I’ve been pretty good at supporting the various Solar Chug Pedal releases - and this is the 5th in that line - feted to have the lowest tracking / shift latency of any current pitch-shifter. I recently covered the Klowra Dive Drop-Shifter - where that is supposed to also have the lowest latency - of around  8 ms, where the Klowra Vein is measured at 10-12ms, Boss’s XS-1 is measured at 13-14ms, Digitech Drop is at 12-17ms, and the EHX Pitch Fork is supposedly 16 to 22ms.

Solar doesn’t ...

A super busy month - with plenty of highlights and heatwaves.

My house is finally cooling down as I write these last few observations - we’ve had around 10 days of oppressive heat now, and there’s another wave on the way at the end of this week - which makes for very difficult conditions to have sessions with said pedals.

We’re in the final consequence of global climate change now - with increasingly more extreme weather patterns occurring - alternately cold snaps, heatwaves, and torrential ...

This is another killer pedal from the recent Budding Bloom Series, not quite as much fun for me as the Leap - but still very decent. In fact the only one I would kind of question in terms of its ultimate utility is the South Zoo - all the others really deliver the goods for their intended audiences.

The Leap outguns the EHX Pico POG, and this Dive outguns its nearest competitor - the Digitech Drop. The Dive is mostly labelled as a Polyphonic Pitch-Shifter - which most woudl take that to ...

It’s quite evident that Klowra had one eye on the EHX Pico POG when it designed its Leap Polyphonic Octaver. The Leap has all the same controls as the Pico POG including the same tone options - Low Pass, High Pass, and Tilt EQ, but then adds in those super smart 3 x Detune modulation options on top.

For me those 3 Detune options can deliver similar voices to some of EHX’s 9 Series Guitar Synth Pedals. So alas it’s a double hit on EHX!

You can of course just go for the basic Upper and ...

So this new H9 is essentially a fully-loaded Single Core variant of the H90. The larger H90 predecessor allows you to deploy 2 x Stereo Effects simultaneously - and hence is referred to as a Dual-Core Multi-Effects Processor. Where the new Gen 2 H9 has all the same key features and functions as the H90 - but can only deploy a single Stereo Effect at a time - hence Single-Core.

The original unit had a cool looking but pretty useless onboard interface - which was mostly saved by the Bluetooth...

I’m a little late with this as Meris held back the press release until launch - so I was only provided with the details at the same time as everyone else - which is really rather unusual. I had a number of other projects already on the go - and so I’m a couple days late with this!

As always - each Meris device delivers way beyond its specific core category, its Enzo X for instance is almost as much a multi-modulator as it is a synth - and here we have lots of extras thrown into the mix - ...

I’m lagging a little behind on these now - as Hotone has delivered a second excellent pedal for its Neon Collection / Series - an equally cool looking Freqlux 3-Voice Pitch-Shifter with a tonne of features onboard - including 200 presets slots, with 100 superior factory presets already loaded.

I still need to land the Hotone Verbera Convolution Reverb - where its high current draw initially put me off a little (rated @ 1000mA) - but I was later corrected - as that high current number was ...

So JHS have deliberately gone a little off-the-piste ’nasty’ here - where these monophonic effects glitch out in interesting ways when you try to play more than one note at a time. Even single notes can glitch out every now and again.

I already have a few pedals that cover similar ground - often using a CMOS chip at the heart. Some of the most fearsome of those can become pretty untameable - depending on how fine you set the input sensitivity.

Controls - Volume, Dry/Wet Mix, Oct-, Oct+....

February is always something of a lull - particularly after the hyper busy NAMM-inflected January. This month is the doldrums of the calendar where not much gets releases. I did though manage to land a decent selection of a dozen pedals - obviously some from the previous year. With the Sinvertek MGAT-1 EVO being the standout pedal landed - where the Klowra Gnash and Wampler Golden Jubilee were pretty spectacular too. 3 x Klowra pedals on the board this month - all excellent!

Of course there...