Alesis Micro Enhancer

The ENHANCER or sheer noise is part of a range of effects and processors, and products by Alesis Studio Electronics Associates, in 1988. Unlike an equalizer, which only accentuates the frequencies already present in the signal, and digital stereo enhancer is capable of creating new harmonics, in addition to the moose, based on a distortion of the mediums and treble already present, a HPF can be set between 2 and 20 kHz away to the harmonic generator circuit! Incredible, but true. This setting is the fact of the potentiometer to the right, Bandwidth, it is turned over, plus HPF appears at low frequencies. That's the principle. The connection of this equipment is basic: 2 input / output jack asymmetric and that's it! Rack with two other processors in the same series, as a limiter or gate, and they form a set U.

UTILIZATION

The knob on the left threshold determines the amount of frequency treble to be issued, and the 4 LEDs will light up gradually from left to right, first green, then yellow and finally red, but beware, they are not VU meters, but indicators of frequencies!
Then the MIX: it indicates the proportion of signal. The use of this processor is therefore difficult, if not paradoxical, as the manual, relatively prolific in other modules of the series, it is too terse on ENHANCER; you get there more, intuitively.

SOUND QUALITY

The ENHANCER is a microprocessor, but also an effect: it is intended to beautify a portion of the signal, but not all need a whole. That's why I put the chain end, and after LIMITED GATE, but before the mixer, I reserve a multi-effects, such as SE-50, or a nice reverb that I have not ... I find it particularly suitable for this place, to enrich the harmonic samples of the S 950, which must have a frequency reduced for lack of sufficient storage space, and an acoustic drum, known as the windshine (?) Found it all its glory with the enhancer, while it has a very limited bandwidth. Similarly he embellishes the piano sound of my P3, probably for the same reason.

OVERALL OPINION

I bought used in 1992 to 800 FF in Music Nation, he would certainly have cost more elsewhere! However, I can not say if it supports the comparison today, its handling is difficult and we move quickly from one end to an effect christallin ... metallic and shrill! We must constantly fumbling and the switch has a valuable function edit / compare.

If I had to replace it, I would try other models, probably more expensive option, to realize that perhaps the price / quality ratio is not so bad.