to be able to clock the arps and and do filter sweeps at the same time.

[echorec]

[Jwar]

Stop it damn it! LOL

[Muse FTW]

Finally got a chance to set it up today and give it a spin and I'm impressed.

I'm mainly using the ARP mode but it tracks really well IMO. Even when I'm strumming muted strings, it does an adequate job of tracking. I'm honestly confused as to how it's doing this so well.

The mono tracking is good and could make for some interesting textures, although I didn't spend too much time with it as I was more interested in the chord tracking.

The poly tracking was pretty good. If I throw too much at it it can sound like a warbly mess, but I think I need to spend some more time tweaking the settings and playing around with it. Using it +1 octave for a synth accompaniment is just crazy, especially if you start using an EXP pedal with it to create movement with detuning or fucking with the envelopes.

Didn't care much for the delay (mostly because it was way too loud at first), but I have plenty of other pedals to cover that territory anyway.

Bottom line, I am super impressed. The other Meris pedals took some time for me to have that wow moment, but this one was near instantaneous once I switched ARP mode on.

[titbeard]

Here's my demo of this beast of a pedal.

[Confuzzled]

Someone please play a whole bunch of fast meedly-meedly notes through theirs to see how well it really tracks. The P&E review said it tracks amazingly, but they still didn't play anything actually demonstrating that. I wanna know if it can cop some Keith Emerson or Jan Hammer-stye stuff besides "just" scoring Michael Mann movies.

Nope, definitely not. Mine came in today and I spent a good amount of time with it. The tracking is not bad by any means but to be honest it’s not as good as I expected. And to be fair I had extremely high expectations from Meris, but the tracking on my old HOG2 was considerably better. I could shred on that thing. It’s also not super clean in poly mode playing more complex chords, and this is with it first in the chain and a P90 with vol/tone completely open.

All that said, the Enzo sounds fucking incredible. The filter is amazing and the actual quality of sound that comes out of this thing is unreal. Arp mode is super cool but it’s also kinda lame that you can only control the tempo via tap, and there is no way to change the tap subdivisions. If you want fast arps you’ve gotta hammer that tap switch. I’m sure it can be done in some way via midi but I haven’t looked into that.

I got this to replace my superego+ and it’s looking like it will. It sounds amazing for pads and freeze type sounds, but I am disappointed that I can’t get it to sound as good as my HOG for synthy/fusiony Kurt Rosenwinkel lead stuff.

Awesome! Glad that you got it, and I'm glad that you are loving the sound quality. The HOG uses a different method, sort of an additive synthesis, to alter the sounds of your guitar. The Enzo actually looks at the frequency spectrum to assign notes to a real multi voice synth (with lots of filter options, ring mod, delay, etc...) It is a trade off, the HOG is much more forgiving to different styles of playing, but the Enzo will have a more faithful synth sound (if that is what you are going for). I say why not have both! That goes for 13-pin / tripleplay guitars as well, all are great tools in my book.

For the Enzo, try the Poly mode with higher Sustain settings. The controls are all very interactive and the performance will change a lot depending on your settings, I tried to give it the widest array of possibilities. Also, if you have a way to get MIDI in and out of the Enzo, I spent a lot of time crafting 16 presets to give you a broad spectrum of starting points for all it can do. And lastly, Mono mode on the Enzo is the best way to get faster single note stuff going.

After your initial sold out run, and the comments you've received back is there anything you would tweak moving forward?