With a Cheapness (Reverbs/Multi-Effects) Inexpensive Loot for the Budget-Minded Slut

[Kent]

...
Check out the sticky on top of this forum for info on the "with a cheapness" threads.

Gustav

[DrDeltaM]

Gonna add the Sony DPS-V55M here. Can be found 2nd hand cheap ($200-ish) and has tons of cool features: true dual-unit effects architecture (seperate outputs for both) or 4 channel (surround) operation, and almost anything in between you can think of! Also has a Mic/DI input on front. Plenty algorithms in this box. And last but not least: it sounds pretty damn fine as well! It has showed itself to be a keeper in my rack ;-)
Info/review here: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jan9...d68ebb938f093d

[jpaudio]

Ensoniq DP4 - 4 engines, 4 assignable i/o, under $400. Not the best verbs, but nice delays, chorus/flange etc.

[Albert]

Yes, the DP/4 is great, I love mine. A nice unique character, very musical, and a different tone than the current crop of fx boxes.

I used to have an A2, but found it a bit noisy. Fun and quick to work with though, the system of enabling and disabling fx blocks via the front panel push multifunction knobs is great.

Korg's next line of fx boxes, the AM8000R and DL8000R, wasn't a big success on the market but did some great things. The WARP knob in particular was cool for realtime changing of parameters.

[PaRaNoId]

TC M300 (not 3000) has tons of useable verbs, a second onboard processor offering delays, compression, chorus etc. At only $200 bucks this unit is a steal...what sucks about it? The A/D, D/A is anything but quality, and takes abit of getting used to the controls..

[tINY]

The SPX-90 is still a useable workhorse. You can probably find those pretty cheap anymore.

It was a little funny, though. XLR outputs had pin 3 wired hot (pin 2 inverted). I saw some guy pulling his hair out when the vocal at an outdoor show (lunchtime at a college) was all effect. He wasn't interested in my suggestions, so I just laughed to myself...

He used an unbalanced input to the unit and ran the signal back into a channel on the board with the XLR output. The mix was set to halfway between dry and FX, so he was feeding the aux send signal back to the stereo bus out-of-phase with the vocal channel through the SPX-90.

I had somewhere to be, so I don't know if he ever resolved it. It was still a problem when I left 10 minutes later.

I probably could have bought his "broken" unit cheap when he was packing up....




-tINY

[Midlandmorgan]

Agree with the M300...also the Roland variation thereof...

A REALLY cool thing is the Mosvalve Stereo Tube Reverb I pulled out of a guitar rig some time back...line level inputs, tone controls on the verb...and switchable between 2 mono units (each side with 6 springs), stereo unit (again each side with 6 springs) or a mono unit with 12 (!!!) springs)...all tube driven.

Bizarre power supply, but sounds pretty bueno...a little goes a LOOOOONG way, though.

[Tim L]

The Yamaha REV500 is a great little reverb unit. It does have some effects but mainly it's a verb. Straight forward easy to use and has more than enough parameters to tweek if you can't find an appropriate preset. Really nice rich verbs and the one I have's pretty darn quiet as well. Well worth the $250 these go for used...

Certainly not a revelation to any one who's been reading the"Forums" on a regular basis but the Kurzweil Rumour/ Mangler units are fantastic! I have one of each and dig them in a major way! Brand new these will hit you for about $500 a piece but for this kinda money (and even a bit more) there's nothing that sounds as good out there... not to me anyway.

[ProFool]

Great thread Kent,
The Boss VF-1 multi-effect unit is great low budget tool.
i use it when recording demo's at home, or just for play guitar myself.
for good result i suggest using it with a tube pre in front of it like a TLA - Fat1 or 2.
it warm's up the signal very nice before going digital. The Hi-Z instrument jack on the front panel i don't realy like that much, it very sensitive.
Kent did you used it on studio monitors or with a guitar amp (speakers)?


Grtz and Low On !!!

[Kent]

I use it on both.

I am using it as a reciprocal unit to the Adrenalinn. The Adrenalinn seems to be more of a 'guitar-oriented-box' with FX strapped on; while the VF-1 is the other way around. At least in the manner in which I am using them.

Not to sell either unit short, as they both do much more and are pretty feature-rich.

[e-cue]

Originally posted by jpaudio
Ensoniq DP4 - 4 engines, 4 assignable i/o, under $400. Not the best verbs, but nice delays, chorus/flange etc.

I highly suggest springing for the DP-4+ instead of the DP-4. It's MUCH MUCH quietier.


Off the top of my head:

Alesis Wedge (They were $99us on closeout $50-$100 on ebay)
It's basically a "poor mans larc" with midiverb settings. Neil Pouge uses this one a lot. The "impulse' button is a great feature if you are working on verb stuff.

