One of my bandmates is going through a gear purge and consolidation and upgrade phase, which happens to coincide with me doing somewhat of the same thing.
Anyway, he was listing off the things he was getting rid of, and the things he would be adding, and on his sell pile was an Eventide H9 Max. Now, I've wanted one of these for a long time, but they never reached the top of the priority list when I had the budget to get one. BUT, with some additional work coming in as well as my looming stimulus check (and boy am I stimulated!), even though it wasn't the next thing on my list, knowing that he had taken good care of it and had the box, manuals, little crown royal velvet bag, etc... and seeing the chance to make an easy local deal (which benefits both of us) with someone trustworthy, we worked out a price that I feel was good for both of us.
So I went and picked it up last night. I didn't have a bass with me, but I took a couple little analog semi-modular synths to try it out with, which was a lot of fun, and it was like a game of "which device is doing that thing?" with all kinds of sequences and modulations happening of indeterminate origin.
This thing is pretty wild, and I think it could be the first thing I've owned that might knock my Ensoniq DP-4 off my top spot for favorite hardware reverbs (that I've owned at least). Having the gajillion diffferent algorithms (and he updated the firmware before we did the deal, and we discovered "Harmadillo" which is like a UniVibe on steroids), plus loads of presets, and then having the ipad app to tweak everything is pretty cool. I also plan to try my Line6 expression pedal with it when I get the chance.
I already have a fairly extensive pedal board that I tweak as needed to share between guitar and bass, but I think I can make good use of this thing for both (and it will also get used with analog synths and/or older synths that don't have their own effects or just don't have very good ones). Probably paired with my M9 in the amp loop, with all the fun analog stuff in front of the amp (Octabvre, 90s QTron, Compressore, Hoof Fuzz, etc...). The M9 is feeling a little dated (which to be fair, it already was when I bought which was only about 18 months or so ago, albeit for pretty cheap), and sometimes the 3 simultaneous effects don't feel like quite enough, or I just want snazzier reverbs and things like that (mostly the reverbs and distortions and compressors on the M9 don't do much for me, the modulations and delays are pretty great and some other things). So the H9 should add a lot, both in terms of flexibility and sound quality. I'm also thinking I'll eventually get an HX Effects to replace the M9.
Anyway, I'd love to hear some people's favorite features or sounds on the H9, any tips or tricks for getting the most out of it, any interesting/unusual setups people have, or things like that. I'm excited to really dig into this thing over the next few weeks/months.
I'm also excited to learn that if you have one H9 Max, any other H9 you add to your account ALSO becomes a Max, so you only have to "buy" the algorithms once. Meaning at some point I could buy a used Core for cheap, and maybe put one at the beginning of my chain (for harmonizers and synthy stuff) and one at the end (for reverbs, delays and basically everything else).
(Sorry, no picture as of yet. It's an H9, we all know what they look like.)
Anyway, he was listing off the things he was getting rid of, and the things he would be adding, and on his sell pile was an Eventide H9 Max. Now, I've wanted one of these for a long time, but they never reached the top of the priority list when I had the budget to get one. BUT, with some additional work coming in as well as my looming stimulus check (and boy am I stimulated!), even though it wasn't the next thing on my list, knowing that he had taken good care of it and had the box, manuals, little crown royal velvet bag, etc... and seeing the chance to make an easy local deal (which benefits both of us) with someone trustworthy, we worked out a price that I feel was good for both of us.
So I went and picked it up last night. I didn't have a bass with me, but I took a couple little analog semi-modular synths to try it out with, which was a lot of fun, and it was like a game of "which device is doing that thing?" with all kinds of sequences and modulations happening of indeterminate origin.
This thing is pretty wild, and I think it could be the first thing I've owned that might knock my Ensoniq DP-4 off my top spot for favorite hardware reverbs (that I've owned at least). Having the gajillion diffferent algorithms (and he updated the firmware before we did the deal, and we discovered "Harmadillo" which is like a UniVibe on steroids), plus loads of presets, and then having the ipad app to tweak everything is pretty cool. I also plan to try my Line6 expression pedal with it when I get the chance.
I already have a fairly extensive pedal board that I tweak as needed to share between guitar and bass, but I think I can make good use of this thing for both (and it will also get used with analog synths and/or older synths that don't have their own effects or just don't have very good ones). Probably paired with my M9 in the amp loop, with all the fun analog stuff in front of the amp (Octabvre, 90s QTron, Compressore, Hoof Fuzz, etc...). The M9 is feeling a little dated (which to be fair, it already was when I bought which was only about 18 months or so ago, albeit for pretty cheap), and sometimes the 3 simultaneous effects don't feel like quite enough, or I just want snazzier reverbs and things like that (mostly the reverbs and distortions and compressors on the M9 don't do much for me, the modulations and delays are pretty great and some other things). So the H9 should add a lot, both in terms of flexibility and sound quality. I'm also thinking I'll eventually get an HX Effects to replace the M9.
Anyway, I'd love to hear some people's favorite features or sounds on the H9, any tips or tricks for getting the most out of it, any interesting/unusual setups people have, or things like that. I'm excited to really dig into this thing over the next few weeks/months.
I'm also excited to learn that if you have one H9 Max, any other H9 you add to your account ALSO becomes a Max, so you only have to "buy" the algorithms once. Meaning at some point I could buy a used Core for cheap, and maybe put one at the beginning of my chain (for harmonizers and synthy stuff) and one at the end (for reverbs, delays and basically everything else).
(Sorry, no picture as of yet. It's an H9, we all know what they look like.)
