Dr Scientist Reverberator reverb - really rather good.

Now I tend to favour reverb pedals which are more geared toward effects than realism. The RV-5's modulated reverb, Eventide Space, EHX Cathedral, things like that. 

The Dr Scientist Reverberator is a bit different. it's not an effects-type reverb. There's no black hole settings or sub-Sigur Ros type sounds in here. Instead you get reverbs that really compliment a guitar sound. The halls are pretty good without being enormous, the room reverb works, and the plate reverbs are some of the best I've used anywhere. The Plate on the long setting gets quite springy as well. 

What surprised me is how it reminded me of using old rack units like the Alesis Midiverb. You don't have a huge amount of options to play around with so it evokes memories of using presets, just press and go. 

Decidedly impressed by this. It would go very well with a Space or Big Sky. 

The Yamaha SPX50D - reverse reverb, My Bloody Valentine and general audio messing.

The SPX50D is a guitar orientated version of the SPX90. 

It has most of the things people love about the SPX90 (reverse, early reflections, the symphonic chorus) and the things they don't like (it's not particularly quiet, the bypass is rubbish, there is a bit of a volume drop, and most folk hate the distortion although I say that some of the distortion is actually quite usable). SPX50D's tend to go for not much money at all and are a good starting point if you're new to rack effects as it is really simple to use. Go and find the manual online and come back here. 

 The first step is get the SPX50D set up. It's been written on a few forums how the SPX was set up and this seems to be the accepted start point: 

PROGRAM = Reverse Gate (it's #15 on the SPX50D) 
TYPE=reverse 
ROOM SIZE=20.0 
LIVENESS=6-7 
DELAY=75.0 ms 
LPF=through BALANCE=100% 
OUT LEVEL=100% 

I'm not convinced this is right. With the tests I made with a Midverb II last year alongside the Magicstomp, Cathedral and SMMH reverse reverb demos I've already posted up and my own experiments with plugins, the most-MBV sounds have come from a straight 50-50 balance (ie. a 50% wet mix). 100% wet is fine if you're getting busy with the Bloom reverbs on a Midiverb but it doesn't sound right to go 100% wet with the Reverse Gate. 

The second issue is the 75ms delay time. It's a pre-delay time so it's the time between the initial sound of the instrument and the reverb coming through. The problem is that the above settings are using a 100% wet mix. That means there is no dry signal coming through, making pre-delay a complete waste of time. 

Liveness means the rate at which the reflections fade. Lower values mean they fade more quickly, higher values keep them there longer. With the Liveness at 0 on a 100% wet mix, you get no sound. 

I'll playing a simple D-G-B minor-A sequence for each demo. 

1. Liveness at 7, delay at 75.0 ms, balance at 100%. 
2. Liveness at 7, delay at 75.0 ms, balance at 50%. 
3. Liveness at 10, delay at 0.0 ms, balance at 70%. 

I'll explain my changes for number 3 here. I want a bit more liveness, a bit more treble in the reverb. I want the reverb coming through as soon as possible, hence the lack of pre-delay. I upped the balance a bit because there is a volume drop in the unit when you go from bypass mode to engaged mode so I want the reverb bumped up a little bit. At 50% mix I think it's a bit low compared to the dry sound.

"Enough of this clean stuff!". I hear you say. "We're shoegazers, we want distortion!". Very well. 

In each case I shall play an MJM London Fuzz Mk 1 (silicon fuzz pedal), then a RAT2 with LM308 chip and then both together. 

4. Liveness at 7, delay at 75.0 ms, balance at 100%. 
5. Liveness at 7, delay at 75.0 ms, balance at 50%. 
6. Liveness at 10, delay at 0.0 ms, balance at 70%.

That fifth audio clip shows what I was getting at with the balance at 50%. The reverb just doesn't come through well enough, too much of a volume drop, so the sixth demo demonstrates why I put the balance to 70% and turned the liveness up to 10. 

For the final demos, I am adding some pitch modulation in my DAW using MVibrato by Melda Productions. As I don't have a Jaguar or Jazzmaster and play a hardtail modded Epi Dot with no Bigsby, I have no bars to poke and prod so MVibrato is there at the end of the recording chain to get some of that MBV swooping and diving sensation. All distortion supplied by the RAT2 only (distortion at max, filter at midday).  

7. Liveness at 7, delay at 75.0 ms, balance at 100%. 
8. Liveness at 7, delay at 75.0 ms, balance at 50%. 
9. Liveness at 10, delay at 0.0 ms, balance at 70%.

The MBV sound isn't one piece of gear. It's the whole thing: the guitars, the effects, the production, the people playing them. There's no magical setting on the SPX50D that taps you straight into To Here Knows When. None of the audio I've recorded for this demo has had any additional processing such as compression or equalization (compression and EQ is a big part of the MBV recorded album sound in my opinion). 

