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Mats Orbation « Very Good Swiss Army Knife of effects, still in 2016 »
Published on 10/18/16 at 03:59
Best value:
Excellent
Audience:
Advanced Users
For which specific applications or uses have you chosen this product?
All studio effects, live PA, reverb, limiting, and mostly synths, guitar fx, and bass.
In what context do you currently use this product?
Studio, project studio. Still using the reverb algorithms only.
What are the pros and cons of this product?
Pros are: Still analog distortion units inside, no tubes though, but solid state analog. Which is its forte, and best thing, but which also contributes to its cons:
It can be a bit noisy due to this! The distortions are more or less based on BOSS-OD pedals with EQ filtering and compression. There's a noise gate though. For modern high-gain metal sounds, it falls a bit short, but for 70-80s distortion sounds it is great.
Many people have complained about its reverb, but the reverb is only so-so when used together with Guitar MulitFX algorithms. If you dial up the reverb only algorithm where it automatically jumps up to higher sample rate, and bit rate, the Reverb still holds a candle to these days reverbs that comes in any pedal. You can have sharp spikes, and snare drums into that reverb without any digital artifacts and grainy trails.I e all its processor capacity goes to the reverb calculations only. As fast as one wants more FX added on top, you have to split calculations to these tasks, and the reamining reverb calculations will suffer, with degradation of sound as a result.
If you use it for synth, or anything else, the VOCODER still got rave reviews, even today. Sure, the Vocoder is a bit too niched but since the prices you can get one for today, the Vocoder is worth the price alone.
Also, on the multifx of today, there's almost only a "patch" or effects that says MOD where you can choose either phaser, flanger, chorus pitch shift and choose that one only. On this unit, you can use phaser, flanger, chorus, pitch shift at the same time if you like. It's very rare in any fx unit. A hidden secret is the Leslie simulator. Although its an early one, together with its analog dist circuit, you can provide a very convincing rotary speaker, and connect it to an expression pedal to control a myriad of things. Say, you can turn up something as you press the pedal down, but something els is turned down. And all of that at a certain ratio. And you can control everything via MIDI.
The one minor snag is the bulky and unwieldy power adaptor that you must run with it at all times. But if you can provide 12 V DC at 1500mA with anything else, please go ahead. Another minor snag is the small display and that you have to cycle through menues to edit the smallest things. Those 3rd party vendors on internet that made PC editors for this should be checked out. Also, it holds up very well to its internal CR2032 button battery, which I had to change out after ...15 years. It will run for 15 years more. It's very easy to change this one out, as opposed to the SONY units from the same era.
By and large, I think it still holds up very well in a few unique sweet spots today 2016, like the 20 Step Phaser, Vocoder, and analog distortions. The distortion and amp/cab sims aren't digitally modelled in any way. The rest of the effects are not modelling either, but DSP made. Digital. I e not modelled after any "famous" brand or gear, but stands clearly on their own. Boss and Roland type.
All studio effects, live PA, reverb, limiting, and mostly synths, guitar fx, and bass.
In what context do you currently use this product?
Studio, project studio. Still using the reverb algorithms only.
What are the pros and cons of this product?
Pros are: Still analog distortion units inside, no tubes though, but solid state analog. Which is its forte, and best thing, but which also contributes to its cons:
It can be a bit noisy due to this! The distortions are more or less based on BOSS-OD pedals with EQ filtering and compression. There's a noise gate though. For modern high-gain metal sounds, it falls a bit short, but for 70-80s distortion sounds it is great.
Many people have complained about its reverb, but the reverb is only so-so when used together with Guitar MulitFX algorithms. If you dial up the reverb only algorithm where it automatically jumps up to higher sample rate, and bit rate, the Reverb still holds a candle to these days reverbs that comes in any pedal. You can have sharp spikes, and snare drums into that reverb without any digital artifacts and grainy trails.I e all its processor capacity goes to the reverb calculations only. As fast as one wants more FX added on top, you have to split calculations to these tasks, and the reamining reverb calculations will suffer, with degradation of sound as a result.
If you use it for synth, or anything else, the VOCODER still got rave reviews, even today. Sure, the Vocoder is a bit too niched but since the prices you can get one for today, the Vocoder is worth the price alone.
Also, on the multifx of today, there's almost only a "patch" or effects that says MOD where you can choose either phaser, flanger, chorus pitch shift and choose that one only. On this unit, you can use phaser, flanger, chorus, pitch shift at the same time if you like. It's very rare in any fx unit. A hidden secret is the Leslie simulator. Although its an early one, together with its analog dist circuit, you can provide a very convincing rotary speaker, and connect it to an expression pedal to control a myriad of things. Say, you can turn up something as you press the pedal down, but something els is turned down. And all of that at a certain ratio. And you can control everything via MIDI.
The one minor snag is the bulky and unwieldy power adaptor that you must run with it at all times. But if you can provide 12 V DC at 1500mA with anything else, please go ahead. Another minor snag is the small display and that you have to cycle through menues to edit the smallest things. Those 3rd party vendors on internet that made PC editors for this should be checked out. Also, it holds up very well to its internal CR2032 button battery, which I had to change out after ...15 years. It will run for 15 years more. It's very easy to change this one out, as opposed to the SONY units from the same era.
By and large, I think it still holds up very well in a few unique sweet spots today 2016, like the 20 Step Phaser, Vocoder, and analog distortions. The distortion and amp/cab sims aren't digitally modelled in any way. The rest of the effects are not modelling either, but DSP made. Digital. I e not modelled after any "famous" brand or gear, but stands clearly on their own. Boss and Roland type.