Mooer Audio has rolled out its latest multi-effects pedal for guitar and you would first be forgiven for mistaking it for an mp3 player, and secondly for thinking there might be some kind of mistake with the features list.
The spec on the Prime Minimax M2 Intelligent Pedal is one laundry list of contemporary digital functionality. This is one of those super-compact affairs that somehow manages to fit a touchscreen onto the front.
There is just about enough room for its two multi-function footswitches. And thanks to the DSP architecture under the hood – where we have a Sample rate of 44.1kHz and 24-bit bit depth – there is room for a lot of different effects, 194 to be exact, with that number also including cabinet emulations.
Plus there are 80 user-defined preset slots for saving your favourite tones.
Those tones can be sourced from the Mooer Cloud, where users share their presets online. These can also be third-party tones. They can be accessed by a wireless footswitch, too, or by connecting the Prime M2 via MIDI.
There’s a heap of functionality here, which Mooer Audio says is all about “quick and seamless” workflow – it would certainly be interesting to see how this would play out with the Prime M2 and accompanying F4 wireless footswitch (sold separately, RRP 60 bucks or so) on your pedalboard and how you navigate a live set.
Even if you did not decide to gig with this, there are a lot of functions that would make it a powerful practice and writing tool. There is an onboard metronome with four different voicings and a count-in feature, and a drum machine, which has 56 different grooves and tap tempo.
Mooer Audio has a reputation for generous looping features and here it is no different. There is an 80-minute looper, complete with record, overdub, pause, delete, and playback functions.
There is a headphones output for silent practice, Bluetooth for on-the-go recording; this thing allows you to record straight to your smartphone. You can also record via a wired USB connection. And, of course, there is a guitar tuner.
Portability is a key selling point here. Mooer Audio has equipped this unit with a lithium-ion battery that should offer up to six hours of playing time (it’ll take around three hours to fully charge the unit). Even with this onboard battery the pedal only ways 228g.
Lastly, there is also a dedicated vocal channel with adjustable compression, EQ and reverb, allowing users to hook it up with a TRRS-compatible headset with mic and do some live streaming or recording.
This, admittedly, is a lot to take in. But check out the tutorial demo below for an idea of how the unit works in practice.
The Prime M2 Intelligent Pedal is available now. Price TBC. See Mooer Audio for more details.
