Show us the reverb (and delay) pedals!

[Stokely]

As someone who gigs with a pre-wired pedalboard--containing no actual pedals, it's a Key Largo mixer with two different monitor mixers--I'm considering adding an fx pedal.  Mainly because I'm considering adding a keyboard without fx.

Reasons not to--I tend to go pretty dry live.   And, when using our PA, I can use the mixer fx.  And, my other keyboards all have fx, it would just be this new one (if I even get one).

Reasons to--pedals are fun!  And I could pre-wire everything from power to audio so no fiddling needed.  And, presumably, some of the fx pedals might be better than those on my keys or our mixer (Behringer xr18).   Another nice quality of life thing would be a single "fx amount" (mainly reverb) to control if we were playing in a venue with lots of built-in verb.

If delay, I'd want tap tempo.  A dark horse in my considerations would be the HX stomp as I am thinking about playing some guitar.  I'm not sure if the fx on that can hang with dedicated pedals like the Strymons.

Anyway, whether or not its a good idea or something I really need,  I'd love to see what, if anything, people are using.   I'm kind of considering both reverb and delay/reverb pedals (a cheap-ish one of these being the Nux Atlantic).  At this point in my gigging life I'd go for quality over versatility.   Nothing is worse IMO than a muddy cheapo reverb, but that thought is also brought to you by past years where dsp chips aren't what they are today...

[CEB]

For keys I'm all about digital delay.  It's cleaner.  I have analog delays for guitar but for most my guitar delay needs I also prefer digital.  I want repeats to sound like the original tone with no degradation.  I'm using no effects pedals on my key rigs.  I like the onboard effects quality and most my boards I would use delay on have tap tempo controls. But ...

 

The actual point of this post is... I like Line 6 Helix effects.  After going to IEMs I quickly went ampless.  My guitar rig is based around the Helix.  The only pedals I use are a Peterson Tuner and wah pedal. This isn't necessary but I can so I do.    If the Fractal FM9 would have been available at the time I might have went with that.  But I'm still pleased with the Helix, especially after update 3.50.  

 

If you go with individual pedals ....Time based effects will probably give you no problems but it's best you can try the stuff out first with a keyboard or have a good return policy.  Some pedals will absolutely crap out when you run keys into them.  Dirt boxes are notorious for sounding like crap with keys.  Impedance mismatching and gain structure issues. 

 

I think the HX Stomp would probably be a cool alternative.   You can set up multiple effects blocks and have both delay and reverb and other stuff also.  The original Eventide H9 was high quality but to do two effects you need two H9s.  That may have changed now.

[Baldwin Funster]

Zoom ms70cdr. Single pedal sized stereo in and out. Verb, delay, modulation and a bunch of crazy stuff you can do all at once. 

 

They have a minor noise problem that is below the hiss floor if you run at line level. At mic level you get a high pitched whine. Run at line and enjoy.

[Stokely]

Thanks, appreciate the feedback.  I've played with the Helix before, helping our non-computer-using guitarist load some IRs and tweak his settings.  We didn't really get into the effects as much as the overdrives and amp models and cabs, which can sound really good (and of course I could use that stuff with keys if desired.)

Good point about stereo with the Zoom, that would be a desired option (I *think* the Key largo send is stereo).  Certainly I wouldn't have any need to run mic level.

 

[timwat]

Is anyone using shimmer verb on synths? 

 

I love the sound of the effect in all the YTs I watch, but they all seem to be on guitar and curious what the "octave up tail" might do on lead synth (before shelling out hundreds on a Blue Sky or similar).

[Stokely]

I've seen a few demos with Strymons with synths, usually ones that don't have fx, and it sounded great to me.   For my live gigs I'd have to watch it on the big ambient stuff lest it turn into a mess in the venue.   

I'd imagine you could simply use a duller lead sound (like more of a sine or triangle) if the shimmer became overwhelming.    

[KuruPrionz]

I have (and like) the TC Electronics Flashback X4 delay pedal. 

It has 3 presets available as foot switches and a tap tempo. You can find the manual online.

There are lots of Tone Print sounds that you can download into the delay via USB. You can find those online as well. 

 

[MAJUSCULE]

1 hour ago, CEB said:

I think the HX Stomp would probably be a cool alternative.   You can set up multiple effects blocks and have both delay and reverb and other stuff also.  The original Eventide H9 was high quality but to do two effects you need two H9s.  That may have changed now.

 

Yeah, just go with the Stomp. It's pretty ludicrous bang for the buck. Considering your usual position of using your hardware only for live playing (although it's certainly a studio-quality pedal), I don't see how spending the extra money to get two or three Strymons is worth it when the Line 6 will do all that and more in a smaller footprint. But YMMV, workstations vs dedicated units, etc.

 

Also, Ed, that's why they put the H90 out recently (two H9s in one box).

[Stokely]

From a practical standpoint, if I do buy the no-fx keyboard (which happens to be a darn string machine vocoder, the Behringer vc340, talk about a non-practical gig toy!) I'll just run fx from the main board at first at least.  I'd say 80% of our gigs at least use our PA, so for that 20% other, the sound engineer can add fx if they want to as they would to vocals etc.

