Meris Ottobit Jr

110
Guitarist summer 2017
I
n the world of stompboxes, we’ve never had it
so good in terms of sheer variety. Companies
are going beyond the traditional to create
pedals that produce sounds many would never
consider to be part of the guitar’s sonic landscape:
who’d have thought the sound of 80s gaming
consoles could be a valid tonal component? Well,
Meris does – the US company has taken the
essence of its Ottobit module for studio engineers/
producers and put it into a dual-footswitch pedal.
At the heart of the Ottobit Jr is bitcrushing to
degrade your signal, but it has many other facets
including stutter and sequencing effects.
Any guitar player plugging into the Jr for the first
time could easily be confounded by the outright
cacophony that can emanate from this little box,
but read the manual and a methodical approach to
parameter setting comes up with the goods. The
top three knobs basically alter the timbre – there’s
adjustable bit rate, sample rate and a low-pass
ladder filter. Fully clockwise, you get a normal
guitar sound, but reducing the bit depth offers
some fuzz sounds that you can tonally alter with
the filter. By itself, reducing the sample rate adds
a metallic flavour, from ring-mod-type sounds to
rumbly noise. Careful combinations of all three
knobs yield a wide range of altered tonalities, both
relatively conventional and boundary-pushing.
Taking things further, a six-step sequencer
can be assigned to sequence either pitch, filter
frequency or sample rate at a range of speeds set
by the tap tempo. A value for each of the sequencer
steps is assigned to the six knobs (accessed by
holding down Alt). The myriad possible sounds
are too numerous to describe, but if you’re familiar
with bleepy arcade games or a synth’s onboard
sequencer, arpeggiator or sample and hold
functions, you’ll get the picture. On top of that, you
have 22 on/off stutter effects that can be frozen as
long as you hold down the tap tempo switch.
For more live tweaking, an expression pedal
can be set to morph between two complete sets of
knob values. Such a range of possibilities cries out
for presets; while there are none directly onboard,
you can send and receive them using MIDI.
VERDICT
Niche it may be, but this classy and creative
pedal exerts a strange allure to those yearning
for something different.
Ottobit Jr
meris
Inspired by vintage arcade games, this bitcrushing
stutter and sequencing pedal takes us back to the 80s
Words Trevor Curwen Photography Neil Godwin
Tech Spec
ORIGIN: USA
TYPE: Bitcrusher/
sequencer/stutter pedal
FEATURES: Selectable
true bypass (relay) or
analogue buffered
bypass, stereo or mono
operation, Freeze
function
CONTROLS: Sample
Rate, Filter, Bits, Stutter,
Sequencer, Sequencer
Mult, Alt (Hold) switch,
Pitch Seq/Filter Seq
switch, Tap footswitch,
Bypass footswitch
CONNECTIONS:
Standard input,
standard outputs (L, R),
Exp/MIDI
POWER: Supplied
9V adaptor
DIMENSIONS: 108 (w)
x 114 (d) x 51mm (h)
8
MANUFACTURER
Meris
MODEL
Ot tObit Jr
SOUND NETWORK
020 3008 7530 / www.Meris.us
PRICE
£319
PEDALBOARD
GIT423.peds_meris.indd 110 11/07/2017 16:06