I kind of wish I hadn’t seen that. I’ve been considering the Milky Way FX unit from Endorphin, but this looks like a very tempting (if pricier) alternative. The QV emulation just seems to be a single reverb, so more of an alternative than a replacement - I still want my MIDI-controlled resonator - but the other algorithms more than compensate.
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Since there are probably plenty of people who don’t know about it yet, the Midiverb inspred Airwindows plugin from a few years ago sounds really nice. Not necessarily like a Midiverb but good in a similar way.
Is their anything else the size of a nanoverb one should consider instead of the nano?
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Microverb and Microverb II?
I’ve got an off-brand Nanoverb knockoff that I love, but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone because it sounds very bad. So bad that it has some uses.
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I think I read you mentioning it in a search (in a deluge thread?). I like the half rack size of the Nano. Makes it easy to hide it from my spouse!
Well, it really isn’t worth spending more than $10 on even if you could find one. Seriously.
I don’t have it handy right now, but if you see something that has the same control layout as a Nanoverb but with a weird, silver-backed, thick, clear plastic face plate stuck onto the front panel, that’s the one. It has like 20 different algorithms but as far as I can tell it’s actually more like 4 of them and all the rest are different preset decay times.
But it has a really cheap sounding reverse reverb I like.
EDIT: here’s one that sold for a bit too much on Reverb.
Another cheap/weird one that might be worth spending like $30 on is the Realistic 42-2108. It’s not rackmount but it could be converted (it would be something like 2/5 rack, I guess - bigger than a 1/3 like the Nanoverb, but smaller than a half rack unit like the old Boss stuff - and speaking of, Boss SE-50 and SE-70 are great), and it’s essentially the same as the desktop Realistic Electronic Reverb that noise musicians have loved for decades, except with a cleaner signal path and a basic Haas effect for fake stereo (that’s completely incompatible with mono and cancels out). Sounds great on analog snares. Other than the stereo mode t’s nothing you couldn’t get out of any analog delay pedal, though.
If you’re willing to mess with pedals, there are a lot of 90s entry level multieffects pedals (like the Zoom 505) that cost next to nothing becuasenobody wants to use them on a guitar, but on synths they can sound really good. also keep an eye out for one of the older Korg Pandora boxes. The PX-4 is the one I borrowed for a while and it has tons of uses for electronic music.
They’re a bit too expensive though.
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The Pandora was my first (multi)effect ever. I had the grey one (PX-4D) which wad for guitar as well for bass…
When I was checking to see which model the blue one was, i noticed that the PX-R4 4 track digital recorder, which as far as I know has most if not all of the Pandora effects built in, is actually about 25% cheaper than a regular PX-4. Not as portable, though.
I remember the guitar synth effect was really glitchy and weird sounding in a nice way.
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Thanks for all the inf.! That Korg ToneWorks looks cute! I guess I am looking for something that isn’t full on janky but half janky. Not sure where the Nano and other 'verbs fall in that spectrum.
Depending on who you ask the nano is pretty janky or really nice. I liked it but I ended up giving it away, because mine was rehoused in a Nanobass enclosure (by someone at Alesis tech support, nobody knew who or why but a friend who worked there got it when they were clearing out the pre-buyout 90s gear from the tech support closet) and not being able to see what algorithm you were using was a bigger hassle than I expectedso I wasn’t using it enough. I really liked the sound of it, though, and if I was still playing out regularly I’d probably buy another one.
I’ve never used a Picoverb or even seen one in person but I think they have a lot of the same algorithms with even less control in an even smaller box.
What I would really like to do sometime is compare the sounds and PCB of that Audio Centron with the first two versions of the Microverb, because I have a suspicion that it might be an actual, unlicensed clone. There’s a long history of chop manufacturers in countries with relaxed IP laws selling off their remaining stock (or even continuing production) of proprietary chips from discontinued products and the similarities between the two make me wonder if the Audio Centron isn’t based on gray market area 80s Alesis chips. If nothing else, it’s a budget reverb from the late 90s but it sounds like a budget reverb from the late 80s, and whatever the source is I really doubt the algorithms were developed in-house or in the late 90s.
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Lately i’ve been using the tap/audition button on the wedge as a performance control, kind of like kicking a guitar amp to make the spring reverb crash. It really depends on the algorithm and settings, but with a long, dense reverb set ful wet with the highs rolled off and a decent amount of damping it sound pretty great. I don’t know of any other digital reverbs that have anything comparable.
EDIT: I’m seeing everyone asking over $400 for these on eBay right now, is that serious? I paid less than $30 for mine a few years ago including shipping, and that was only a little below the normal market price back then because it was untested (i.e. the power jack was intermittent and needed simple resoldering, but the seller didn’t want to mention that in the auction - which is pretty much what I expected). I think the usual $60-$80 back then was a bit low for how nice it is, but $450 (or more) is WAY too high.
The only sold ones are more in line with what I paid ($20-$40 if they have issues, one clean one sold for $150). It just seems like pretty ambitious fishing, even for eBay.
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That’s Bitrman prices!
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Jesus, I knew I should have bought more of them.
One thing the Quadverb has over the MV2 is a freaking power switch, minor, but still.
Also, I just discovered while forcing myself to dive deeper into the QV that program 85 is a 1 second sampler. Been messing with that for a bit today, just feeding drum hits and stabs through it and recording the bits that come out.
Really regret not buying a whole stack of em when people were switching over to newer efx units and also VSTs, and selling these for dirt cheap.
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100€ is a realistic price for these (Qyadracerb and Quadraverb Plus). You can buy these regularly for 80-120€.
400$ (on eBay/Reverb) is just trolling
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Only the Plus has a sampler. (OG doesn’t)
Plus resonator + ring modulator.
It’s Identical to OG, but with an updated chip
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Looks like I’m one of those lucky people who payed for an OG and got a Plus. Yeah
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The GT has it too. I’ve got one. Bought it cheap off gumtree.
Plus resonator, ring mod, distortions (crap ones) and leslie amp simulation.
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I got lucky on one recently too, it was a decent price anyway but when it turned up it was a Plus and literally wouldn’t have had a mark on it if they hadn’t packaged the plug on top of it (which obvously I’m not gonna see once it’s racked anyway). It had a local council sticker on the PSU which made me wonder if it’s been sat in the back room of a library for 30 years doing nothing. I didn’t know it could sample either!
Midiverb II is also on the way, I’ve got a rack for the first time ever and by god I’m going to fill it.
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Oh yeah certainly. But I meant compared to the OG.
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Does anyone know how to change the contrast on the QV Plus? The text on the orange display is barely readable from an angle. Display is perfectly fine, but the view angle on these is quite terrible