Mooer Mini Pedal Review (Shim Verb and Pitch Box)
Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2012 6:17 pm
I just got my Shim Verb and Pitch Box from Mooer. The total cost was $150 shipped for the pair direct from Mooer (based in China) and transit time was around 5 days. Finish and packaging were top notch (the shimverb is nearly identical to the finish on the El Cap) and the build quality is quite nice. You can email Mooer directly or I've noticed there are a few ebay sellers selling them now. First some pix and then I'll share my thoughts on them individually.
Shim Verb - There are a few reviews/videos of this out there so I'm sure you guys are probably already familiar with this one. Tiny reverb with 3 modes and 3 controls. I'll start with the room and spring settings - very nice and offers the added versatility of the color control and individual level and decay controls. I prefer the room setting simply because I'm not huge on spring reverb emulations/pedals. I'm a fan of the real thing and feel it's a harder sound to achieve in pedal form than the room setting. I'd say this is comparable to a slightly more versatile EHX Holy Grail. With that said the shimmer setting was the real reason I bought this pedal. I wanted something to add a little texture to my clean sounds and this looked like it would fit the bill quite nicely - and it does. While this is not comparable to the BSR's shimmer setting in both sound quality or price it is a really nice effect. I found that it needs a bit higher of a setting on the color knob to really shine but once I got it dialed in it was quite enjoyable. I ended on a 3 o clockish decay, 1 o clockish level, and 2 o clock for the color as that sat best in my opinion. Lush but not overly imposing.
Pitch Box - This is one of the newer effects that I haven't found a review of yet. The first things that sold me on it short of the price was that it tiny, polyphonic, has 3 modes, and a -24/+24 range. While this is really overkill for my needs as I only really wanted it for the -12 harmony, pitch shift and maybe a little lead harmonizing, it was nice to know I had all the other options. After trying it I must say I'm impressed with the tracking and overall sound quality. Not artificial sounding but at the same time not quite as nice an analog pitch shifter like say an EHX Octave Multiplexer. The only thing I would really like to have seen on this pedal is a mix control but I'll most likely gut mine and rehouse it with an external expression pedal controlled mix for whammy type sounds.
My overall goal was to get these for "special effect" type sounds and I feel like these are perfect for that purpose. Pedals to kick on when you want a little something different and non traditional.
Shim Verb - There are a few reviews/videos of this out there so I'm sure you guys are probably already familiar with this one. Tiny reverb with 3 modes and 3 controls. I'll start with the room and spring settings - very nice and offers the added versatility of the color control and individual level and decay controls. I prefer the room setting simply because I'm not huge on spring reverb emulations/pedals. I'm a fan of the real thing and feel it's a harder sound to achieve in pedal form than the room setting. I'd say this is comparable to a slightly more versatile EHX Holy Grail. With that said the shimmer setting was the real reason I bought this pedal. I wanted something to add a little texture to my clean sounds and this looked like it would fit the bill quite nicely - and it does. While this is not comparable to the BSR's shimmer setting in both sound quality or price it is a really nice effect. I found that it needs a bit higher of a setting on the color knob to really shine but once I got it dialed in it was quite enjoyable. I ended on a 3 o clockish decay, 1 o clockish level, and 2 o clock for the color as that sat best in my opinion. Lush but not overly imposing.
Pitch Box - This is one of the newer effects that I haven't found a review of yet. The first things that sold me on it short of the price was that it tiny, polyphonic, has 3 modes, and a -24/+24 range. While this is really overkill for my needs as I only really wanted it for the -12 harmony, pitch shift and maybe a little lead harmonizing, it was nice to know I had all the other options. After trying it I must say I'm impressed with the tracking and overall sound quality. Not artificial sounding but at the same time not quite as nice an analog pitch shifter like say an EHX Octave Multiplexer. The only thing I would really like to have seen on this pedal is a mix control but I'll most likely gut mine and rehouse it with an external expression pedal controlled mix for whammy type sounds.
My overall goal was to get these for "special effect" type sounds and I feel like these are perfect for that purpose. Pedals to kick on when you want a little something different and non traditional.
