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How good is “good enough” for an effect?

Luke the Fluke

Luke the Fluke

Aug 12, 2014
1,315
1,704
Leeds, Yorkshire, UK
#1
We live in the midst of so many exciting pedals - and at the moment ild love a reverb pedal, mainly for sounds for my C4 synth, but also for pad sounds…

so the internet is full of so many exciting and excellent pedals - and at some interesting prices but I keep coming back to the fact
A) I play bass
B) it's not an essential effect for bass in the mix
C) the ten year old zoom ms70cdr would probably be good enough

so in the midst of the forum froth about the next big thing, how good is good enough? (Or more specific reverb advice greatfully accepted)
 
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#2
If you're here looking for lots of folks to tell you NOT to buy something, well.... have your better half hide your wallet somewhere smart!

That aside, I'm with you; if it does the job and you like the sound, then it's sufficient to the task. It doesn't normally require the pedals du jour in order to make music that people will enjoy. I'd say give the Zoom a crack and see how it gets on!
 
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#3
"good enough" is the same as for my fingers: does it serve the song? If "yes" then it is good enough.

I really like bi-amping and sending clean signal to my bass amp & PA and sending the effects to a guitar amp. This levels the field and makes most pedals Good Enough.

Re: reverb- While I find a few settings on the Hall Of Fame reverb pedal really useful and totally "Good Enough" most of the time, my preferred reverbs are still just an actual spring tank in a combo. Some one of these days I'll hook an expression pedal to the reverb control on one of my combos.
 
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#4
To each his own criteria, but I used to have an affordable Zoom B1 pedal that I liked because I could do many things with it, until I noticed that it was sucking my tone. So I sold it - I'm better with no effect than a "fun" effect if it sucks my tone. Now I'm very cautious with effects in general: cheap pedals often add noise, or "eat" the dynamics of the instrument, I prefer nothing than that.
 
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#5
Many products will achieve the goal of applying an effect to your sound in a way where no one other than you would notice a difference. If you play a sound and there is reverb on it anyone else will agree that there is reverb on it.

But very few choices we make about gear are about whether something does the baseline version of something like just being distortion or reverb or whatever. For most people posting on forums the fun is pursuit of something that isn't just good enough but something that truly inspires you to play.

All that said, while I have a Meris Mercury X at home for big reverb computer duties, the pedals Im using on my live board are a much simpler Boss pedal and one of my own designs. So it doesn't need to be the craziest option on the market, but its nice to have something with a sound you really enjoy.
 
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#8
If you're looking for a good, inexpensive Reverb, I'd go with the EHX Ocean's 12. It pairs well with the C4, though mono. I like it's Hall, Room, and Echo (gets One of These Days right away), the TremVerb is great (does the tremolo for the solo on One of These Days), but my favorite is the Shimmer on it. It's my favorite Shimmer. Don't even think they nailed it in the Ocean's 12 "upgrade". There's 6 other reverbs in there (Actually more, considering it has the Holy Grail's Flerb, as chorus+Reverb, flanger+Reverb, and chorus+flanger+reverb permutations.) I would NOT recommend the new PICO version, because it lacks almost all of what I listed, but at like 170 new, the Ocean's 11 is ridiculously good. And I maintained it far longer than I otherwise would have only for that Shimmer, which has a depth that most Shimmers lose. I have yet to try the Strymon Cloudburst.
 
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#9
gtirard said:
To each his own criteria, but I used to have an affordable Zoom B1 pedal that I liked because I could do many things with it, until I noticed that it was sucking my tone. So I sold it - I'm better with no effect than a "fun" effect if it sucks my tone. Now I'm very cautious with effects in general: cheap pedals often add noise, or "eat" the dynamics of the instrument, I prefer nothing than that.
Click to expand...
Yeah I've heard a few people talk about "tonesuck" with some of the zoom pedals- i would be putting a ms70 in a bypass loop but by the time you add another 1590a switch it's not as small anymore!

Neunaber immerse mk2 would be a standalone option on the shortlist, or even going back to a hx stomp for more functionality (I used to have one)
 
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#13
Seconding the Hall of Fame if you have a low commitment to reverb and board space.
Empress Reverb I suspect is exceptional for synthy effects (see Jorb)
Meris makes the reverb pedals that touch souls.
For live use, and I think takes an exp pedal, the Walrus R01.

