what effects units u guys use?

i use an sp 404sx for effects and i love it BUT i use a lot of reverb on my snares and the reverb on the 404 SUCKS! its real electronic sounding, it sounds real fake. i can't stand it. I am in desperate need of something to record some reverb on my drums and sometimes baselines. i don't like waiting till i dumped the beat to pro tools to add reverb, i like to do it before i record to pro tools. usually i send my mpc through the 404 during recording to record the effects live.

i heard terrible things about the eb16. is the reverb on those things any good?

any suggestions on effects units with a nice reverb?

the reverb is the ONLY good thing about the EB16 effects card, but the card sells for way too much to even consider buying one for just that... as far as hardware, i use my SP-303 for effects and i also have an alesis effects unit that i occasionally use... if all you really want are some good reverbs, alesis makes some of the best affordable hardware reverbs available... look into the quadraverb or midiverb on ebay and you can scoop one up for cheap... i wouldn't consider dropping the $200 on the EB16 though... and don't sleep on all the free VST effects out there either...

^ no doubt, thanks man...appreciate the help, ill look into those for sure. Im really looking for a reverb unit. u know anything about the MX200? I've read some good things about that unit and it seems to be pretty cheap.

tyrone_biggums wrote:i heard terrible things about the eb16. is the reverb on those things any good?

No it's terrible!

For maximum flexibility you're better off waiting till you track out until you use reverb. Back in the day (when I had the XL) I would sample with reverb from my digital mixer, then I moved on to adding reverb in Sound Forge and resampling. I just kept encountering the same problem though, either adding too much or too little reverb at the sampling stage, and being destructive it becomes a pain to try and sort issues out with the mix.

Finally I made the transition to adding all my effects in Cubase. I've not looked back since.

I'm sure someone will add recommendations for a hardware unit, but I don't use or need them anymore.

^ Yeah i feel ya...

Lampdog wrote:The reverb in my eb16 sounds ok.
The reverb in my ufx is awesome.
The reverb in my 4k sounds good a small amount better than decent.
The reverb in my triton extreme good a moderate amount better than decent but not great.

Dont bother getting an eb16 just for the reverb. Go with something else.

ok cool, thanks

I was looking for a reverb unit to get a hold of not too long ago. I'd heard some things about the Ensoniq DP series, particularly the DP4/DP4+.

When I asked on here, a couple of cats hooked me up with some decent knowledge surrounding these particular units. The thread is here if you want to view it:

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=147906

I still haven't copped one of the units but a friend of mine has an ASR-10, which apparently has the same effects processing. Anyway, the ASR effects are quite nice sounding so I'm still on the lookout for the DP4.

Also in that thread, I was told to check out the Lexicon PCM series.

thanks for all the feedback guys ill be sure to check out all these options. and i wasn't planning on dropping that much money on one of the eb16s that seems way to much for something that basically EVERYONE says blows.

Reverb on 303 is pretty decent. Its possible to tweak some delay to sound like reverb too.

I use a boss re-20 for that old tape echo sound. it has a spring reverb in it too. i dont dig the reverb much.

more and more though user my mpc 5000 as an effects processor. the delays, compressors and bit crusher is most used. but i like the reverbs too. As a matter of fact i always find more and more uses for the effects via input thru. i run a synth say a rhodes patch thru the 5000 and put the ring modulator type effect (can recall the exact name) with a bit of tape delay and the rhodes sounded pretty ill. if you heard it you wouldnt guess these were effects from an MPC.


i demo the compressor and analog delay on this vid.

yeah I am not huge on the eb16 reverb.... the filter on the eb16 is okay and I use that term loosely... I prefer more bands and I prefer to be able to adjust the Q on every band.. the distortion is okay, it's sort of like an overdrive type of one where you can use it to raise the volume of a sound if for some reason it isn't loud enough with the mixer on max... I find you need to turn the direct signal completely off a lot of the time or else you get phasing.

the real issue with the eb16 is that it eliminates all the panning you would get from the mixer (because the volume mixer no longer applies when you turn the direct signal off.. you wind up adjusting things by the fx send mixer instead)

I threw up some random looping beat online that was made entirely on the 2000 with the eb16 as the only effect used... the first snare in the loop clearly shows the eb16 reverb in action amongst other things like the filter and the params menu low pass filter... but that first snare has a clear reverb tail that you can hear well


The eb16 sucks if that is all you have (for the price) .. but it's nice to also have because it brings another element to the table. I find myself using it a lot more lately than I ever did in the past for some reason.

^^ i don't think that reverb sounds to bad. def better then the 404 sx in my opinion.