Conference napalm::commusic_v1

I think the PROverb is the new ART (Applied Research and Technology) equivalent
to the Alesis MIDIVERB.  It has 100 preset reverbs and is truly rackmountable.
I believe it lists for $395?  It is advertised in the latest Keyboard mag.

The SRV2000 is the clear winner when compared to the Midiverb and SPX.  Nice
smooth reverb with a great sense of openness.  Note that the SPX (with a few
exceptions) can't do multiple effects at the same time.  I havn't heard the 
Lexicon, but suspect that it is rather expensive with similar sound quality 
to the SRV.

As stated in other notes, the SRV is currently being discounted - it is being
discontinued by Roland.

I personally own a MIDIVERB, and wish I knew that the SRV's were gonna be
discounted as I would have waited for one rather than go with the MIDIVERB.

It seems that the digital reverb/effects market is in the affordable-for-
home-studio range for the first time ever.  Good luck on your choice -
hope this helps.

Todd.

    Re: .1 - Can the SRV2000 do multiple effects at the same time? You
             sort of implied that, but I wasn't sure. What is it's current 
             discounted price?  
    
             Does anyone have any experience with the Ibanez SDR1000?
             Another feature I liked about it was a four band parametric
             equalizer, usable with any program.  Is this also a feature
             of the SRV2000?
    
                                                   Rodney
    

Wurlitzer in Framingham told me the SRV2000 can't do more than one thing at a 
time, whereas its replacement (whose model number I forget) can.  Its 
replacement has much cleaner human interface, similar to the Korg digital 
delay rack mount, but I hear the overall quality isn't as good.  Not having 
had the chance to do an A/B, I don't know.  I would say the new Roland blows 
everything else I've heard out of the water.  Is it worth $800?  In my 
opinion, no, so I'm going to continue using the spring reverb from my Roland 
Jazz Chorus guitar amp for the next year until prices come down.


				Mark

    The SRV2000 is a stereo reverb only.  It does nothing but reverb.
    It has a builtin 3 band parametric EQ.  The two sides of the reverb
    are independent (i.e., not just a phase inversion), but they take
    the same parameters and the same input.  As my review elsewhere
    in this conference implies, this is a *very* high quality unit.  You can
    get them now for about $500 to $600.  The SRV-2000 allows you to
    program just about every conceivable parameter relevant to reverb.
    In my opinion nothing else touches it even at its original price.
    To do better you're talking $4K Lexicons.  EUWurlitzer in Framingham
    had a pile of them (SRVs) last time I was in.
    
    The SRV has been superseded by the DEP-5, a "sort of" multieffects
    unit.  It will do various combinations of reverb and chorus at the
    same time, but not much more.  It does not have as wide a variety
    of effects as the SPX90 (e.g., no panning stuff), and from what
    I understand its reverb is not as good as the SRV.  I can't compare
    the DEP-5 and SPX90 reverbs, but the SPX90's reverb was good but
    not as good as the SRV's.                   
    
    len (who owns two SRVs and can't imagine ever replacing them with
    anything).
    

    
    Methinks you guys are trudging the fine line between a digital reverb
    and a digital delay. Although they use the same type of circuitry,
    they do have different design goals in mind. A true reverb is just
    that, a reverb only, maybe with different programs (ie. small hall,
    large hall, plate etc.). The money you spend on a reverb is going
    directly into the sound quality of the reverb effect only. A digital
    delay (or multieffects processor) not only does reverb but other
    functions like compression/limiting, various delay effects (chorus,
    phasing/flanging, echo, slapback etc.), maybe some miscellaneous
    effects as well, like vocoding and maybe sampling. Obvoiusly, one
    cannot expect to get the same quality of reverb from an effects
    processor as can be gotten from a reverb, and I think listening
    tests will prove this out.
    
    You should also be aware that you are comparing a very wide range
    of reverbs here, from the inexpensive MidiVERB ($299?) to the Lexicon
    PCM60 ($1400), and with MFX units, from the MidiFEX ($399?) to the
    Lexicon PCM70 ($1900). I would hope that you would hear some
    differences.
    
    I guess you have to decide what your needs are first, whether high
    quality reverb is most important or a wide range of effects, or
    maybe even both if your budget can stand it.
    
    Good luck,
    CdH
    

    Hey, wait a minute.  That was something I could never really
    understand...
    I imagine that a digital delay and a digital reverb are constituted,
    more or less, of the same components.  That is, a ADC on the input,
    a digital queue of some sort, and then a DAC on the output.  If
    I were making these devices, which I'm not (at the moment), I would
    just feed the analog output of a digital delay back to the input
    with some attenuation, and I would have what I call a digital reverb.
    Is this not what they do?  If so, what differing design goals between
    the two units would result in a better sounding reverb out of a
    dedicated reverb unit?
    