All that said, I understand reverb is often the enemy of live bass sound mixing. Set it to where you notice it, then down a notch.
 
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#15
Really depends on what you are doing. For a live rock band most of your effects will get lost in the mix, and others (imho) don't belong on bass. Give me a good compressor and a tuner and I'm good to go (I know that opinion places me in the minority). Having gigged guitar for years, I actually enjoy the freedom of not "needing" effects in the projects where I play bass.
 
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#16
Luke the Fluke said:
We live in the midst of so many exciting pedals - and at the moment ild love a reverb pedal, mainly for sounds for my C4 synth, but also for pad sounds…

so the internet is full of so many exciting and excellent pedals - and at some interesting prices but I keep coming back to the fact
A) I play bass
B) it's not an essential effect for bass in the mix
C) the ten year old zoom ms70cdr would probably be good enough

so in the midst of the forum froth about the next big thing, how good is good enough? (Or more specific reverb advice greatfully accepted)
Click to expand...
It depends you really need to listen to samples of the reverb tone. Stuff like the Big Sky or Eventudr Space are amazing but you can tell a big sky on a recording and that's good or bad depending on what you like.
The other reverb pedals all have their own kind of flavor, old reverbs still sound good their flavor is just different. 12 bit reverbs have a distinctive quality to it like the delays.
Whatever sounds like you want is good enough, yeah.
 
#17
Good enough means it can be dialed in to sound just like the sound in my head. Which pretty much means nothing is ever quite good enough. One of the reasons I've never bought a multi-effect unit is that I have a hard time getting one effect at a time to sound "right", I can't imagine that all the effects I want would exist within just one multi unit and be good enough.
 
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#19
AlvarHanso said:
If you're looking for a good, inexpensive Reverb, I'd go with the EHX Ocean's 12. It pairs well with the C4, though mono. I like it's Hall, Room, and Echo (gets One of These Days right away), the TremVerb is great (does the tremolo for the solo on One of These Days), but my favorite is the Shimmer on it. It's my favorite Shimmer. Don't even think they nailed it in the Ocean's 12 "upgrade". There's 6 other reverbs in there (Actually more, considering it has the Holy Grail's Flerb, as chorus+Reverb, flanger+Reverb, and chorus+flanger+reverb permutations.) I would NOT recommend the new PICO version, because it lacks almost all of what I listed, but at like 170 new, the Ocean's 11 is ridiculously good. And I maintained it far longer than I otherwise would have only for that Shimmer, which has a depth that most Shimmers lose. I have yet to try the Strymon Cloudburst.
Click to expand...
I'm an Ocean's 11 user mostly used for Shimmer in the s/r of a Superego, and I just got the Cloudburst. Both it's medium and extreem shimmer setting are very pronounced and the reverb pad is perfect. The No shimmer setting is very nice too. It helped me finish a chordal song...but it's also a bit gimmickey. I'm glad I have it though. I have yet to try it with other instruments where I'm sure it will shine perhaps better than on bass. IF you are doing a Sun)))) thing with stacked superfuzzes it would rule, as it were.
 
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#20
After many years of trying and mostly jettisoning different effects, sometimes because they were no longer useful in the context at that time, sometimes because they were never useful in the first place, I have landed here: EHX LPB-1, FDeck HPF (in the FX loop), and as of this past weekend a Zoom B1X Four. The Zoom has proved surprisingly versatile and user friendly (and believe me, I am a Luddite). A fellow bassist commented on how good we sounded and I choose to think some of that can be attributed to the Zoom, as he has heard us play numerous times prior. Ease of use, "set and forget" capability, those are big plusses in my book. I'm not an endorsee of any of these gadgets but they all serve me well. I've done a bit of custom patch programming on the Zoom and expect will do a bit more in the near future. I've only had it for a week...

I do enjoy living vicariously through others' adventures in the boutique pedal universe but I doubt I'll dive into the deep end given that my current rig, in it's entirety, cost less than the current street price for a Noble preamp! :cool:

The Bar Band Bassman
 
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