I blame you lot for this.

I decided the other day to look up prices of an Alesis Quadraverb. Many of them can be found quite cheaply on eBay. So right now I'm watching a few. The cheapest option is over in a little over a day.

I could get that....or get VVV for about the same price. I remember Sean from Valhalla saying that you could get some sounds from VVV that sound like the Quad.

I know that the Quad wont be as immediate as VVV, but the Quad can do more than just reverbs, plus it has a certain "sound" to it. I like hardware, its just, well, hard to work it into my setup when I have software to do the same thing.

I make mostly tech house and techno, though I do make ambient and am working on learning to make game/film soundtracks (if that matters at all).

Both is the simple answer. The Valhalla stuff is beautiful and usable but I like hardware.

Quadraverbs are great, but you need to remember that they are noisy as hell.

If that's part of your sound, great. Just realize that it's something you are going to have to live with.

just a tip- you can get a quadraverb off craigslist about half of the prices on eBay.

what do you mean by "noisy"?

VVV is a great reverb. Use it all the time.

MidiVerb II (what I use) or Quadraverb I suspect is cheap as chips and sounds great.

There is no doubt that VVV is more convenient. You don’t have to track it, per channel or bus, etc.

That said, I find the MidiVerb II brings a bit of extra something to a track. Unsure if it’s the response to dynamics is different, noise, 12 bit convertirs or what, but it sounds different than any VST I have.

The answer for me is truly both.

I use VVV on everything. Literally every track.
However, if I had all the time and patience in the world (and a DAW without Jitter), I would be using the MidiVerb II a whole lot more.

I had a Quadraverb many moons ago and didn’t really like it very much. To my ears it sounded noisy and cheap (for a lack of a better description)....BUT....I was using it to write New Age and Soundtrack. For certain types of electronic music it may actually sound good. That said though, the Valhalla reverbs sound night and day cleaner IMO.... which may or may not necessarily be better depending on what music you are using it for. For soundtrack you would be much better off using the Valhalla stuff.

It depends upon which effects you're using, and in which order. Like most "semi-pro" boxes, they're not as quiet as a Lexicon, but they could be worse. Also, if I'm not mistaken, they have a compressor at the input to make the most out of the signal-to-noise ratio. That will tend to make them sound a bit "noisy", too.

If you can get both, you'd probably have a lot of fun with them. The QuadraVerb is more than just a reverb, but it doesn't necessarily have the "charm" of the Valhalla 'verb. And the reverbs in it aren't nearly as configurable as Valhalla's, of course.

As with any piece of outboard gear though, you'll have to make sure your levels to it are "just right" and that you compensate for the latency.

And definitely check pawn shops, local repair shops and/or Craigslist to see if you can get one locally. You might also want to check out the knobs and buttons, to make sure they work properly. The knobs on older Alesis gear tend to get a bit "scratchy". You may set these knobs once and then not touch them, but it's still a good idea to check for pots that are going bad, or buttons that don't work.

Steve

I like vintage gear, mostly synths and guitar pedals. I got a Midiverb II just for fun and I was shocked how much I didn't like it. It just sounds bad IMO.

The problem with using ANY hardware reverb is if you plan on mixing your sound using compression. You almost never would want to compress on top of the reverb. That makes the tails jump out in a bizarre way. Also I like to eq my dry sound and my reverb separately. The only way I would use a hardware reverb when printing a track is if I was going thru compression before it in the chain. Even then though do you really want to be stuck with that exact wet dry mix?

The only way I'd really consider it (if the song is going to be mixed) is to create an aux send to external output in your daw to go to reverb and back to new track. That way the reverb is of your compressed and eq'd sound. If your not using a daw than your console aux send will do the same thing. That's what it's for.

If you don't need your song to be mixed then fine print with verb, but good chance you'll regret it later.