    I'm not too familiar with the internals of digital reverbs,
    but I suspect they are more complex than just feeding back
    a delayed signal.  At least with the SRV-2000 you have parameters
    like room size.  That causes me to suspect that they simulate
    the delay and filtering you get by bouncing sound off the walls.
        John Sauter

    There's another fundamental difference between delay and reverb
    (at least delays as typically implemented) that most people overlook.
    That's the fact that realistic reverb requires a *lot* of *different*
    delay times.  A single delay time fedback will result in a nice
    comb filter effect that sounds nothing like reverb.  A real reverberant
    space sums an almost infinite range of delays, each of which has
    its own frequency/attenuation characteristics.  This wide range
    of delays results in overlapping of the comb filter notches to produce
    a more even overall frequency response.  Yes, the hardware is basically
    the same, but you need a multitap delay (the SRV has the equivalent
    of something like 30 taps per side!) to even approximate reverb.
    
    You can get this effect by convolving the impulse response of the
    simulated room with the input signal, and that's in fact what the
    more sophisticated reverbs do rather than the brute force approach
    of a multitap delay.  The SRV's algorithms are in fact implemented
    this way - it *computes* the reverberant field rather than simulates
    it by delays.  It has a delay built into it, but it's used for the
    predelay and early reflections rather than to construct the reverberant
    field.  That's why I said earlier the SRV has the "equivalent" of
    30 or more taps.
    
    You can also use an SRV as a simple up-to-450-msec delay, but that's
    all it will do in that mode, which you have to power it up into.
    
    len.
     

There are many differences.  Echo implies a fixed amount of time between
sound regenerations.  In a reverb unit, the sound regenerations are incoherent
such that they are random with respect to time.  An echo box used as a reverb
sounds terrible.

It should be noted that the hardware in a digital reverb and any other
digital effects box is very similar, which is why so many digital effects
boxes are currently coming on the market inclusive of reverb (this is also 
the reason the MIDIVERB and the MIDIFEX are so similar looking.  Same 
hardware, different software).  

I think it is important tho to get a seperate reverb unit even if you 
eventually want multiple effects because very rarely does a home recordist
shut off reverb once enlightened as to what it can do [regardless of the 
instrument you're shipping through it].

I want an SRV!

Todd.

    Sounds like the SRV2000 is the way to go.  My budget is about $800,
    tops.  This reverb is my first and only outboard processor (not
    counting my stomp-box chorus), and I had originally wanted to get
    as many effects as I could in one unit, hence my interest in the
    SPX90.
    
    But I like the idea of having quality reverb sound, and of having
    something I'll be (fairly) happy with two years from now, when
    Lexicon PCM224XL-quality reverbs will be available for under a grand.
    (We can dream, can't we?)
    
    BTW, where would one go in the southern NH area to hear/buy an SRV2000?
    
                                                 Thanks to all,
                                                             
                                                  Rodney
    

>    Lexicon PCM224XL-quality reverbs will be available for under a grand.

You don't have to worry about that.  Lexicon is getting out of the market
for this stuff due to the Jap competition.  There are no more digital reverb
units or effects processors in their future.  They are now into very high
end multichannel digital recording gear that records to secondary memory
via DMA.  The sampling rate is *very* high, and they have tons of memory 
(enough for many many minutes of recording).  They also digitize any change
in the console controls (mixing levels, etc.) and put a time stamp on it
and record it too, so that *everything* is memorized.  As far as I know, 
their only competitor is Lucas Films' machine...

Can't wait until the technology is such that tapeless recording comes
into the home studio!

Todd.

    re: .11--I listened to an SRV-2000 at Daddy's Junky Music,
    on Daniel Webster Highway South, close to the Massachusetts
    border.  This was quite a while ago, so I don't know if they
    have any now.
    
    re: .13--I also asked at Daddy's for a 24-track digital recorder
    costing less than $1000.  They didn't have one.
        John Sauter

    	Hmm.   That's much more complicated than I had imagined... 
    Has anybody actually looked inside one of these things?  I mean,
    I built a digital delay once, and I couldn't figure out for the
    life of me how they fit all that functionality into one of those
    pedals, even after I started making cute reductions in the size.
    From the sound of it, if you changed the internal eproms of one
    of those reverb things you could get it to boot RT-11 off of an RA81
    (or is it MS-DOS off of a floppy?).
    
    Steph
    

>The adjective is JAPANESE.  The word you and Schmeider use was a derogatory
>racist term used during WW II.

WOW.  I'm sorry.  I didn't mean it as a racist slang, but rather as an
abbreviation.  You'll notice that I call synthesizers "synths" alot too.
I really don't hate synthesizers either.

I truely sorry if it came across as a racist and derogatory remark.
It was not intended to be.

