IMO, YES. Controlling the input gain of the reverb really changes how the pedal works. It really lets you control the detail of the verb. Will it make a difference in the mix? Probably not a noticable one, but it really did change how I was able to use the pedal.
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Iron Ether Appreciation Society
- Thread starter Jared Lash
- Start date
IMO, YES. Controlling the input gain of the reverb really changes how the pedal works. It really lets you control the detail of the verb. Will it make a difference in the mix? Probably not a noticable one, but it really did change how I was able to use the pedal.
BurningSkies
CRAZY BALDHEAD
- Feb 20, 2005
- 27,956
- 20,348
- Disclosures
- Endorsing artist: Dingwall Guitars
This might interest you if you want to control multiple fx with one expression pedal Invalid Link Removed
I ordered a Nimbus SE. Excited based on the oh so many “it’s THE bass reverb” pedal posts here at TB.
Taylor Livingston
Commercial User
It's something I want to do at some point, but not something that's coming any time soon.
On the Nimbus SE, I haven't done the best job explaining its features, so it's worth mentioning that the added features are useful even without an expression pedal.
The Exp foot-switch combines with the Exp knob to work kind of like a second preset setting. So for example you could set a smaller room reverb up on the main controls, then set the toggle to Size and turn up the Exp knob to 3 o'clock. Stepping on the Exp stomp will now ramp the size up to a big hall.
The same settings but with the Exp knob up all the way will let you switch between your normal reverb setting and an infinite decay time, so it's like a "freeze" switch.
With the toggle set to In Level, you can use the Exp switch as a buffered bypass that preserves the reverb tail and won't introduce any clicking like a normal true bypass. You still have the regular bypass switch to go into true bypass between songs.
Again with the toggle set to In Level, you can also set up an infinite decay time by maxing the top three knobs, and then use the Exp stomp to let sound into the reverb, building up a pad/soundscape kinda thing, and then hit Exp again and play over the top of that without your new notes entering the reverb.
It's something I want to do at some point, but not something that's coming any time soon.
On the Nimbus SE, I haven't done the best job explaining its features, so it's worth mentioning that the added features are useful even without an expression pedal.
The Exp foot-switch combines with the Exp knob to work kind of like a second preset setting. So for example you could set a smaller room reverb up on the main controls, then set the toggle to Size and turn up the Exp knob to 3 o'clock. Stepping on the Exp stomp will now ramp the size up to a big hall.
The same settings but with the Exp knob up all the way will let you switch between your normal reverb setting and an infinite decay time, so it's like a "freeze" switch.
With the toggle set to In Level, you can use the Exp switch as a buffered bypass that preserves the reverb tail and won't introduce any clicking like a normal true bypass. You still have the regular bypass switch to go into true bypass between songs.
Again with the toggle set to In Level, you can also set up an infinite decay time by maxing the top three knobs, and then use the Exp stomp to let sound into the reverb, building up a pad/soundscape kinda thing, and then hit Exp again and play over the top of that without your new notes entering the reverb.
And you nailed it with these added features!
BurningSkies
CRAZY BALDHEAD
- Feb 20, 2005
- 27,956
- 20,348
- Disclosures
- Endorsing artist: Dingwall Guitars
sounds similar to a source audio reflex. I use mine to control QF2, Xerograph Delux and FMeron with expression outputs and future impact with the MIDI output. Can either have linear output or use built in LFOs. works well.
btw, anyone use the QF2 with the Divaricator? I love the freq sweep but it does suck out the low end a little bit.
BurningSkies
CRAZY BALDHEAD
- Feb 20, 2005
- 27,956
- 20,348
- Disclosures
- Endorsing artist: Dingwall Guitars
Nope, my distortion/fuzz of choice is the FrazzDazzler v2...which does have a 3 band EQ and blend...it rides in my Divaricator as well. If you haven't used the Divaricator, it should help you preserve your clean lows.
