Mooer's New 7 Series Multi-FX Devices Boldly Going where no Mini Pedals have been before!
I’ve already featured a couple of these on the site previously - first the Tone Capture GTR in ’Making your electric guitar sound Acoustic’, and then the E7 Synth in my ’Mini Pedals State of the Art’ piece. These essentially take the same 5 knob + 1 push-button chassis used for Mooer’s Micro PreAmps - and add in 7 Presets - punctuated by a column of 7 LEDs on the left-hand edge of those enclosures.
What this means is that apart from the Tone Capture GTR - each of the other pedals comes with factory-set Presets which you can then fine-tune and save to your own preferences. So the ’Save’ knob essentially switches between modes and presets and then saves your settings to those 7 preset slots.
The Tone Capture GTR is the same format overall - but here you need to record the dynamics of your various guitars - so you can simulate playback of each - acoustic, electric and otherwise. The other 4 all come with factory configured presets which you tweak with the available 5 knobs and set and save to your own preferences. This is a really neat solution - particularly at this size - and gives you unparalleled flexibility at this level. There are no other mini pedals that I’m aware of that do anything like this.
What it means is that you now have 7 variations of effects all in the same tiny box - whether you are going for Ambient, Delay, Reverb or Synth - strange that Mooer did not call the Synth version the S7?
I will likely end up with one or two of these at some stage in the future - these are just a really clever way of introducing added verve and variation where pedalboard space is limited - the fact that you can switch between 7 of your own configured presets - 1 per mode is just really clever - and most of those pedals have secondary / latching and momentary hold functions on the footswitch.
Here follows a little more detail on each - I thought readers might find it handy to see all the different modes so visibly displayed as I could not find any equivalent reference to such online - hope this comes in handy! :
A7 Ambiance 7 Series Ambient Multi-FX/Mode Mini Pedal - £99
A sort of combines Reverb and Delay unit with some overlap with the R7 be way of shared Plate and Hall modes. The 5 parameter knobs control X (specific function per Mode), Mix, Chaos (Intensity), Decay and Tone.
The 7 Modes are:
- Plate - Metal Plate Rack Reverb
- Hall - Room/Hall/Church classic reflective Reverb
- Warp - Modulated Reverb
- Shake - Shaking Modulated Reverb
- Crush - LoFi / Bitcrushed Reverb
- Shimmer - Octave Effect Reverb
- Dream - Reverb with Slow Attack and Modulation
D7 Delay 7 Series Delay Multi-FX/Mode Mini Pedal - £99
A fairly unusual collection of delays here plus a 150 second looper - with just the one typical variety in 'Tape'. The 5 parameter knobs here are for Tweak.1 and Tweak.2 (specific functions per mode), then Mix, Delay Time and Feedback.
The 7 Modes are :
- Tape - Tape Machine Delay
- Liquid - Liquid-like Modulation Delay
- Rainbow - Pitch-Shifting with Stutter
- Galaxy - Slow Gear Swell Delay
- Modverse - Reverse Playing Flange-Modulated Delay
- Low Bit - Delay with Slow Gear and Low Bit Effect
- 150 Second Looper
E7 Synth 7 Series Polyphonic Synth Multi-FX/Mode Mini Pedal - £99
Not really of the scale and level of the Boss SY-1 - but some really cool modes here nonetheless - including a footswtich hold arpeggiator function for each mode. The 5 parameter knobs control Attack, Speed, High Cut, Low Cut and Dry/Wet Mix. Some of these modes have some truly great onomatopoeic monikers!
The 7 Modes are :
- Trumpet - Trumpet-like Synth, Arpeggiator on by default
- Organ - Organ-like Synth, Arpeggiator on by default
- Sea Wave - Warm Synth with LFO Effect, Arpeggiator is off by default
- Weeyo - Quick-changing Bright LFO Effect, Arpeggiator is off by default
- Saw Wave - Classic Saw Wave Synth with slow LFO effect, Arpeggiator is on by default
- 8 Bit - B-Bit-like Synth Tone / Chip Tune style, Arpeggiator is off by default
- EDM / Pad - EDM / Pad / Wash Synth Tone recommended for play on Neck pickup, Arpeggiator off by default
R7 Reverb 7 Series Reverb Multi-FX/Mode Mini Pedal - £99
The interesting thing about this one is how much the A7 Ambience overlaps. The Ambience essentially gives you Room, Hall, Church (All under Hall), Plate and Mod (Warp). Meaning that the only unique ones to the R7 are the Cave and Spring modes - I would probably be more tempted to go for the more unique Reverb flavours carried by the Ambience! There are very different parameter controls though - which here are High Cut, Low Cut, Level, Decay and Pre-Delay!
The 7 Modes are :
- Room - Small Space Reflections Reverb
- Hall - Moderate Space Reflections Reverb
- Church - Large Space Reflections Reverb
- Cave - Expansive Cavernous Space Reflections Reverb
- Plate - Metal Plate Rack style Reverb
- Spring - Spring Tank Amp-style Reverb
- Mod - Flange-Modulated Reverb
Tone Capture GTR 7 Series 7 Presets Guitar Dynamics Capture / Modelling - £79
This is essentially a very basic sort of guitar profiler - does for guitars somewhat similar things that Kemper does for amps. It captures the playback dynamics of any one of your guitars and allows you to play back those dynamics through any one guitar by modelling / mapping the recorded dynamics to the output of which ever guitar you are playing. You essentially have 7 slots to record presets / profiles onto with 5 parameter control knobs - Level, Treble, Mid Shift and Mid, and Bass. It's like a very simplified and mini version of the Sim1 XT-1 Guitar Profiler - and undoubtedly some players will find this really useful. Results may vary depending on which guitars you have access to. Possibly Mooer will also eventually make something like a slimmed down version of Keyztone's EXchange Pickup Remodeller which owners of fewer guitars might better appreciate!
Final Thoughts
Not every single Mode / FX is necessarily essential here - but there's plenty of the good stuff here to make each of these 7 Series pedals a viable proposition. I've long been harping on about the need for presets on pedals - and this is a genuinely ingenious solution to that challenge.
I feel we still need some cleverer means of being able to foot-switch between modes - but the fact that you have this much power inside such a tiny enclosure is just incredible. Lots of players like having a secret weapon sort of 'spice' effect that they bring in occasionally to add some special sauce to a track. The meagre use of such an effect typically precludes the inclusion of an entire full-size pedal for just such seasoning - while in this particular format it becomes so much more practical and viable.
I've already marked out the A7 Ambience and E7 Synth pedals as likely candidates for myself, and we will see where we go from there. I'm sure that Mooer has several more applications for this 7 Series - it really ramps up the usability of these mini pedal enclosure types.
What are your thoughts on these - and are you considering any for yourself?
