Setting the MOOD.
What to expect from our new MOOD MKII.
posted by knobs
Hello!
We’ve made a sequel to MOOD and I want to tell you about it.
(Or check out the MOOD MKII product page if you want to explore it on your own.)
The state of things
First, and I’ll be brief – this is a preorder. But we’re in the late stages of beta testing and hardware is on the way. All of the features are totally settled except for an interesting MIDI sub-mode that we’re seeing how far we can take.
We’ll be diving into full-blown production soon and aim to start shipping by the end of April.
If you want to see what’s new it’s all here:
The pedal
This thing has been a joy to make, but we were also careful. MOOD was this surprise success and its greatest strength is that it’s just fun. It’s instant gratification and I didn’t want to overstuff it and lose that.
So that was the challenge:
Include every feature request and improvement possible.
Still make it feel like good ol’ MOOD.
It’s a tricky balance, but every day of testing this thing has been a blast.
On the surface it will feel instantly familiar, but you now have the ability to go so much further. Just about everything in the pedal is doubled, roughly speaking. The loops can be twice as long, it’s full stereo, and both channels now have a powerful hold function. You can overdub, you can sync, you can freeze, you can even use the looper like a live effect.
It’s a lot, but it doesn’t feel like it. It all feels like a natural extension of MOOD.
What we decided to do was tuck the complex bits within the hidden options and behind the dip switches for when and if you need them. That’s where you’ll find a lot of the little details that have been requested like the ability to balance the volume of the two channels.
We also fixed up a whole bunch of things - some big, some small - but there’s a Classic Mode if you decide you prefer the flaws of the original. Those kinds of things can be nice sometimes, like the noise of the Clock or how micro-loops would slowly distort over time.
ANYWAY, there’s a lot more I could talk about but you can check out the field guide for that. Everything is in there except the MIDI specifics, so stay-tuned if those details are important to you. We’ll have lots more materials coming out in the coming weeks to help you decide if this thing is for you.
What I’m really trying to say here is that we tried damn hard to listen to your feedback and make this the pedal you hope it will be, without losing the joy and feel of the original. Maybe the new loop length doesn’t gel with your workflow – just use the hidden options to go back to the shorter length of the original. I don’t know why a person would want that but I know that a lot of you have been using MOOD for years now and somebody probably does. We did everything we could so that you can pick up right where you left off, whatever that means to you.
In short:
MOOD MKII is a more polished, flexible, and ultimately professional pedal, but it's the same goofball at heart.
Hope you like it a lot.