The only negative I'd say about the divaricator is that I'd love a switch/setting that gets the intrinsic filtering/exciter tone out of the loop when in use. It would be really cool to be able to switch it on and have it sound pretty seemlessly identical to it being off, except for it having the loop and crossover. I've got mine set up so it's as close as possible but it's still noticeable.
BurningSkies
CRAZY BALDHEAD
- Feb 20, 2005
- 27,956
- 20,348
- Disclosures
- Endorsing artist: Dingwall Guitars
Got my shipping notice. Looking forward to maybe having the Nimbus sometime next week. One of my reasons for having it is to add just a little verb to my fretless tone just to soften and widen it a little...and we have an acoustic gig next weekend where it'll be a perfect chance.
Just had a few minutes with this, but wow, it sounds really great.
BurningSkies
CRAZY BALDHEAD
- Feb 20, 2005
- 27,956
- 20,348
- Disclosures
- Endorsing artist: Dingwall Guitars
BurningSkies
CRAZY BALDHEAD
- Feb 20, 2005
- 27,956
- 20,348
- Disclosures
- Endorsing artist: Dingwall Guitars
I spent some time with the Nimbus SE last night...an hour or two of one-on-one rather than it being integrated on my board. As you can see from the picture above, one of my new first steps with a pedal is to see what it's actually drawing. I have suspicions that many pedals' info is mis-listed (sometimes its not even listed at all). As you can see, while listing 85mA Taylor has provided a bit of wiggle room...as it runs right between 79-81 on the TrueTone tester (it may be that the test is mis-calibrated). At rest it draws ~60mA.
Controls are intuitive, although I didn't start with the suggested Clean & Verb at noon. I almost always start with setting my 'dry' to match my bypassed volume, then pull up effect tone from there (I don't do this with envelope or Fuzz, or really aggressive tones where you don't want much or any clean). I do with with all effects where I'm looking to integrate the effect into my 'standard' tone (delay, reverb, Chorus, Phase etc). There's less chance of turning things into a 'wash' on stage, less chance of bass/treble unbalance, etc. Also, if you're working with a sound engineer...during check there may not be enough time to guide him through all your 'tones' so being as closely matched for level & tone balance means there won't be any nasty surprises in the FOH during the show.
Once matching the Clean volume I 'played' with reverb depth/size and reverb volume to find a comfy place. I did leave the filters both fully clockwise (a bit counter-intuitive compared to the other IE pedals which work the reverse of this). I'm mostly looking for a subtle reverb to use with my fretless Dingwall that gives a hint of lushness to my sound so it's not super dry and maybe just softens a bit. I found that with the room size right about 9-10 o'clock and with the verb level just below 9 o'clock with some wiggle room depending rig and room. I don't want it to be a really noticeable thing, and with the band it should blend in and not be !REVERB! but (reverb).
From finding the 'usable zones' for level and depth, I spent some time with the filters. Pulling back the Treble filter makes you feel less like you're in an empty concrete practice space or cafeteria more like there's some bodies in the room or carpet and curtains (I'll let you decide if the carpet matches the curtains). I have a feeling that when you get into the more dramatic zones of volume and room size that MUCH of your tweaking will be in the filters. with lower levels of verb, it comes down to how smooth/noticeable it is.
The Expression switch and settings...As Taylor pointed out, usable even without a pedal. Right now I've only played with it in the 'room size' setting, but I can totally see how this would be great when you're diving into a part of a song with different tone & dynamic. Or maybe if you have it dialed enough that for one song you have it pulled back for just a little padding but for another you really want to pretend you're at the bottom of the well waiting for Lassie to bring help and pull you out. Nice touch, is the dual-color LED that adds pink to the blue 'on' color. Yep. I'm easily distracted by colored lights.
Tonight I'll see if I can get this installed on my board next to the Polytope. They both ride at the end of my signal chain, just before my LPF/output.
