The Good
LVX arrived a couple days ago and I had a chance to really dig into it today. I’ve never seen anything quite like it–it’s more of a signal chain processing workstation and sound design playground than a delay. The options are a little overwhelming at first, but the interface is reasonably good. The form factor and build quality are great. The LVX is almost ideal size for a “pedal”–decent-sized controls and display, and small enough to easily take to shows or fit on a studio desk.
The sound quality is absolutely top rate and the range of sounds is impressive. The integrated looper is super useful, but the controls could be improved. Buttons 3 and 4 are dedicated to looper fx, but if I want reverse and half-speed–they both have to go on button 4–why can’t I assign one to 3 and the other to 4?
The Bad
There’s 99 preset slots and the LVX comes with 80 factory presets–many of them are…not good. Guessing that Meris added a a lot of these from beta testers, but it’s off-putting having so many mediocre presets. I’ll end up deleting most if not all, but it would have been nicer to get the LVX with 20 well-curated presets and the rest open slots.
The dedicated MOD knob seems have little to no effect on most presets or delays I’ve built. The manual doesn’t give any details on exactly what MOD is doing. Maybe some minor modulation of delay times, but if I have to strain to hear if there’s an effect–somethings not right. I’d like to be able to assign this to a parameter of my choice. Wondering of this is an issue with my unit?
The Ugly
The LVX locks up and crashes every 40 minutes or so. It freezes on the current delay, and then the sound drops out and the controls are all frozen. I purchased directly from Meris because they included a (presumably qualified) power supply. I have a feeling there’s still bad software bugs, but who knows? With the pedal this unstable I wouldn’t chance using it for a performance and that makes it nearly useless for me. I’ll contact Meris, but unless it gets resolved quickly, it’ll be returned.