Meris Ottobit Jr. Pedal

I wanted to love this pedal (it seems that everyone else does) but there were too many small issues and one big one, so I'll be getting a refund unfortunately.

The biggest problem was that the stereo input sums to mono as soon as you try to use the stutter or sequencer effects. So playing with the sample rate, filter and bit rate knobs with stereo audio works as expected, with nice crushed stereo audio coming out of the pedal as long as the stutter and sequencer are turned off. But as soon as you enable one of them then everything switches to mono. I contacted Meris and they said that was expected behaviour, but to me it seems like a massive shortcoming.

Other more minor gripes:

- I couldn't get the bit crush effect to work nicely with the sample I was using, with lots of space between notes. The same sample in Ableton Redux or Tritik Krush would preserve the silence between notes as I reduce the bit rate, but the Ottobit would emit an annoying hum until I turned the bit rate back up, as if there was some artifact from the algorithm or something (I've no idea).

- The input is stereo TRS and the output is 2x mono, which seemed a bit weird - maybe not a big deal though.

- It might get easier with practice, but the dual ALT controls for setting up the sequencer meant that I kept deafening myself by trying to adjust the bit rate after using that same knob to set up the sequencer. Also personally I found the dual controls quite confusing, like you have to try and remember whether the current state of a knob actually corresponds to what you're hearing, or if it's just left like that from adjusting the sequencer.

I use my ottobit as crusher and stutter paired with my Elektron Digitakt. With its analog ladder filter and sweet sweet arcade, commodore, nes sounding like algorithms it will always stay in my studio.

Sample reduction can make your samples sound like something out of amiga, mirage or old mpc's. But crank it down and you will get sounds of atari or zx spectrum.

Soind quality is great, unit does not have any self noise.

Pros:
- stutter does magic if you're lazy drum programmer

Cons:
I wish that knobs were sturdier.

There is no other pedal like this one.

Bought it mainly to add glitchines to Elektron Digitakt. It is a sequenced and randomised bitcrusher with midi support with great sound. It can be set to wet-only mode.
But, as some other "stereo" effects of this kind, it actually only effects one channel, arguably to minimize phase issues.
The main issue with it is that it does not have volume and/or mix control. By the nature of bitcroushing it gets significantly louder with more distortion, so it is absolutely neccessery to have compressor/mixer in the loop to handle it. Or in my case back on the input of Digitakt. Not convenient at all.
As it is often the case with such effects, after initial excitement it is not used much now... Such manipulation is made either inside Digitakt, or left for later in my DAW...