I have suspicions that many pedals' info is mis-listed (sometimes its not even listed at all). As you can see, while listing 85mA Taylor has provided a bit of wiggle room...as it runs right between 79-81 on the TrueTone tester (it may be that the test is mis-calibrated). At rest it draws ~60mA. Controls are intuitive, although I didn't start with the suggested Clean & Verb at noon. I almost always start with setting my 'dry' to match my bypassed volume, then pull up effect tone from there (I don't do this with envelope or Fuzz, or really aggressive tones where you don't want much or any clean). I do with with all effects where I'm looking to integrate the effect into my 'standard' tone (delay, reverb, Chorus, Phase etc). There's less chance of turning things into a 'wash' on stage, less chance of bass/treble unbalance, etc. Also, if you're working with a sound engineer...during check there may not be enough time to guide him through all your 'tones' so being as closely matched for level & tone balance means there won't be any nasty surprises in the FOH during the show.
Once matching the Clean volume I 'played' with reverb depth/size and reverb volume to find a comfy place. I did leave the filters both fully clockwise (a bit counter-intuitive compared to the other IE pedals which work the reverse of this). I'm mostly looking for a subtle reverb to use with my fretless Dingwall that gives a hint of lushness to my sound so it's not super dry and maybe just softens a bit. I found that with the room size right about 9-10 o'clock and with the verb level just below 9 o'clock with some wiggle room depending rig and room. I don't want it to be a really noticeable thing, and with the band it should blend in and not be !REVERB! but (reverb).
From finding the 'usable zones' for level and depth, I spent some time with the filters. Pulling back the Treble filter makes you feel less like you're in an empty concrete practice space or cafeteria more like there's some bodies in the room or carpet and curtains (I'll let you decide if the carpet matches the curtains). I have a feeling that when you get into the more dramatic zones of volume and room size that MUCH of your tweaking will be in the filters. with lower levels of verb, it comes down to how smooth/noticeable it is.
The Expression switch and settings...As Taylor pointed out, usable even without a pedal. Right now I've only played with it in the 'room size' setting, but I can totally see how this would be great when you're diving into a part of a song with different tone & dynamic. Or maybe if you have it dialed enough that for one song you have it pulled back for just a little padding but for another you really want to pretend you're at the bottom of the well waiting for Lassie to bring help and pull you out. Nice touch, is the dual-color LED that adds pink to the blue 'on' color. Yep. I'm easily distracted by colored lights.
Tonight I'll see if I can get this installed on my board next to the Polytope. They both ride at the end of my signal chain, just before my LPF/output.
The Nimbus can do some really spacy Afterneath type stuff
It has arrived!! Some seriously beautiful sounds that can come out of this thing (and obviously the prettiest pedal on the board). Only had a bit of time here and there to play with it (mostly while sitting on conference calls, muted)....but loving it so far!
For any other experienced users out there, I am having some trouble figuring out how to dial in the Exp. knob when set to Size. Based on the website description, it controls the top 3 controls, so I just assumed it did it in parallel (noon would be noon on all 3, etc.).....but for 1, it seems to still be interactive with the other knobs......and 2, low settings on it are still "bigger" than high settings on all 3. For instance, you can see in my picture that I've got room set to about 3-4 o'clock, and bass and treble at 1-2 o'clock.....yet with the Exp knob set to only 10-11 it's almost infinite when I kick it in. Can someone better explain the interaction there?
Taylor Livingston
Commercial User
Glad you're enjoying it!
The value of the Exp knob adds to whatever the top 3 knobs are set to when the Exp switch is on (LED lit purple). So if you've got Room size three quarters of the way to maximum, and the Exp knob is one quarter of the way up, those add together to the maximum size.
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Ahhh!! That makes so much sense - thanks for taking the time to explain. Can’t wait to dig in and spend some more time with it! My first IE pedal, and now I see what all the fuss is about - we’ll worth the wait.