I'm probably one of the only people who don't really like Valhalla reverbs.i wouldn't really consider them reverbs either as in reverberate what you put in as the signal is usually drastically different to what you put in (read not tight)so IMO pretty rubbish on drums where you mostly want tight but dense clustered early reflections.one thing that the Valhalla stuff is good at though is when you use it on pads 100% wet as a kind of artificial release it excels at that because the late reflections don't really sound like a reverberation more of an artificial extension of the envelope you put in.other than that though i find them mushy and not in the old BBD delay sense of mushy where the sound disappears into a lovely dense sonic abyss,but that general all too common VST digital swamp of mud that causes you to get a bit liberal with EQ,compression etc to shoehorn the reverb into your mix

I'd personally take a Quadraverb over any Valhalla reverb but if you want a good ITB reverb look into Aether and B2 (if you don't mind tweaking that is) and if you can afford them,Lexicon PCM stuff just "works"zero effort required.i don't really know what are your requirements but if you are looking for a more FX oriented reverb then i'd look into the Eventide Ultraverb which i think does the Valhalla thing (very diffused late reflections,dramatic modulation etc)a lot better

I'll second the Midiverb II, I now have 9 of them eventually want 12 No software comes close

The effect of a bloom reverb, followed by "Deep Chorus" followed by one of the short "dark Reverbs" all daisy channel together is stunningly beautiful

FWIW I wrote Alesis a couple years ago (I think it was pre-acquisition) and asked if the reverb in the Micron was the same as either the Midi or Quadra ( I was researching FSOL gear) and they replied that "it has the same DNA."

alesis quadraverb

There's no compressor in the original Quadraverb. The main thing that degrades the sound quality is a CEM VCA used to control the levels. The Quadraverb GT adds analog stages for distortion, compression, etc. These make it more noisy.

Dirty pots can cause all sorts of problems, but they'll work fine if you use control cleaner on them.

Anyway the Quadraverb is fairly crappy if you're just looking for an effect processor, but it can be interesting if you're willing to abuse it. You can route up to 8 MIDI controllers to pretty much any effect parameter.

The gross metallic reverbs, ring modulation and glitchy delay effects on this are the Quadraverb:



This also uses the Quadraverb's ring modulator and reverb on the drums:



For normal reverbs the Midiverb II is a lot better.

I have a midi verb II and am very fond of it, but not much touches Valhalla IMHO

You probably know this but I have to chime in: You make valid points but from the point of view of electronic music composition and sound design, reverb is often not used merely as an "aux effect". As part of sound design in particular, if a reverb provides thickening or other aspects that "complete" a sound then it can be desirable to print this to audio. Such use of reverb does not necessarily imply long tails (where compression becomes an issue as you say), or obvious pumping artefacts. In fact using compressors/gates to move verb in "unnatural" ways is a technique used in certain genres. But stabs and pads - for example - often benefit from being thickened by shorter verbs, and that then can often be further thickened with some comp (though in this case I'd probably use a touch of parallel comp).


Edit: Back on topic edit - I love the MIDIVerb II and keep one around often to thicken sounds in the ways described above. Despite the Quadraverb being a mainstay of a period of music I adore - 90s bleep techno / IDM etc - its character and noise didn't really work for me. I use Valhalla verbs in every project I make. They just work.

I keep a Microverb 2. I think its good for dirty effects, which may suit some styles of music.

You have valid points too,. As a mixer for a living, I'm looking at it from a mixing perspective. We haaaate it when there's reverb in the sound. Not just long tails, it's also what it does to to the dynamics going on when your normal envelope is happening. The compressor needs to work on that stuff, but it doesn't do it the same when it's glossed over by reverb. Plus don't forget the pre-delay. If your reverb kicks in at say 20 ms than the compressor bites down harder at 20 ms. That makes your sound have a different envelope than intended. I'm not saying not to use reverb, I'm saying use an aux for either a plugin or external. You can still print the hardware reverb to a second track.

I get what you mean about using a reverb as part of the sound. Compression can sound interesting on top of reverb whether it's the tail pumping or not. Problems with printing as one is you also could want compression and eq on the dry pre reverb too or change your mix percentage later. Reverb is really another sound you're adding so it's a stack element. If you want to treat that stack element together with the original sound so you can put chorus, etc on top the best way to do it is use bussing. if you want post reverb effects that treat your dry/wet stack as one, buss the output of dry and reverb track/return to an aux track. Now you can put FX as a stack as well as effects individually and still control your reverb amount.

