Meris Ottobit X: Shoegaze, Lo-Fi, Game Music, ’80s Vibes in One Pedal
Sequenced bit-crushing, dusty vinyl sounds, VHS and tape effects
You could kind of see this coming after the Enzo X, the LVX, and the Mercury X. Here is the Meris Ottobit X! This multi-effects pedal combines a powerful bitcrusher with the dizzying modulation possibilities we’ve seen in Meris’ other X-series pedals. In other words, at its core, it’s an Ottobit Jr., but beefed up to be the ultimate lo-fi shoegaze pedal.
What does the Meris Ottobis X sound like?
For fans of glitch sounds and VHS lo-fi effects, and for anyone who produces shoegaze, ambient, video game music, or other digitally distorted noise, the Meris Ottobis X is likely something of a holy grail. It offers 99 presets and lets you get sounds so broken and stuttery, so melancholic and endless, you’ll probably replace a whole set of other pedals and plugins with it.
· Source: Meris
The complex lo-fi sounds produced by the little Ottobit Jr., which combines a bitcrusher and a sequencer, have already garnered a growing fan base in recent years. With the Ottobit X, these sonic possibilities are expanded into entirely new dimensions. You feed it three notes from a guitar or synth and get epic, dark, glitchy soundscapes in return, for hours on end.
How is the Meris Ottobit X’ Workflow?
If you own or have used one of Meris’ other X-pedals, you should be able to figure the Ottobit X out in a flash. Although I’m still discovering new things about my beloved LVX to this day, Meris’ tutorial video for the Ottobit X helped me realize very quickly just how similar the workflow is.
You get presets consisting of effects chains with different flavors of preamps, bitcrushers, modulation effects, delays, reverbs, stutter effects, pitch shifters – just one massive sound degradation suite. And the quality and uniqueness of many of them are such that you often don’t even need the glitch sequencer, which rhythmically adjusts some of the effect parameters.
Besides setting up the effects through the menu dials, you can directly adjust the intensity of the bitcrushing and the built-in filter using their dedicated knobs, as well as the output level. Three of the four footswitches let you navigate and switch between presets, while the right footswitch activates the looper.
How much does the Meris Ottobit X cost?
Meris lists the Meris Ottobit X at $599. For a short time, they also offered a version in “Multidimensional Pink” on their website, but it seems to be sold out.
The pedal isn’t available on Thomann yet, but as soon as it is, you’ll find out about it here.
More on the new Pedal from Meris
*Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links and/or widgets. When you buy a product via our affiliate partner, we receive a small commission that helps support what we do. Don’t worry, you pay the same price. Thanks for your support!
This might also interest you
