Ask anyone who loves pedals about some of the most innovative effects to come out in the last couple years, and you’ll hear the name Meris time and time again. Continually innovating the industry with their option-laden, size-friendly and sonically adventurous pedals, they always seem to be at the forefront of the conversation. We’re gearing up to take a look at their latest today, a quirky, pitch-shifting delay pedal they’ve dubbed Hedra. This magnificent beast is tricky to tame, but can be skewed and swerved with a little bit of finesse to make it a useful, exploratory and all-around fun effect to try and wrangle.
Using THREE pitch-shifted voices, you know right off the bat that Hedra is not f’ing around. The Pitch 1, 2 and 3 knobs control the intervals for the corresponding pitch-shifted voices…but, of course, there’s more here than meets the eye. Using the Alt (Hold) button, you can unleash the parameters hidden within each knob present on the pedal – for the three Pitch knobs, their secret functions set a fraction of the main tempo for each pitch-shifted voice. The Key knob selects the key for diatonic harmonies, with a Chromatic Shift setting at max. The alternate function here lets you dive in further by selecting the scale type you wish to use: Major, Minor, Melodic Minor, Harmonic Minor, Double Harmonic, Eastern Pentatonic and Minor Pentatonic.
The Mix knob blends your original dry signal with the wet effect signal of Hedra – alternately, it also controls the Delay Feedback. The Micro Tune knob slightly detunes all 3 voices, alternately setting the Pitch Correction and Glide amounts. There are four different modes to select from: Dual (2 short delays with stereo output), Series (long delay with feedback), Dual + Series (2 short delays with cross-feedback) and Pitch Feedback (one long series delay with pitch shifters in the feedback loop). The Tap switch sets the delay time, as well as changing the filter envelope from triggered envelope to envelope follower. Hold this down, and you get a momentary automatic volume swell based on your pick attack. The Bypass switch has a dual function, too, as you can set the pitch control to be smooth or hard stepping through each of the intervals.
Stereo Ins and Outs, Expression pedal control, MIDI I/O, external Tap Tempo and switchable input/output headroom levels for guitar or line levels all add more options to Hedra than you can imagine, making it the ultimate tweaker effect. As with all Meris creations, there’s a lot to take in initially….and then for pretty much the entire time you own it. Not that that’s a bad thing, as you’re constantly discovering new and exciting ways to use these effects, pushing the very limits of what you can achieve with these small square boxes. Hedra takes both the Delay and Pitch Shifting genres and flips them completely on their heads, combines them, splits them and unleashes a fury of sonic prowess onto the world, with little to no warning. Like a tornado ripping through the Midwest or a hurricane massaging an unsuspecting coast, Hedra loves to surprise and amaze, and you’re going to want to see how and why just as soon as is humanly possible. For a slight glimpse into its otherworldly endeavors, please peruse our demo video below, and don’t forget to subscribe as well!
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