I'm not saying not to use reverb in your sound design. I'm saying from a mixing perspective, go ahead and do it, just do it the flexible way. As I've described with bussing you can still stack it and use post fx on the stack. Think of that aux track with the stack as your sound and you can still use an aux to another more mixing oriented verb if you want.

I had an Alexis something or other back in the early 90s. (Can't remember which one--alcohol... ) Some of the presets were phenomenal, some really awful, but I've not heard comparable reverse reverb since. (I also don't get around much anymore...) You know the preset, it's been on a zillion tracks. Otherwise, VVV is to die for. Amazing trails, amazing space, amazing colors. I'd eventually go full-metal slut and get both, starting with the hardware if you can get it that cheap.

I still have a QuadraVerb, and while for its time it was a flexible unit allowing chained effects that were unheard of for the price point, I have to agree that it's not a particularly clean-sounding unit.

I'm a bigger fan of both my DP/4 and SPX-900.

Really? I mean, really?

If you go on youtube and listen to a few demos of each, how is it that you can't decide which YOU would prefer to use on YOUR music first, before maybe getting the other after?

I'm sorry if that is a bit like putting my foot in, but I just don't get it when people ask like this. The only things anyone else can answer is basic facts about the actual gear stuff that you might not know, like people here warning you a Quadraverb is noisy. But all the important stuff is basically personal, so only you know what suits your musical vision anyway.......

i remember my microverb iii from aprox 25yrs ago, and all presets were crap except one long bloomy eventidish one. but thats it. rooms plates normal stuff i didnt like were, much prefered those on my jd990. something like lxp1 i would borrow sounded magical for "normal" reverbs.


however, ive read more than once that early generation microverb, midiverb and quadraverb are/were interesting for ambiental stuff and warp records in early 90s. and i was wondering about those sounds as i didnt recognize lexicons sonicprint, and always wondered what these guys used. from todays point my interest in them is exactly because of the crappy character they had. if i want wonderful reverbs i use other things.

so i am toying with the idea of picking up one of them - midiverb ii or quadraverb, just to tryout. they are dirt cheap, about the price of a crap distortion pedal, so why the hell not. can anyone comment on the difference btwn the two, especially in context of ambiental, longer diffused sounds?


im also considering picking up spx990 or maybe korg a2. i am a sucker for that early 90s tone. hardware reverbs in general. and effect being crappy or exhilarating is always about context. i sometimes use drp16 which is ultimate grindy late 70s digi crap. when it works it outshines all my lexicons and eventides. they just cannot do that sound at all.


wish Sean Costello would chime in , he is quite knowledgable on where and why alesis algos exceled at, while being crappy for most other things.

thanks

The Midiverb II and Quadraverb are totally different. The Midiverb II has a bunch of unusual algorithms because the processor is extremely primitive. Rather than having a real multiplier it can only multiply by 0.5. It's easy to make an allpass filter that way, so a lot of the reverb algorithms are based on chains of allpasses. These have a characteristic "build" to the reverb onset, although this isn't present in all the algorithms. The unexpected thing about the Midiverb II is its ability to do really great ambience algorithms and small spaces. Usually if you take an 80s or 90s reverb and set the decay time to something very short, it will sound awful. The Midiverb II sounds great. The other nice thing is that all the algorithms are actually quite different. They're not just the same algorithm with a range of different decay times (remember there's no multiplier so the decay time can't be finely adjusted anyway). There's actually a quite large range of very different sounding algorithms. There are only like 3 really long ambient reverbs, but they're very good.

The Quadraverb uses a more conventional DSP. The processing power is sort of respectable for 1989, but between 4-ish effect blocks it's stretched pretty thin. The 3 band EQ/reverb configuration uses higher quality reverb. This is fairly decent and has modulation (although it's just a single LFO, nothing fancy). The reverbs in the other configurations are pretty crappy, but they can still be interesting. They don't really get super long or lush.

