#516

Am I the only one gassing about the RMX16 reissue? It looks fantastic! I have BAM so I’m a bit unsure about overlap, but two high end reverbs are always good to have.

4 Likes
#517

Anyone have any leads on outboard units with good room reverbs? I see the Boss RV500 has a few, but it’s hard to find any devices (or at least demos) doing justice to the Room algos, particularly because there’s so much energy going into ambient/extended stuff.
My Empress is a godsend for everything but the rooms. Ideally I want a “dark drum room” thing, like something that can add body without sounding slappy. The kind of thing where you don’t notice it when it’s there, but you notice it when it’s gone – you know?

#518

Bam has a lovely room. And with the mix knob you can hide it away in a mix. The size knob, damping and the filters can make it dark

3 Likes
#519

I’d rather have an Eventide SP2016 honestly.

#520

I’ve tried a few reverb pedals: Behringer RV600, Zoom MS-70CDR, Jonny Rock Gear Moby Depths, Meris Mercury 7, Strymon El Capistan (has a spring reverb secondary function), and Boss RV-500.

The Behringer and zoom are pretty nice for budget verbs.

The Moby Depths was an interesting spring reverb because it had a send and return for applying effects to the feedback and had a regen knob for sending the feedback back into the reverb. Very interesting pedal that I did not experiment with enough.

My favorite sounds came from the mercury 7, I loved that thing, wish I had kept it. Might get one again. I switched to the boss rv500 because it had a lot more in the way of tweakability, which is what I thought I wanted. Unfortunately there is some menu diving involved and the interface wasn’t my favorite.

While verbs are intended for creating a feeling of space and dimension, I also found that I liked being subtle with it just to add a bit of character, widen patches, or to smooth the texture of harsh sounds. I love applying a touch of reverb to the end of a chain of moogerfoogers to kind of gel violent modulation, or dropping my Moog Sirin into a deep ambient ocean. Depends on my mood.

4 Likes
#521

Ensoniq DP2/4 do a great dark room.

#522

The reissue? Have not tried that one.

#523

That’s a nice list. I’m surprised the Eventide Space isn’t on it! Mercury7 is a lovely reverb, but it’s got nothing on a carefully tweaked ModEchoVerb or Blackhole preset in my opinion, and you can get some utterly gnarly/beautiful stuff out of Mangledverb too. Space requires a bit of finding “your” sound with it, as most of the presets can be either almost too subtle or too out there - there’s a wide middle ground left to explore, and it’s got the knobs to do it easily.

1 Like
#524

I think I hate my H9. The effects sound good, of course, but the interface is just awful. I’ve been shunning it.

3 Likes
#525

Well it doesn’t really have an interface (what it’s got is a poor excuse for one, IMO). You’re basically forced to use the app or write your own using MIDI (mostly SysEx). I wrote a Max4Live plugin for it for Ableton so you can automate and MIDI map through that, if it might help you. (Edited for clarity…)

2 Likes
#526

Yes, for sure I need to try one! It’s been on my list for quite some time. I wanted to try the big Sky , specular tempus, and empress reverb too, but wasn’t sure if I would be into how the bigsky sorts of takes over the sound.

Space seems right up my alley, though the mercury felt so easy to dial in something pleasing. Heck, I even sort of want that Moby Depths again lol. And there are a few boutique options that seem interesting, like the hungry robot borderlands, red panda context, etc. (Though imo those seem like they would be best acting as part of patch as an insert or chain vs being an aux send kind of verb)

Despite all of my ideas for my next reverb, I got sidetracked in early December and ended up grabbing a zoia :joy:

1 Like
#527

you might want to give Chamber algorithms a try. I struggled for a long time to find Room sounds I liked and now I gravitate towards chambers. They tend to be a little darker & thicker to my ears.

1 Like
#528

Have you checked out the EvenMIDI MIDI controller for it? There’s also a Euro / Buchla adaptation from Northern Light Modular.

#529

I had the Northern Light Eurorack adaptation of the EvenMIDI module for a while. It provides CV-control well enough, but doesn’t really help the UI as much as one might think. You get more knobs, but the labeling is problematic, and you still don’t really know where you are. There are 500 presets and they’re not in any particular order. Navigating them on the unit is insane, particularly since it can’t even display more than a few letters of the preset name. Amusingly, it seems impossible to use EvenMIDI and the iPad UI simultaneously: one or the other.

