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Finally it's here: the Mandala V2! Here pictured together with the Mandala V1: a wonderful mad pair!

I did a first 30 minutes run and tried it out with the V1 on the side to compare.

It takes over from what the first Mandala can do and goes a step further. I like a lot the trigger and square trigger modes (the later actually transformors the pedal in a octave down fuzz).
Reverse, randoms, an repeats and the the half, normal and double speed variations are really cool, and take the Mandala V2 in territories covered by bigger brothers like the Hexe Revolver.
Of course don't expect it to be pristine and hi-fi like the Hexe: it's still as lo-fi and gnarly as the Mandala V1 and the MASF Raptio can be (that's why I love these pedals a lot).

Up and Down works are like in the V1, but are now here separeted.

The switching is more clean an less prone to additional clicking than the V1. But with these pedals I never expected them to be polite and I love they are somehow erratic and with a caracter of their own.

What I'm really missing a bit is the randomized time on the Up and Dowm modes (like in the V1 when setting the time know on max, which I always do), and having these 2 modes separeted and no more together like on the old V1, doesn't let you do some pitch shifting acrobratics the V1 can do (like pitch up the glitch and then pitching it back down).

Anyhow I'm super happy with it and it pairs brilliantly with the old one: so I won't part from the V1 as it does things the other don't and viceversa.

Ah, nice! I get my V.2 today I think and I was figuring I'd pair it with my V.1 as well. Good to know they compliment each other.

Nice write up! Really seems like he took it to the next level.

So on review on Mandala v.1 and v.2 myself today I'm a tad disappointed with v.2
Not that it isn't cool and different from v.1 but I miss the soft arcade switch (or any clickless switch for that matter) and it's a little trickier to dial in on the fly due to the smaller knobs.
I agree they both compliment each other but if I only had room for one and I didn't need the other wav choices I'd go with v.1

Hopefully I can fit both on my board (gonna' be a tight fit).

shikawkee wrote:So on review on Mandala v.1 and v.2 myself today I'm a tad disappointed with v.2
Not that it isn't cool and different from v.1 but I miss the soft arcade switch (or any clickless switch for that matter) and it's a little trickier to dial in on the fly due to the smaller knobs.
I agree they both compliment each other but if I only had room for one and I didn't need the other wav choices I'd go with v.1

Hopefully I can fit both on my board (gonna' be a tight fit).

I did also a bit more in depth testing yesterday evening: V2 is indeed more polite and when comparing the the Up/Down modes, it's not as out of control and "harshnoisy" as the V1.
Btw now I moved V2 on my ambient board, instead of V1, and will test it out live soon (actually tomorrow evening already ^^).

It's interesting, the give and take between versions of glitchy pedals. Personally, I've long suspected that I might like a Revolver 2 even more than the DX.

To anybros that have/had both the Fabrikat and Tensor, overlap is obvi not complete, but do you prefer one over the other, or are they both essential?

Dandolin wrote:It's interesting, the give and take between versions of glitchy pedals. Personally, I've long suspected that I might like a Revolver 2 even more than the DX.

To anybros that have/had both the Fabrikat and Tensor, overlap is obvi not complete, but do you prefer one over the other, or are they both essential?

Both essential IMO.

I have the DX16 BTW and it's cool, I mean 16 seconds of high quality sampling is awesome, but overkill.

Thx thought that might be the case

Revolver II is also my personal favorite. Much better for really noisy stuff. The Fabrikat is more textural than the Tensor but the Tensor is quicker to get up and running on and maybe more useful.

Thanks--valuable perspective

I did a pair of concerts with the new Mandala V2 during the last few days, and it really shines!
I mainly used the Reverse and Trigger modes up to now.
I like a lot to sample something at then with the Func knob changing the playback speed.
In general it's a relly fun pedal, and very straight forward to use.
Actually I find more easy to dial in a sound on the Mandala2 and then mangle it, than with the Revelover.

Pretty much the trigger mode is the star of the new V.2 Mandala IMO. That's the only one I find useful in practice. The reverse is cool too in spots.

gila_crisis wrote:I did a pair of concerts with the new Mandala V2 during the last few days, and it really shines!
I mainly used the Reverse and Trigger modes up to now.
I like a lot to sample something at then with the Func knob changing the playback speed.
In general it's a relly fun pedal, and very straight forward to use.
Actually I find more easy to dial in a sound on the Mandala2 and then mangle it, than with the Revelover.

I always feel like the Revolvers have a lot of dead space on the knob you have to move through before you can mangle a loop and if you made a really short loop to start there isn't much room to mangle in the first place. I've moved over to using my Fabrikats to mangle things and the Revolvers just to use for stabbing in the effects they excel at.

whoismarykelly wrote:I always feel like the Revolvers have a lot of dead space on the knob you have to move through before you can mangle a loop and if you made a really short loop to start there isn't much room to mangle in the first place. I've moved over to using my Fabrikats to mangle things and the Revolvers just to use for stabbing in the effects they excel at.

That's the cool think of the Mandala, it goes straight thru half, normal and double speed when turning the knobs.
The Revolver is better for doing slow time/speed/"tape-like" streches.
For example I used it extensively to remix a track a friend gave me. I didn't have the single stems, so I had to take the full track as it was.
I resampled it live using the Revolver then going inside my pedalboard. For that it's a brilliant pedal!

shikawkee wrote:Pretty much the trigger mode is the star of the new V.2 Mandala IMO. That's the only one I find useful in practice. The reverse is cool too in spots.

I like a lot to strech the sample by changing/turning the time knob.