MOOERTwo Stones Micro Preamp (M010)

After some time testing out the Mooer Micro Preamp "Two Stones" (010) model in a few different setups, I decided to give it a 5-star review, but wanted to offer a review detailing both its immense functionality and a few of the minor disappointments I have with it. The new Mooer Micro Preamp series is an impressive concept. Fundamentally, these pedals are not doing anything dramatically new. They function similarly to the Tech21 "Character" series (which retails for around $180) in the sense that they combine detailed preamp modeling of a specific model or brand of amplifier, combined with a built-in cabinet simulator to allow for direct recording or straight-to-mixer use. One key difference between the Micro Preamps is that they are digital and purportedly based on similar tone capturing technology as high-end modelers like the Line6 Helix and Kemper.FEATURES:The Two Stones Micro Preamp is worth of 5-star consideration almost on feature set alone. There's a massive amount of functionality smashed into the familiar Hammond 1590A "micro"-sized pedal. There three EQ controls for BASS, MIDS, and TREBLE, and I believe they are active controls so they more demonstratively add or take away specific frequencies as you go up or down from 12:00. There are the self-explanatory Volume and Gain knobs.Then (unlike the Tech21 boxes), there is an LED button that allows you to switch between CLEAN (blue) and DIRTY (red) channels. Holding the button for 2 seconds causes it to start flashing, which means the cabinet simulator is on. The cabinet simulator is a must-have for direct recording, but you may also prefer it playing through a studio monitor or other FRFR speaker other than a guitar amp. The cabinet sim should be turned off if you are running the pedal either into the front of a combo amp, or into a power amp via your amp's effects loop. The latter setup produces better results, as you bypass the preamp stack of your amp and allow the Two Stones to sculpt your tone.The level of thought Mooer put into designing this thing becomes further evident by the ability to map channel switching to the soft-press footswitch, instead of a finger-button LED. By holding the footswitch for 2 seconds, you can go back and forth between modes where the footswitch controls either on/bypass, or clean/dirty. I prefer the latter, since those using this as a direct box are probably using it as an always-on pedal anyway.Finally, and perhaps critically, Mooer added a hidden trick, which is that the pedal saves your control settings for each channel as you switch back and forth! This becomes necessary because the DIRTY channel is actually a bit louder than the CLEAN channel, so you may prefer different volume and EQ settings for both. It's a simple and brilliantly-implemented control scheme that took me all of 3 minutes to learn, and really sets you up to use the pedal in the way you would normally use a real amplifier.PROS:Of course, none of those features would be worth much if the sound quality was poor, but for the most part, I've been quite impressed by the tonal quality and range of the Two Stones. This model (which is one of 10 they released in early 2017) is based off a Two Rock Coral amplifier. I've never played one, but I'm fond of the Two Rock amp tones from demos and videos, and did some research on the Coral specifically prior to buying this unit. Two Rock amps have a full bassy-yet-sparkly clean, similar to a modded Fender. These are high-end boutique amps, and much of their inspiration comes from a "D-style" tone. In the DIRTY channel, this is particularly evident. The drive sounds have a nice singing, compressed quality to them despite not being particularly high gain at all. I own a few D-style overdrives, like the Wampler Euphoria and Hermida Zen Drive, and while this might not be fully on the level of those, it's definitely in the ballpark.Also, despite this being a digital modeling pedal, it pairs surprisingly well with drive pedals in front of it. Both channels seem to accept gain pedals well, ranging from Tubescreamers to Klon-style overdrives to hard-clipping distortions. I wasn't detecting any of the mush or bottom end flubbing out that you often get when you try to "push" digital modeling with something in the input signal. Very impressive.I hope to use the Two Stones as a direct box for some iPad or Tascam recordings. But for playing out loud, I thought it sounded great both into a power amp return on my combo, or into a mixer and a set of studio monitors.CONS:Pretty much everything I've said thus far has been overwhelmingly positive, but three notable drawbacks come to mind as I try to fairly evaluate what the Two Stones does and doesn't do well. First, I have to say that I'm just little disappointed in the sustain and personality of the CLEAN channel. I noticed a lot of people commenting that the Coral was a much less-compressed amp than its predecessors. Either by design or by accident, the Two Stones is noticeably uncompressed. It doesn't have the singing sustain and note-to-note saturation of my Vox AC10C1, which is my favorite home-volume tube amp. On the other hand, the fact that it is not very compressed ties into how expressive and amp-like it is. Many players may prefer this, and I think the uncompressed nature of the CLEAN channel is part of what allows it to pair with gain pedals so well. But it's worth noting, especially because the entirety of the CLEAN channel stays completely clean. Even with the gain knob all the way up, it behaved a bit like a solid state amp in the sense that it remained clean, and did not introduce some of that tube-like saturation I love. Again, this may be entirely by designed (as I've never played a Coral), and many of those great lower gain bluesy tones are available on the DIRTY channel, but it wasn't fully what I expected.Second, while the feature to save settings between channels is necessary and fully welcomed, I noticed a bit of a volume swell when switching from clean to dirty. For example, if you ring out a chord, and then switch channels, there's no "click" or "pop", but the volume seems to jump unnaturally for a split second before settling into where the saved setting is. Perhaps this is user error, but I am pretty sure I noticed this a number of times.Third, and this is more of an equipment observation than a "drawback", but the stated power consumption of this digital pedal is somewhere between 200-300mA (9V center negative). What that means is that some of the older-style BOSS adapters won't have sufficient power to run it, and while something like a OneSpot could easily power it, it draws considerably more power than most other effects, and could cause some issues in a non-isolated power setup. Just worth mentioning. I'm using the wall adapter that comes with DigiTech products, which provides at least 1000mA, so it's not really a concern for me. By contrast, the (analog) Tech21 pedals have remarkably low power consumption of 5mA, and can run off a 9V for something like 20 hours (or possibly much longer).CONCLUSION:The Two Stones is an impressive product, but it makes me curious what else this Micro Preamp series has to offer. It offers a pitch-perfect user interface and very believable digitally modeled amp tones, both in how the pedal sounds and in how it interacts with other gear. The clean tones were a little disappointing and "solid state"-like to me, but I liked the drive channel better than I thought I would, and it's just a great all-in-one preamp and cab sim solution for direct recording or an emergency backup plan for gigging musicians.