You can’t argue with success: obviously, they’ve sold a ton of these things. I picked mine up on the basis of so many strong reviews, thinking that I’d get past the compromised UI. It’s good, but it’s not that good. I keep reaching for my Big Sky.

I think the underlying ecosystem idea behind the H9 is great. I don’t want to have two or three Eventide pedals lying around, which is why, say, buying Space and TimeFactor separately does not appeal to me. If they produce a new H9 model that provides an uncompromised UI without an iPad—hopefully with an assignable CV input (one would be plenty)—I’m there, even if it’s necessarily larger and costs $1000.

1 Like
#530

Given that the expression pedal input already accepts CV and is assignable per preset to one or more parameters (with range and polarity mapping!) I’d say you don’t need to worry about that aspect for any of their stompboxes! That said I’d love the H9 guts and ecosystem in a Factor pedal format - absolutely!

One thing you CAN do that works perfectly with the iPad app is to use a MIDI fighter twister with it. The knobs can be directly mapped to each of the ten knob CCs and you’ve got six left for pushbuttons and other uses. I use mine in that mode sometimes too and it works a treat. Since it’s using only CC and not sysex it can be used alongside the apps (they put the unit into a high data rate encrypted sysex mode which is why they don’t play well with most third party apps).

IMO, the Space and H9 are the best sounding and most versatile reverb pedals out there, but they are not necessarily tuned to be performance pieces (the expression input is their main ode to performative manipulation - sure you can tweak the knobs but I don’t find them as tuned for that - they cover wide ranges and often contain nonlinear mode switches within their full range). If you use them as part of an instrument’s “sound” in a mostly pre-configured custom preset sort of way I don’t think anything beats those algorithms (though that is of course a matter of taste - but with so many world class algos and so many parameters to each one its pretty easy to make them suit most any taste), but if UI trumps everything else for you, especially in a performative manner where the reverb is the instrument, its easy to see why people choose other marques. For me, the Strymon reverbs sound colder, more static, more “produced” and while I can make my Eventides sound that way easily, I cannot bring out of a Big Sky all the intense beauty and modulated lushness I can also easily get from my H9s and Spaces. So I’m willing to work (extensively) with the UI to get the sounds I want.

2 Likes
#531

It’s very cool! I’m not sure how I feel about mono input though…

1 Like
#532

Yes mono is a bit of a let down. Although to be fair I usually process almost everything mono to stereo.

#533

Short version: I have become very, very fond of the Happy Nerding FX Aid, which includes ~40 reverb algorithms to choose from in addition to other effects using a web-based preset assigner. And Igor continues to add more algorithms.

Long version: I’ve been through several reverbs for my modular, including the ErbeVerb and several Spin-chip based modules. Things that sound lush on sustained drones and keyboard lines can splatter with percussive sources (which is what I dabble in). I had “given up” and started using an external Source Audio Ventris, which I like very much.

Then Igor sent me an FX Aid. It’s the best Spin chip programming I’ve heard. He’s recreated several popular pedal sounds including the Big Sky and Eventide Black Hole, made variations of those, and created his own algorithms including a bunch of shimmers, phaser or chorusing effects into reverb, etc.

The module has one CV input, which can be assigned to any of the three parameters available per reverb, plus the DSP clock rate. In addition to just enjoying some great reverb sounds he’s programmed, I’ve been enjoying CVing shimmer depth (great from a smooth random source, as the shimmer surges and retreats), the variable room size (house of mirrors), etc.

The module has 32 memory slots, but he’s created far more algorithms than that. So he’s created a web-based editor where you can assign which algorithm you want in which slot. This creates a .wav file you play into the module to reprogram it. Igor has also created a couple of algorithms based on my request, including tap tempo delay (oddly rare in Spin chip units).

The one thing I don’t like about it is how closely packed the 4 Davies-style knobs are in the 4hp module; I replaced the knobs with those off an Elby (I found a third party source, if anyone’s interested) and now it’s easier to use.

I know this comes off as a sales pitch. I don’t normally rave about modules. That’s how big of an impact (maybe sense of relief, after fruitless searches?) this module has created for me personally.

http://www.happynerding.com/category/fx-aid/

11 Likes
#534

Interface is bad? Are you using it with iOS?

#535

H9 can be very performance oriented with these-