A powerful new reverb covers almost every imaginable incarnation of the effect.
Incredible reverb tones. Limitless tweakability. Smart interface helps conquer complexity.
Expensive.
$599
Meris MercuryX
meris.us
The Meris MercuryX is the first pedal I’ve ever played that has its own glossary, found near the back of its 32-page user manual. Advertised as “a Modular Reverb System with pro audio and studio rack heritage,” the USA-made MercuryX builds on the foundation of Meris’ Mercury7 reverb unit, which was inspired, in part, by the Lexicon 224 Greek musician Vangelis used to score for Blade Runner. The Mercury7 is a richly featured and widely celebrated effect. But by comparison, the MercuryX makes it look like an abacus.
The MercuryX’s price bracket is about as high as it gets for a non-vintage effects pedal, but spend an hour with it, and you’ll realize the staggering amount of work the Meris team must have poured into it. It’s a feat of audio engineering and imagination that can take you anywhere you want to go.
Guide to the Galaxy
Though it features an almost comical amount of adjustability, the MercuryX is hardly a bother to operate in Meris’ default graphic view on the digital display. (The text view, comparatively, felt labyrinthine, if not flat-out impossible to navigate.) Three of the pedal’s seven knobs help you navigate the edit pages, where you can adjust a suite of parameters that, like the haunting reverb algorithms, feel like they never end. The 99 preset slots are divided into banks of three, which are selected and cycled via different combinations of the four footswitches. A favorites bank lets you keep your top three presets in immediate grasp. Plus, simultaneously pressing the two switches on the right will call up a tuner on the display. The MercuryX is powered by an ARM processor which helps enable its breadth of modulation options, including tremolo, chorus, vibrato, pitch shift, tape emulation, and more. Then there’s discrete filtering, compression, and preamp gain. Each of these functions is, of course, deeply tweakable, down to independent high- and low-frequency controls. The glossy deep-blue box is equipped with mono and stereo outs, expression pedal in, MIDI jacks, and USB-C for firmware updates. It’s sleek, but more importantly, it feels like resilient armor for the complex guts contained within.
Reverb of the Nerds
It’s clear that the builders at Meris are ginormous reverb nerds. The MercuryX contains eight distinct reverb algorithms. A few are ported from the Mercury7, while others are brand new. There’s every sort of reverb sound imaginable, and they’re all magnificent. You can dial in a tight, humble spring reverb, then jump to a pitch-shifting, interdimensional wormhole or a steely, dystopian fog.
And though they invite customization, the 87 Meris-made presets are each instantly cinematic and usable. The depth of these reverbs can be difficult to convey: Somehow, every single one is imaginative and stirring, suggesting different tones, voicings, picking styles, and progressions. (I could only imagine how they’d sound with a synth, bass, or vocal.) Plus, every setting in the presets can be individually tinkered with and saved, so there’s really a mind-numbing amount of flexibility here.
But that flexibility triggers some option paralysis, too. I found myself sticking to the MercuryX’s pre-programmed settings rather than trying to build my own for two reasons. There were simply too many variables to modify, and the reverb aficionados at Meris know what they’re doing. Why overcomplicate things?
The MercuryX’s only flaw might be that it occupies an awkward in-between spot in the market. Its capabilities (and price tag) eclipse many of the higher-end reverb units available, and in practice, it often feels closer to a compact floor modeler than an effect pedal. But it is just an effect pedal. Though, maybe this is a sign of things to come: The MercuryX really does lend the feeling that, at least as far as reverb is concerned, it can do everything.
The Verdict
For the right user, the MercuryX’s complexity will be a major asset. Learn how to manipulate all the processing power included here and this pedal might be a game-changer.
The Mod Garage guitar-aging series continues. Try these easy steps to get a vintage look on your plastic tuners.
Image 1 — Courtesy of singlecoil.com
Hello and welcome back to Mod Garage. Today we'll work on the plastic buttons of the tuners, and, after this, they'll be finished. In September's “DIY: Relic'ing Tuners, Part 1," we slightly sanded them to break the new factory shine, which was an important step to relic them. Not all vintage tuner plastic buttons show the same overall appearance: some are dull while others are shiny, and some show discoloration while others don't. This has a lot to do with the plastic material used for the buttons and, of course, how the guitar was stored and used though the years. We'll try to mimic a typical pattern of wear, dirt, and use to make them look old, and you can decide if you want them shiny or not during the process.
