NAMM 2017: Mooer micro preamp pedals

Holy moley what do we have here? Mooer have dropped a HUGE pre-NAMM announcement on us here with 10 (ten!) new pre-amp models which really appear to have a few interesting little features on them. 

First up, just have a *look* at the line-up, there’s been a huge step-up on the aesthetics from what we’ve been used to from Mooer. Secondly, you’ll notice that there are five micro-knobs, as well a single “soft-switch” which is something we’re pretty sure we’ve not seen on a Mooer pedal before. 

This soft-switch actually has two functions. Press once, and you switch between two assignable EQ’s, effectively giving you two channels. Press and hold on the soft-switch and you can turn on or off a built-in cab simulator which allows these pre-amps to be used directly into a PA or audio interface. 

The actual footswitch on the pedals can be assigned to either turn the pedal on/off, or to switch between the two channels in a more gig-friendly manner than having to press the soft-switch. 

Now, Mooer haven’t officially announced what each of these pre-amps are based on (not that we’d expect them to!), but based on the aesthetics it looks like there are models that’ll be designed to sound like Diezel, Marshall, Vox, EVH, Fender, Mesa Boogie and Engl among others. Obviously we’re not going to know for sure what each of these pre-amps are based on until we hear them all, but we wouldn’t be surprised to see a Dumble hidden away in there somewhere, especially given the company’s relatively heavy cult following that’s emerged recently. 

This really is a pretty big statement for Mooer make in 2017. We’ve not seen anybody release such a comprehensive line-up of “modelling” pre-amps since Tech 21 released their Character series at the start of the decade. Now, no pricing has been released as of yet, but we’re pretty certain these are far more likely to be around Mooer’s sub-£100 price point than the £150-200 that you’d expect to pay for their Tech 21 counterparts.