Adesso ho 2 preamp della Mooer in pedaliera, il modello 002 UK Gold 900, dichiaratamente basato sul Marshall JCM900, e questo (010, Two Stones) basato sul TwoRock Coral (un clone di mitici Dumble) apprezzato da John Mayer.Questi pedali (ce ne sono 20!) sono fatti per essere messi davanti ad uno stadio finale di amplificazione (io uso un Hotone Loudster a stato solido 70 W su 4 ohm) o a una scheda di registrazione (eventualmente attivando il cab simulator di cui sono dotati) e non funzionano altrettanto bene se messi davanti ad un amplificatore per chitarra.I suoni sono apprezzabili e sono utilizzabili anche live perche’ il cambio canale clean/drive e’ gestibile comodamente dall’unico bottone e soprattutto conserva memoria dei settaggi con cui il canale era stato settato in precedenza.Un piccolo problema per chi come me usa una pedaliera alimentata da un battery pack e che questi pedali sono digitali e consumano corrente (si scaldano) anche se il preamp non e’ attivo…..2 in pedaliera si ciucciano quasi mezzo ampere!....Peraltro averne piu’ di un paio in pedaliera non e’ conveniente, tanto vale a quel punto un emulatore programmabile che di amp ne emula una cinquantina….Tuttavia essendo “true bypass” si puo’ staccare l’alimentazione senza doverli togliere fisicamente dalla catena.

E' arrivato nei tempi stabiliti. Le caratteristiche sono come descritte nel sito di Amazon.i due canali sono gestibili perfettamente .

Après essai, je n'ai pas compris l'engouement pour ces pédales. Elle fait le job mais je ne trouve pas le son réaliste et les fonctionnalités anecdotiques ne permettent pas de sculpter ou rattraper le son. Peut-être en attendais-je trop par rapport à la somme positive des commentaires ?