High Quality, "portable" reverb?

[Bruce Lindfield]

I don't really like effects as such in my own bass playing and in most of the situations I play it's just not appropriate - I usually like as clean a sound as possible. But I often practice at home through my "home studio" gear and like a bit of digital reverb on bass solos in the higher register.

So I have looked around all the music shops in London and asked a few people about this and nobody seems to be able to recommend a unit that I could use for this purpose live.

What I am looking for is something I can take "on the road", but also that will not introduce any noise into the signal chain - I often play in small acoustic Jazz situations and to me, anything that is noisy at all is a real non-starter.

I'm not looking for cheap gear, but also I don't really want something with loads of effects that I will never use. I've also been "warned-off" the small battery-powered digital reverb pedals like the Boss ones, by people who have told me that they eat up batteries so fast they won't last to the end of the gig! So I have come up against a brick wall so far and wondered if you might be able to help?

Hope this doesn't come across as over-demanding, but I thought that you were the ideal person to ask about this as you get great sounds out of effects and have been involved with reviewing loads of gear.

Thanks,

Bruce

[Steve Lawson]

Hi bruce,

there are a few options - Lexicon used to make (and probably still do, though I've not seen one around for a while) a half rack box called the LXP-1, which has brilliant reverbs, as well as a few other sounds, but not the bells and whistles of the MPX-1 or MPX-G2. The new Lexicon MPX-100 and MPX-500 are also well worth investigating, though as 1U rack units, they do take up rather more space...

WRT the stomp boxes, I think there's a rather good DOD one, which (like all the BOSS pedals as well) will run off a mains adaptor instead of the batteries. I tend to avoid battery effects if at all possible (the line 6 DL4 has the option to power with Batteries, but I only used that while at NAMM to avoid the power supply problems. the rest of the time, I use the power supply.)

i don't know if Carl Martin or EBS do a reverb, but my experiences of all the other pedals by both companies has been fabulous.

If you're looking on the second-hand market, the ART Midiverb, Alesis Quadraverb and the Yamaha SPX-90 (or 900 or 990) are all good quality 1U rack boxes...

I hope that lot helps! :o)

cheers

Steve
www.steve-lawson.co.uk

[Bruce Lindfield]

Thanks very much for all the info and suggestions. I do have an EBS OctaBass and I would buy a reverb pedal if they made one. I will definitely check out the DOD options on the Web.

I think rack units might be the best idea, but can they be switched in and out quickly with a foot pedal? The reverb will be useful for solos, but usually just makes normal basslines in the lower register - "muddy".

Anyway, now you have given me some names I will start checking these out on teh Web and let you know, what I get,

Thanks again,

Bruce

[kurosawa]

I was thinking about the awful results of putting reverb on lower frequencies and I recall there is some way of separating your frequencies and putting an effect only on the higher ones. Just an idea.

[Steve Lawson]

Lots of reverb units have various EQing possibilities - I often use a little reverb on low frequencies, but it does have a low pass filter on it to stop it from getting rumbly... :o)

Steve
www.steve-lawson.co.uk