Meris Enzo synth

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burpgun
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Re: Meris Enzo synth

Post by burpgun » Mon Oct 08, 2018 7:14 am

Hey gang. I've had the pedal for about a week now. Haven't been able to spend a massive amount of time with it but I do have some first impressions. So here we go.

First off, the unit appears really well built. I think Meris has some connection to Strymon so if you're familiar with that hardware, this Enzo pedal is similarly built.

This isn't a pedal you plug into and get where you're going right off the bat. It takes some exploring to find sounds. The baseline type of synth sound reminds of something like a Juno or similar analog type synth. I've spent a lot of time fighting with MIDI pickups over the years, and I'm happy to report that tracking is flawless and levels seem to be pretty even regardless of what's dialed in. I couldn't say that for that EHX Mel9 I briefly owned.

This pedal has a lot of "alt" or quasi hidden functions, and you will need to learn them. There's some built in delay stuff but I turned all that off, via the "alt" button. The necessity of using the "alt" function will slow you down and make sounds harder to find, but in the end, I'm guessing we get a broader pallet. I suspect a lot of folks will zero in on two or three basic sounds. As there are no presets so trying to incorporate more sounds would probably require you to carry a cheat sheet, like for an analog synth. Because you've got to dial sounds in each time it could be a tricky pedal for live use, if you aim to get a lot of different sounds out of it.

Now, the sounds. They're really good and full bodied. Because I live in NYC and can't fire up my amps, I run my guitars/basses from my pedals into amp sims running in Ableton Live. My neighbors don't seem to care about annoying me, but for whatever reason, I try not to annoy them with loud amps. The pedal synth sounds are good regardless of whether the amp sim is one or off, although understandably they sound thinner and dirtier with the sim on. Probably the same difference you'd find if you ran this pedal into a guitar amp, or a full range PA system. The mix knob allow you to go full synth or dial it down and make massive chords. It's pretty cool.

I love the arp on this pedal. For me, this is where the really cool sounds come in. And if you turn up the sustain, it's like a "latch" function: You can strum a chord, stop, and arp will just keep on rolling. It's got a tap function and I can imagine trying to keep things in synch could be tough, but I'm loving this part so far. Not sure if you can change the arp types yet, but it, coupled with a delay, well, it allows you to be like the Edge, playing a few notes and letting your rig do all the work.

So, my preliminary assessment is this pedal was worth the money, and I'll use it a lot, I suspect. Haven't tried it on bass yet, but so far on guitar, it's really cool.

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Shadoweclipse13
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Re: Meris Enzo synth

Post by Shadoweclipse13 » Mon Oct 08, 2018 9:33 pm

Thanks for the review! Please post if and when you try it on bass!!
Pickup Switching Mad Scientist
http://www.offsetguitars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=104282&p=1438384#p1438384

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burpgun
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Re: Meris Enzo synth

Post by burpgun » Wed Oct 10, 2018 11:26 am

Two small updates to my quick and dirty review: So far, not as excited by how it sounds on bass, but I may not have found the right set up yet. I did get some cool weirdness with my Bass VI, though. And importantly, tracking bass was no problem. And after reading the more comprehensive on-line manual it appears you can save settings, but you need some sort of add on foot switch or you need to midi it into a computer.

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postpostrock
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Re: Meris Enzo synth

Post by postpostrock » Wed Oct 10, 2018 12:03 pm

I’ve seen some ambient players I like using the Enzo to get really great textures and arp sounds. I kinda want one.

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