Thanks everyone!
The Nimbus, Mercury, Immerse & Context all have me very interested. The Dr Scientist stuff looks pretty funky too.
I've gas'd for a Bitquest for ages....
So did the tone knob help this at all?
What is it that makes the Nimbus cut thru the mix compared to the Immerse?
Great post!
Yeah I'm staying away from strymon - I already own a Mobius, really don't want a Big Sky at this stage as I doubt I'll ever dig deep enough to warrant such a monster.
The Mercury has me very curious. The swell function on the Mercury would be really useful with keys, especially synth, that pedal looks really cool given it has control over the tone also. I like the way it can do those lo end rumbles that head down low from the original note.
You said it didn't appear to do all the tones that the Context could. Are we talking straight up regular/vanilla reverb sounds?
And given you been through quite a few verbs;
Compared straight up between the Context, Nimbus & Mercury, what does the Nimbus do better?
The Context is really good at each of the verb settings it has, and yes, fairly straight up verb sounds (no pitch up stuff). The ranges for the dials were chosen with care, and the predelay is its key. On bass it can get really unruly on the room setting, but the other modes are great. The Meris has two algos, and those two are very distinct in flavor, different from what's out there now. The controls interact quite a bit and that could be the reason I haven't found some of the Context sounds, but, to me they just sound like different things. The Context has this familiar and pleasing sound, and sits well in a mix. The Meris is a different animal that sounds good in all situations, but doesn't play like a regular verb. The Meris is a bit more dynamic, like a multi room sound, as opposed to the Context being the old faithful, single room or cathedral tone. I'm finding the Meris takes time to set right, while the Context just works, and is easier to dial in. Context is good a reproducing what is there and not over inflating it, while still being responsive to the sound going in - doesn't have a baked in tone as much as others. The Meris can just do all kinds of things to the sound, and it's a shame to use it as a vanilla verb box, which is part of the reason for the Context not leaving (which was the back up to the Nimbus V1 not working out for me). I should also mention the delay algo, it's a really great setting. You can get right down to some double tracking stuff with it, like fixed flange. You can even use it to overload the circuit and get a pretty good drive sound out of it.
The Nimbus SE. The Special Edition version. The magic of this box is being able to adjust the amount of signal going into the reverb tank. I wasn't expecting it to be so influential on the sound. When you want a nice room sound turning this lower, the size up and riding the level and tone knobs reveal just how much control you have. It excels at sound stage placement over the others. You could position the signal at the back of the room, and still have a subtle bouncy effect, or \ and transition to a monstrous cavern. What I didn't like about the V1 was the signal overload that would happen, and this control allows you to ride the level in a way that still keeps the dynamic quality of the verb very much alive. It's a single algo, but it covers a lot of ground because of this control. I'd like a pre delay on it, but it's really not required. As far as performance features, the level controls, trails and expression control are all seamless without clicks, of jumps or weird, unpredictable changes. You turn it on, fade in some stuff, hit the trails bypass, and it doesn't change its behaviour at all. The Nimbus SE is the perfect middle ground between these two - Sweet and subtle or wild and in your face without going over the top. And when it does start to be too much, you just pull it back a bit, or switch it off to a great exit.
With the Meris the Mix knob function is just dumb IMO, and the swell is a piss off on bass, not executed well at all (clicky zaps when the note is triggered on bass). There's also some odd behaviour with the way the trails interact with the bypass, like they get cut short. There are some really poor choices that these 20 years of experience musicians made for the pedal format - in a 500 series you could get away with some of this, but certainly not the electric shock swell feature. For these lack of polished items I feel a bit ripped off, but I really like what it does musically, and will work to find a way to get the playability closer to the Nimbus SE. I can only hope they revisit their stance on these problems, and fix them. I mean, clicky zaps in a very expressive reverb is just disappointing.