Problem with an HX stomp and the idea of using it for guitar AND keyboard fx potentially--if hooked into my Key Largo, that makes it difficult to also use for guitar due to the fact that (from what I saw) it only has the two inputs.

Cool to get some ideas though.  On reddit and other spots, I see a lot of recommendations for the Boss RV6--it's stereo, built like a tank and not expensive.  Has a nice-sounding modulated reverb from what I heard in demos.  No delay though.  My guitarist said he has an MXR carbon copy I can try out, he uses an Axe III now and doesn't bother with pedals.  (Man, that Axe III sounds fantastic...).  I assume that is a mono pedal though unfortunately, unless it is the "deluxe".

Since I mentioned the keyboard is a vocoder, I've also contemplated getting the electro harmonix v256 pedal instead for vocoding.  Advantages would be: cheaper, not another keyboard to take a spot, and I could use my main mic signal presumably with bypass engaged when I was actually singing.  I'm not as impressed with the sound as with the vc340 vocoder though.   I even considered a talk box pedal instead but the thought of a slobbery tube kind of turned me off that idea    Sadly my Modx *has* a vocoder but it sounds awful and I've had a terrible time with multiple mics trying to get a clean signal from it.

[NosPup]

I have the Strymon El Capistan and the Sunset pedals that i use with Moog Subsequent 37 and some other synths.  I think both sound fantastic.  Very clean and transparent sound.  I've never spent time with the other pedals mentioned so i cant help with any direct comparison.

[ABECK]

16 hours ago, MAJUSCULE said:

 

Yeah, just go with the Stomp. It's pretty ludicrous bang for the buck.

I have an HX Stomp I use mostly for guitar.  And as MAJUSCULE said, it is ludicrous bang for the buck. Here's a vid of me noodling with some very dry FM patches on the K2700 through the HX Stomp.  Lots of SPAAAAACE

 

[Dave Bryce]

I also have (and love) the HX Stomp.  😎

 

Additionally, Craig Anderton's Helix book (and I believe, a bunch of the presets he writes) apply quite well to the HX Stomp for the most part.  His Helix Presets bank is in the MPN Downloads section.  

 

dB

[Mighty Motif Max]

19 hours ago, timwat said:

Is anyone using shimmer verb on synths? 

 

I love the sound of the effect in all the YTs I watch, but they all seem to be on guitar and curious what the "octave up tail" might do on lead synth (before shelling out hundreds on a Blue Sky or similar).

Shimmer reverb on synths is the pad backbone of most modern worship music. I know a guy who runs an old Roland RS09 with a Strymon BigSky and a delay unit, and uses that as his pads keyboard at a contemporary church. Always sounds great to me.

[Stokely]

I don't do worship stuff but the Big Sky sounds amazing in demos.

It occurs to me that with the Key Largo you'd only be doing one fx unit anyway, unless I guess you ran more than one in serial (which would be very odd with a send/return aux setup).  

Pretty obviously the hx stomp has some decent fx in it, I see.  I had mostly only checked out the amp sim stuff as I said.  If anything I have tried to get our guitarist to go more dry, to no avail  

[GovernorSilver]

Love my HX Stomp XL.  I use it with electric violin and guitar most of the time.  I haven't used it with synths very much although the one synth I experimented with it sounded great.

 

The HX Stomp comes with some banks of keyboard oriented presets.  I'm sure the Helix units do too.  HX Stomp is part of the Helix family.

 

Line 6 does delay FX as well as anyone.   So yes, their delays can hang with the competition.  Whether you think the reverbs can hang is subjective.  I'm really not that picky about reverb.   I love the reverbs in my Eventide H9, but honestly if given a choice between spending hours on point by point comparisons between the H9 and Helix reverbs and spending hours on actually making music or at least practicing it, I'd choose music every time.

 

 

[Dave Bryce]

3 hours ago, GovernorSilver said:

honestly if given a choice between spending hours on point by point comparisons between the H9 and Helix reverbs and spending hours on actually making music or at least practicing it, I'd choose music every time.

 

I use a variation of this message when people ask me if I’ve done A/B comparisons of products.  I typically don’t do that - I make music with a product and if I like it, I (usually) buy it.

 

dB

[GovernorSilver]

I went through a DL-4 hate phase after I had a Line 6 DL-4 break down, get fixed, only to suddenly break down again, and be in denial of why other people kept buying DL-4s, even after wave after wave of newer delay pedals came out that should have made the DL-4 obsolete.

 

One answer of course is the DL-4's looper being so easy to use compared to the competition.

 

But the other answer is it's always been pretty darn good at emulating bucket brigade analog delay, tape delay, etc.  

 

The Helix family has all those delay sounds.

[RABid]

On 5/17/2023 at 3:52 PM, timwat said:

Is anyone using shimmer verb on synths? 

I bought the Strymon Starlab for my Eurorack. Great reverb/delay combo and I love the shimmer effect for certain sounds.

[GovernorSilver]

Oh yeah I accidentally had a pitch-shift + reverb preset on the HX Stomp XL on when I ran my Subharmonicon into it for the first time.

 

At first I thought "man, this Moog design is crraaaaazzzy!"