It's also the first time we have a sidebar from a pro ager, so a big shout-out to Andy Nowak from CrazyParts for taking time to offer expertise on relic'ing different materials. We'll have more advice from pro agers throughout this series. The next installment is about how to make wood look old and used.
To start, remember that two different tuners are used on this model of guitar, depending on what factory it's coming from. Both versions are technically equal, but the Wilkinson tuners sport shiny white buttons while the Kluson versions have a shiny, creamy color to mimic some discoloration. Today, we won't cover how to get discoloration on the shiny white buttons. We will cover this in a follow-up in this series. As an introduction, please read the sidebar from Nowak regarding different plastic materials. If you have the white version of the tuner buttons and want some discoloration, please be patient and don't put them into coffee or tea for days. We'll address relic'ing white plastic parts in a later column.
Have a look at Image 1, which shows pics I collected over the years while restoring vintage guitars, showing exactly the tuner buttons we have on this guitar. You can clearly see the discoloration ranges from none to cream, and that some are dull while others have a greasy shine. They all have some marks from getting bumped or whatever, and some dirt build-up, especially inside the marks and at the seam where the two halves of the buttons are molded together. This is exactly what we'll do now, and you don't need much for this: disposable gloves, dry paper towels, a small cotton rag (old T-shirts work great), a fine scribe tool (tracing scribe) or a nail, needle, etc., some Q-Tips or cotton swabs, brown shoe polish (I prefer Kiwi brown, simply because it's the best and I use it for my brown genuine leather stuff anyway), car polish or toothpaste, naphta, and some dirt or dust. I use a mixture of the contents from my vacuum cleaner bag spiced up with some ashes from my open fireplace (mostly from beech wood).
Image 2 — Courtesy of singlecoil.com
To start, use your scribe tool or a sharp nail, needle, etc. and put some marks on the buttons as seen in Image 2.
The three golden rules for success in this step are:
#1: Don't heat up the tool you're using; we want marks and not burns.
#2: Don't overdo it. Less is more and looks more authentic.
#3: Use a random pattern so every button looks different.
Take care when working with a scribe, as they are really sharp and you don't want to stab your hand with it. Wear leather gloves to protect your hand and always work away from yourself, never towards you.
Clean the buttons with some naphta, especially the marks you've created. If you decide you want the tuners shiny, giving them a particular greasy look, you should now buff the buttons to the degree you like. You can use any car polish and a cotton rag for this, or simply any toothpaste you find. If you put too much shine on them, don't worry; just use fine sandpaper and sand it down to start from scratch. After you're done, clean the buttons with naphta.
Image 3 — Courtesy of singlecoil.com
Now put on your gloves, put some brown shoe polish on a cotton swab, and work the shoe polish into the buttons, focusing on the marks you created and on the seam (Image 3). Massage it in for a while so the whole button is covered, and let it dry.
Image 4 — Courtesy of singlecoil.com
Wipe off the shoe polish using a dry paper towel. You'll see that the seam and the marks you have created show some “dirt" now (Image 4). To further enhance this impression, use dirt or dust and rub it with some pressure into the tuner buttons using your fingers, especially where the marks and the seam are. Let it sit for a while and wipe off the excess with a dry paper towel. There you have it!
Image 5 — Courtesy of singlecoil.com
Check the finished result in Image 5, and the before and after tuners side by side in Image 6. Now compare these with the vintage tuner buttons in Image 1. I think we're really close, aren't we? If you're not satisfied, you can repeat these steps as needed.
Image 6 — Courtesy of singlecoil.com
This is just one way of doing this: It's easy, doesn't require a lot of tools, and isn't dangerous. If you want to share your method, please do in the comments section on PG's website.
Next month, we'll put down the soldering iron and relic'ing materials and I'll share my own quarantine projects and experiences during COVID-19. A lot of readers have asked me to, and this will be my first time in 15 years to write something personal in this space instead of the usual technical instruction.
