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I received a Mooer Lofi in the mail earlier today and have already printed a return label. I had high hopes for this pedal that were far from realized. The Lofi seems more like a bitcrusher/theramin combo with an audio input and output than a device originally intended to serve as an effects pedal. I was into noise at one point in my earlier years, but have become more boring with age. I purchased the pedal to degrade other gain sources into early NIN-style bursts of crunchy bitcrushed noise, which it does to some extent, though the pedal constantly oscillates when engaged and the mix control is counter intuitive and highly interactive with the bit knob. There's no noise gate in the circuit for some reason, and the crunchy, digitized distortion produced by the pedal is always muffled or in the background at all mix settings. The bit and sample knobs affect the pitch and character of the oscillation, and the Lofi can oscillate without an input source. If you're looking for a funky thermin in your guitar signal chain or an oscillator to place at the beginning of a noise rig, this pedal may be up your alley. Otherwise, most other options will be at least the equivalent of 100 USD more expensive.

I have one of these.
Two things :

- They mislabeled sample rate and bit reduction. The big knob is sample rate reduction.

- That other knob (the small one on the right) is supposed to be bit reduction I guess but I think it does something different. And yeah, it's noisy as fuck. Can be fun once in a while but it's almost always at 0 for me.

With the bit (labelled as samplerate) at 0, you should only get samplerate reduction, and this works fine. The mix is useful, too. If you get oscillations and whatnot with the upper right small knob at 0 then your pedal is broken I think...

If you're still looking for an inexpensive bitcrusher that sounds cool, consider the Zoom MS-50. Used, it's cheap, even if you just have it as a dedicated bitcrusher. It sounds good and has usable controls.

oscillateur wrote:With the bit (labelled as samplerate) at 0, you should only get samplerate reduction, and this works fine. The mix is useful, too. If you get oscillations and whatnot with the upper right small knob at 0 then your pedal is broken I think...

Thanks for the tips. The unit I received is probably broken or otherwise defective based on its manner of operation.

oldangelmidnight wrote:If you're still looking for an inexpensive bitcrusher that sounds cool, consider the Zoom MS-50. Used, it's cheap, even if you just have it as a dedicated bitcrusher. It sounds good and has usable controls.

The Zoom G-5's bitcrusher wasn't half bad back when I owned one. I didn't realize the MS-50 also includes this effect. How's the bypass on the MS-50? Is it comparable to the quality of the MS-70CDR? I only ask because it will be in front of an amp modeler with high input gain that is sometimes the bane of my existence and can amplify random noise sources.

ck3 wrote:The Zoom G-5's bitcrusher wasn't half bad back when I owned one. I didn't realize the MS-50 also includes this effect. How's the bypass on the MS-50? Is it comparable to the quality of the MS-70CDR? I only ask because it will be in front of an amp modeler with high input gain that is sometimes the bane of my existence and can amplify random noise sources.

I haven't tried the 70 but I assume it's the same. It's quiet in my setup.