Ibanez SDR-1000 (@$150us)
As I understand it, this unit was made by sony for Ibanez designed for an all-arounder, but marketed for guitars (which I think it sucks on). It's awesome for snare verbs (#7 & #11 are pretty good) that you don't want to get lost in the mix. I got Jim Williams to do an audio upgrade on mine to get the noise floor down. I'm lovin' it.

Roland SE-50 (@$100-$200us)
Great half space unit that sits next to an EH-50 nicely. Chock full of useful effects. It's one of the cheapest vocoders out there. #20 & #117 Rhodes are very useful in the Neosoul style of music.

Line 6 Mod Pro / Fitler Pro ($200us closeout)
Lots of very useable emulations. Namely the Dytronics Tri Chorus, the Roland Dimension D, the MXL Flanger (okay, not THAT good compared to the original), Mutron, Voicebox, Growler, etc... Lots of great stuff to play around with.

[jtienhaara]

I quite like the Roland DEP-5. Can be had for $100 USD, and it has some great choruses and decent 'verbs. I like it better than my SPX-900, which is also great (see tINY's post on the SPX-90, above). It works very well on drums, bass and guitars.

Oh and one of the great things about the SPX-90 is that it has dynamics (compressor, gate, etc) patches too.

Sometimes using the effects send / return of a synth can be a cheap way of adding effects during mixing. I used to use an E-mu Morpheus (probably ~ $100 these days) as an effects processor during mixing. Its 'verbs are a bit cheesy, but it worked well on drums.

In fact I might just go hook it up again right now...

Cheers,

Johann

[Teddy Gee]

Kent-really great thread idea!!
I do more lurking than posting here, but can contribute to this:>)

I third (or fourth?) the TC M300.........really surprising for $199 new. Some of the delays are even usable. I have had one for years....took it out of the rack a couple times,and keep putting it back in.........now mostly for the delays.

Roland SRV2000. For $150-175 or so these sound pretty damn good and are so tweakable. EQ on the effect, and some great non-linear stuff.

Also add to the list of Rumour/Mangler users who can hardly believe you can get something that sounds this good for $500.

Making notes...........great thread!

Stephen

[DirkB]

Originally posted by Teddy Gee
Also add to the list of Rumour/Mangler users who can hardly believe you can get something that sounds this good for $500.

I picked the Rumour over a PCM-91 to complement my M3000.
Same reverb as the KSP8, my go to plates!

Greetings,
Dirk

[hrn]

Another one for the TC M300. So easy to handle too.

[Linus]

The Korg DVR-3000 has a pretty good plate sound and some useable multi-effect sounds too. Regularly less than $100 and true stereo.

[Exsanguis]

For little money, I like the Lexicon Alex, as well as the Alesis Wedge. Tried the Adrenalinn a few times, and it seemed really cool too.

[twitme]

my experiences:

Alesis Wedge +/- $100
cute little box. kind of a strange interface, but seems to work. not the smoothest reverb around however.

Alesis Nanoverb [cheap]
more or less a fun toy. I've used it after a synth going into a mixer for improvisational electronic stuff. it's easy to tweak and play around with, but the quality of the verb is pretty poor. not bad for the money, but not especially worthwhile otherwise.

TC Electronics M-One ~$400
wonderful reverb. nice delays. the chorus sounds good but has latency issues (at least on my version of the M-One (not the m-one-xl). this unit is a bit counter-intuitive to me, but if you're experienced with tc electronics hardware it should be just fine.

Lexicon
I've had personal experiences with these, and they're pretty similar to the TC Electroncis stuff in the same price range. the biggest difference to me is that the TC Electronics had a 'smoother' reverb. that alone sold me on TC, but I wouldn't say lexicon makes a poor product, they're fine in my experience, just not exactly to my liking.

[djwayne]

Yet another vote for the M-300, I just bought a new one a couple weeks ago, I'm finding the reverbs and delays very useful, I also really like the S/PDIF feature which keeps my music in the digital domain connecting the M-300 directly digital into my computer....as far as the A/D D/A converts go, I haven't had any problem with them, they sound fine to me. I believe the sampling rate on the 1010LT sound card is at 96 hz, and the M-300 at 128 kz, that should be an improvement.


For those who think the A/D D/A converter isn't any good, what exactly are you hearing that you don't like ????? Or are you talking thru your hat ??? What exactly do you expect for $199 ???


I've also had the Korg A-3, The Alesis Micro-Verb, Midiverb 4, Roland Space Delay SDE 330, The A-3 and 330 were my favorites, but the M-300 is doing the job now. I didn't like the Micro-Verb, and sold it off cheap years ago.

I chose the M-300 over a similar Lexicon, because the M-300 has an S/PDIF INPUT.

[cgarges]

I'll second the Sony DPS-V55. Great box that can be configured easily to do a BUNCH of stuff. Plus, I happen to have a fondness for Sony reverbs. Along those same lines, the Sony R-7 is a sort of dedicated reverb box that typically sells used for less than $300 nowadays and is one of my favorites.