Until then ... keep on modding!
Advice on Authentic Guitar Aging from CrazyParts' Andreas Nowak
CrazyParts was the first company in Europe offering aged guitar parts. Founded in 1993 as “Eezee Guitar" and renamed CrazyParts in 2003, the company is family operated by Andreas Nowak and his wife, Barbara. Customers include Joe Bonamassa, Billy Gibbons, and Bernie Marsden, to name a few.
The most important thing I can tell you about guitar aging: The basic material is what really matters and determines if the result will be good or not. For plastics, it's important if it's ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene), nylon, CAB (cellulose acetate butyrate), celluloid, or any similar material. When it comes to metal hardware, it's first and foremost the alloy that matters and, of course, the plating. For guitar paint jobs, it's the type of lacquer and how it's built up.
When the necessary conditions for a good aging job don't apply, the result will be poor or it simply won't work. I've smashed hundreds of metal parts while trying to age them, simply because the alloy reacted in a different way than supposed. As an example, approximately 90 percent of all guitar hardware today is copper plated, which is a bad base for good aging results. Copperless-plated hardware is the way to go, but, often enough, even the manufacturer can't answer the question about which alloy was used. Another example is the PVD-coating procedure that some companies are using for plating their metal pickup covers. This is a copper-plating method that compensates irregularities of the surface while polishing. So not all nickel covers are real nickel-plated covers, but PVD coating that only looks like nickel. Needless to say, aging results are difficult to predict and it can influence guitar sound as well.
Most plastic replica parts are made of ABS and it's close to impossible to get a vintage-looking discoloration with these parts because it doesn't absorb anything. Forget about the urban legends with tea and coffee. This simply won't work with ABS, even if you soak it for years. This works best with nylon, CAB, and celluloid, but these parts aren't easy to find and plain tea or coffee won't work very well.
Another reason for non-authentic aged parts is over-aging. It's all about the details and not the more, the merrier. You can find a lot of parts that are simply scratched, rusty, and damaged. That's not the way vintage parts usually look.
The main formula to success is the basic material plus the post-processing: If one of these factors is bad inside this chain, the whole thing will be bad, not authentic, and sometimes even inoperable. —Andreas Nowak
When it comes to obvious pedal combinations, could tuning and volume control be the new peanut butter and jelly?
RatingsPros:Top-of-class display. Accurate, quick tuning. Visual readout for volume level. Bang for buck. Cons: Some may wish for a touchless sensor rather than a cable mechanism. Street: $199 Ernie Ball VPJR Tuner ernieball.com | Ease of Use: Build/Design: Value: |
Using their industry-standard, rock-solid VPJR volume pedal as a template, Ernie Ball's engineers somehow found a way to integrate an onboard chromatic tuner to the formula. This is not a gimmicky add-on. The tuner's functionality and display rival many of the better standalone tuners available. The smartphone-like touchscreen monitor is large, with a crystal-clear display, and there's an option to choose between three modes: volume only, tuner only, or volume and tuner (my preference), where the tuner function automatically engages when the treadle is heel down. When in tuner mode, double tapping the monitor reveals a pitch screen to select your chosen frequency above or below standard 440 Hz.
Tuning on the bright, liquid-like clear screen presents the octave and reference pitch in addition to the large display of the note, which sits between sharp and flat indicators. And once the selected string's note has been hit, the entire needle field lights up with a brilliant-green background (from blue) to confirm you're there. Another big bonus about the display is that when you're in volume mode, a monitor-filling 1-10 level indicator is right at your feet. Sure, volume pedals are typically maneuvered by touch and audibility, but think about it: It's a damn cool feature to be able to view exactly where you're at or need to be.
I haven't even touched on the potential pedalboard real-estate savings, but the math is pretty easy for this two-in-one piece of gear. I guess I'm a sucker for smart design, performance, and efficiency. Maybe you are, too.
Test Gear: 2002 Fender Precision, GK 800RB, Orange OBC212, Gibson SG Special Faded, CMI Electronics SG-212