The delay effects are nice, mostly because you can control the delay time from a mod wheel or sequencer or whatever.

I'm pretty sure that's happening here starting at around 6:00 (although it could be something else):


The modulation effects are sort of unremarkable, except the ring modulator. It's actually a frequency shifter. You can mix the shift up and shift down outputs; when they're equal it's equivalent to ring modulation.

here's the ring modulator again:


There's also a resonator algorithm that's basically a less flexible version of the Lexicon resonant chords thing.

The original Midiverb and Midifex should be more or less similar to the Midiverb II, but with different algorithms. The original Microverb is a cut down Midiverb II. As far as I know the Midiverb III is also a more conventional design and thus isn't really as interesting. I think the Midiverb 4 is like a less powerful version of the Quadraverb 2/Wedge.

I think the Korg A2 would be a good choice, but I dunno about the SPX990. Seems to me that the Pro R3 or REV500 would be more interesting. Or the Roland DEP5. Those are the ones I'd look for, anyway. The Yamaha FX770 is a fairly flexible multi-effect processor that seems to get overlooked.

I want to reverse engineer that one. I suspect it's based on the DRS 78.

Yes, I've found the short ones in the MV2 to be great for drums and percussion, lots of flavours. Not many long ones in there for ambient stuff. The MV1 has a lot more of that. The Alesis gear seemed to be a lot more popular in home studios than the Lexicons here in the UK, probably a price thing. Having said that, none of this stuff was cheap! I think people just used what they could get their hands on.

I have all of the Midiverb units, from the original to the IV, but I have collected 9 of the Midiverb II's

In my opinion the II has something magical that the others don't and that no software can emulate.

I love to stack them and run one into another in groups of 3 or 4

One thing to keep in mind about the MV II is that even though it has stereo ins and outs it sums the stereo ins to mono before processing but outputs stereo, so if you are feeding it signal from a mixer it may as well be summed mono on your mixer and only take up one aux send

All of these old boxes make for great Ambient effects which is what I use them for.

My favorites in the MVII are the Bloom Reverbs, the Deep Chorus and the Dark Reverbs

I have a number of reverbs that I definitely prefer over Valhalla, as well. That being said, I would choose any of the Valhalla plugins over a Quadraverb. The Quadraverb is noisy and just doesn't sound as good. This is from someone who used one for years.

That's because a conversation can reveal things that you might miss in a demo, watching the specs or watch a video on Youtube.

/C

I went a bit nuts a couple years ago and bought a Midiverb 1, Midifex, Midiverb II, and Quadraverb 1 (Plus) in the same weekend. All had their advantages and disadvantages. Ultimately, I've kept the Midiverb 1 and Midifex because they were the dirtiest and had the most character. The MV 1 and 2 are different tho. The MVII is more like an amalgamation of the Midiverb 1 and Midifex, but the algorithms are a bit different and it's a bit cleaner than the OGs, tho not by much. If nothing else, the "Bloom" presets are not the same between the MV 1 and 2. I'd say the Quadraverb is the cleanest and most refined sounding of them, but that's not saying much in 2017. The QV gets points for tweakability, but the MVs are handy for just pulling up a sound and getting on with it. Personally, it was worth it to me to keep the older but slightly more characterful OG Alesis units and use software for everything else...especially for reverb, which I've found I much prefer dealing with in post for the sake of the mix.

I've used a couple of the Valhalla plugins (tho not VVV), and they sound gorgeous, but a totally different approach than the grimey old Alesis stuff. As far as the dirt and grime, I'd rather get as filthy as possible. So, I feel like the only proper answer is both.

Just to say thank you, as it was because of you alerting me to it that I picked up a DRP16 the other day (for 36 quid....lol) which is spookily great. Dark and broken worlds. Love it. Certainly not a 'use all over the place' one but what a cool place.

Just to say, when you go shopping for old Yamaha, don't ignore the dirt cheap EMP100.....has 'something'. Sort of related to the SPX1000/900/990s in the places it conjures up but cheaper sounding. In a good way. Dirty techno club massive.