I've always thought that the Lexicon LXP-1 was a pretty amazing little box. I think it's the best-sounding inexpensive Lexicon verb. It definitely has that identifiable "Lexicon" verb trail and although it's not the most natural-sounding thing in the world, it's a very pleasant reverb.

For a good, simple mono delay, it's pretty hard to beat any of the Deltalab Effectrons. The III is my favorite because of the ability to store the knob settings, but they're all great.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[Joe Silence]

Alesis MIDIVERB II (US$100 or less)
good for electric guitars, gothy/spacey vocals, various exaggerated reverbs and general noise-making.
not super quiet, but quiet enough to be soloed without fear.
a preset box with loads of character!
i love mine!
Preset chart

Digitech IPS-33B (US$250 or less)
diatonic/chordal/pitch-correction/static-interval pitch transposer with 2 voices, 2 long delays, pitch and amplitude modulation, etc.
great on electric guitars, monosynths, vocals, general noise-making, whatever you wanna put through it.
another keeper!

[Les Ismore]

Alesis Quadreverb 2. Quite a nice multi effects and reverb box with light pipe I/O. Not to be confused with the Quadreverb 1 which was a piece of crap. The 2 is actually very usable and cheeeeaaap.

[AdamJay]

zoom studio 1204 multi-fx. $70 on eBay

especially when you overdrive the input, its got a real brickwall crunch to it rather than digital clipping. lots of character for a digital fx box. these went for $250 new 6 years ago.

[Marky]

I used to use the Digitech TSR-12 all over the place.. great reverbs on that things and it was fairly reasonably priced even back when I bought it.

Regarding the previous mention of the SE-50 ... though I like both it and the SE-70 I found it quite a noisy box. One problem with cheaper hardware outboard of yesteryear.

[panda]

alesis quadaverb II has thst electronic music reverb sound. plus a bunch of usefulll effects. nice box. i dunno what they go for these days.. i regret from time to time selling mine.

Korg DRV-1000.. i think i got it for like 40$.. it has not to many controls.. but i like its plate. though it doesn't really sound like a plate of coarse.. i use it the most if i use reverb at all.

DOD R-845 mono spring reverb. [around 30-40$ also] its a little noisy. but it does that spring reverb thing, well, like a spring! [4 band EQ, and "drive"]. cool rack.

alesis "akira".. its really sh!tty [50-60$].. its a preset box with 3 knobs that does stuff to the preset. it is multi effect.. just not all at once. but sometimes its sh!tty in all the right ways.. it does some very digital "efx-y" kind of stuff.. and you can go nuts on the knobs and end up with some cool little things..

panda

[frothingbadger]

This discussion has been extremely helpful. However, perhaps a few of you knowledgable types could weigh in for me on the Lexicon Lxp-1. It has only been mentioned indirectly here but I keep hearing studio type gurus etc. wax amazed about this little gem. I'm looking at acquiring one but would like more info!

What I'm really interested in with the LXP 1 other than its "colour" (which has been widely discussed elsewhere as warm and on the "dark" side of the spectrum) is whether I can get deep "SPACEY" ambient stuff out of one of these little bastids. Any other remarks would be greatly appreciated.

Also, anyone know where I can find some sound samples using one of these?

cheers,
FB

[cgarges]

Originally Posted by frothingbadger

perhaps a few of you knowledgable types could weigh in for me on the Lexicon Lxp-1. It has only been mentioned indirectly here but I keep hearing studio type gurus etc. wax amazed about this little gem. I'm looking at acquiring one but would like more info!

I mentioned it pretty directly in my post. I love those things! I think they excel at doing the "spacey" thing, moreso than something natural like "guitar amp in a hallway." I mean, it's not a 224 or anything, but it's a pretty amazing little box for the bread. Of course, I'm saying this because I happen to have two of them for sale, but I really do like them an awful lot. If you give me a couple of days, I could put together some kind of sound sample thing for you. I've been torn about seling them for a long time, but I've just got WAY too many cool reverbs now. Is there anything in particular you'd like to hear, sample-wise?

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[FireMoon]

Digitech studio Quad 4... dirt cheap, quality is pretty good indeed. Muliti EFX 4 ins/outs.... can assign paches that use all of the resources or just part thereof. 2-3 together would give you some serious poke prolly for less than 500 s/h.

[jenkel16]

Lexicon MPX 110. The controls on this unit are 2 knobs that adjust different parameters for each preset, which is confusing but it sounds good. It's great for use as a back up reverb. They go for no more than $200 new.

[Reggie Love]

Vintage Spring reverbs can be a bargain right now whilst plates cost a small fortune. There are some very good quality ones out there and they all tend to be valve and direct wired because that's how they made them when they made them that way.