Now that I've played the SPX90 and 50D and had experience of Quadraverbs and Midiverb II's, I think the Midiverb II is the best of the MBV rack units. The combination of decent early reflections programs and the immortal Bloom program gives it the win. It is noisy as the older units tend to be but it's got that elusive 'something' quality to it in the same way a big box Deluxe Memory Man does. 

EHX Cathedral reverse reverb demo - for the My Bloody Valentine fans

Yes, it's more of my reverse reverb messing around. 

Short version: it's not quite the MBV sound but it's quite decent in its own right. 

The Boss RV-5 reverb pedal - it's actually great apart from the Spring reverb.

Reasons to love the RV-5: 

-Modulated reverb. Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes. 

-The hall and room modes are really rather good. 

-It doesn't feature anything useless like dynamic reverb


Reasons to not love the RV-5:

-the Spring setting is shite. It's got a quack to it like a rubbish compressor. 

Yamaha UD Stomp preset demo - big, modulated, and here.

Quite easily the most fantastic and complex delay I've ever got my hands on. 

Preset list. 

Pearl CH-02 analog chorus - another very good Pearl pedal that doesn't erase your money in seconds.

The thing that consistently gets me about the old Pearl pedals is that they aren't perhaps the best sounding. If you plug this in as a straight-up chorus, you probably won't be blown away (it's more Small Clone than CE-2). The delay doesn't instantly fill you with a golden glow of amazement and wonder. But you then start to play around with the Pearl pedals and there's something interesting to them, they do some things that make me think 'Oh, I like that'. 

Take the analog chorus. It's a decent enough analog chorus, no complaints there. As you tinker with the depth, mix, and speed, then you get into the territory of tape warble-type sounds, the Boards of Canada obsessive in me comes out, and it then gets more interesting. 

Prices: usually under £40. Sometimes much lower. 

The Boss RV-6 reverb - sensible trousers for everyone.

Just look at it. You can't upload anything, download new settings, USBify, or memstick it one. In a world of plugins and touchscreens and phone apps, there is something almost quaint about the RV-6. It's the shiny top panel that does it, adding a slight air of the swish to it whilst operationally it's everything you'd expect from a Boss pedal. 

Stereo inputs = a very good thing. In a perfect world I'd have a DD-500 behind it and a DD-7 in front of it. Instead I've got limited talent at both ends. Going through the modes:

1. +Delay - reverb and delay. The Tone knob acts as feedback controller. I really like this sound. It's subtle, not overblown, very clean. It won't do self-oscillation. Instead it will loop over and over until it fades off. When you use this pedal is 100% wet mode, it sounds really cool and this going into a looper definitely gets my vote. Recently I've had the OBNE Procession and the Earthquaker Afterneath reverb pedals jump onto my testing chair: blah was my response. This one sound alone makes me rate the RV-6 higher than both pedals. 

If you listen to this sound using headphones at 100%, you can hear that it's almost a bit of reverb coming in before the delay. It almost reminds me of the way the reverb would come in with the Bloom settings on the Midiverb II. 

2. Shimmer. I'm sat here typing with headphones on. The guitar is still opened up going into the RV-6, Audiomulch as my usual DAW host. Every time my arm moves against the Epi Dot and makes a thud on the body, the Shimmer picks up the input. And if I whack the body with my hand? Yes! It's based on the mode 7 setting on the PS-3. Most of you will know how that sounds. Something Mode 7 can't do comes when you wind the Tone knob on the RV-6 down to 9 o'clock and earlier. You take the high-end out and you can get some seriously peculiar sounds. Another fab setting. 

3. Dynamic. A setting that was pointless to me on other pedals and so is on this one. Seriously, have you ever seen anyone on a guitar forum rhapsodising about dynamic delay? 

4. Room. Pretty workable. Room is seldom that exciting on any pedal but this works nicely. 

5. Hall Same as the room reverb in that it's workable without being that exciting. 

6. Plate. Now the Hall of Fame had a really nice plate setting in that it was a bit blurry sounding, not hugely clear. The RV-6 is clear even with the tone knob right down. I'm actually liking this more than the hall setting. 

7. Spring. Actually pretty good. It'll do the Dick Dale thing with the effect level up to 75%, tone at 50%, time at 75%. Liking this.

8. Modulate. Taken from the RV-5. It's still lovely. 

Opening up the doors to the verdict cat... what do you say, verdict cat? 

"Mieow mieow mieow". 

Which translated means: it sounds like a Boss pedal. It won't blow you away with everything but it's totally workable and the Shimmer and +Delay settings are superb. 

Because of the range of sounds in the pedal, I decided to do two videos. The first is a simple run through the effects at 50% effect level. The second is 100% wet.