Todd (who_realizes_that_it_is_mostly_America's_fault_that_the_Japanese_
	are_so_competative_in_our_own_marketplace).

RE -.2:

I think the pedal effects on the market are analog.
    

RE: .15

Not sure where this is coming from, but the derogatory phrase used during WWII 
was "nip", not "jap".  I'm not even sure where the term "Japan" comes from, 
because the official name is "Nippon".

I have never met a Japanese person who considered jap anything more than 
convenient short-form, like people say "Mass" instead of "Massachusetts".


				Mark

    I bought the LAST SRV-2000 from Daddy's in Nashua, NH last month.
    They had to ship it down from their Portland, Maine store. It was
    a demo unit. The funny thing about it was that there were three
    different price tags on it from the past few months. The first one
    said "$1400", the second one said "$1199", and the third one said
    "$995 - a steal!"
    
    Oh, yeah, I got it for $495. 
    
    Dan (who is glad he waited for the prices to come down)
    
    P.S. I think Daddy's is the only store in the Nashua area that had
    SRV-2000s. However, the last time I spoke to Fritz at Wurlitzer's
    in Boston, he had a whole pile of them in stock for $495.
    

RE: .15

To top things off, I don't ever remember using the term "Jap" anywhere, and 
certainly not on a regular basis, but I gave the benefit of the doubt until 
doing a fairly exhaustive search on all my recent notes.  I could find none 
where I used the term, and certainly not in this note, but perhaps I missed a 
reply somewhere or didn't read it carefully enough.


				Mark

    Re .20 -  I just talked to James at Wurlitzers in Boston.  He said
              that they have "about 25 of 'em, and we're selling about
              two or three a day".
    
              I'm on my way down there.  Thanx for the tip.
              (Price is still $495.00).
    
                                    Happy holidays to all,
                                                
                                       Rodney 
    

    
    Glad you decided on a real reverb. The current price of the SRV2000
    just makes it too good to pass up (sorry Len). 
    
    BTW, there is no such animal as a Lexicon PCM224x, it's just
    224X+whatever. The PCM series was an "affordable" alternative to
    the real Lexicon studio gear. I had a chance to do my co-op work
    there, and passed it up because all they wanted me to do was assembly
    (electronic). What a stupid!
    
    Maybe the PCM60 will be discounted since it's being discontinued......
    (yea,yea,yea...I'll be first in line)
    
    CdH
    

    Hey - even at list price the SRVs are worth it.  I didn't pay list,
    and I didn't pay $500 for them either, but they've been worth every
    cent even if I look at the difference between what I paid and what
    they're going for now as a rental charge.
       
    len.
    

If they're sold out at Wurlitzer in Boston when you get there, you can go
around the corner to LaSalle Music on Mass Ave.  They also sell it for $495.

				Mark

    EUW in Framingham still had 3 of them as of Saturday the 20th.
    
    len.
    

    Had lots of fun playing with the SRV2000 last week.  What an amazing
    difference!  I had a few twinges of regret about not getting a more
    multi-purpose processor, but now that I've heard it, the twinges
    are gone.
    
    The salesman at Wurlitzer's said something about there being an
    *undocumented?* DELAY mode.  I thought I remembered Len mentioning
    this feature in a previous note.  If so, could someone point me
    to it?  If not, could someone comment on this feature?
    
    Rodney

    
    Does anybody else get the feeling that the bargains of the year
    are going to be digital effects units....?
    
    Both Midiverb and fex are now down to 299 in the U.K. (I payed 399
    for mine) The new Microverb (son of Midiverb) is 249. And we all
    know about the price and goodness of the SRV's SPX's DEP's etc.
                                     
    Anybody got any views on why the sudden quantum drop in prices.
    
                              Paul

    Re .27
    
    I found the note (Lens's) on the SRV2000 delay mode. Note 280 if
    anyone is interested.  I tried it last night.  Cute, but not
    particularly impressive.
    
    Re. 28
    
    I noticed that the SPX-90 recently went UP in price.  They've been
    running an ad that shows the effects as they are displayed on the
    unit, along witha panel that shows the price in the same display.  
    It used to say $745.  Now it says $775.

    Might be a close race between the value of the yen  and the usual
    price decreases on effect processors.  
    
    I hope the yen loses.
    
    Rodney
    

    Has anyone heard the new microverb from Alesis or the Proverb form
    ART?
    
    Just curious as my ship is due in soon....and of course it takes
    a month or so longer for these high tech products to reach these
    northern latitudes......
    
    dave

Re: .30

    MICROVERB	16 bit 16 presets stereo in/out list $249
		looks like a box
		best quote $195

    PROVERB	12 bit 100 presets stereo in/out (1/4") list $395
		10K bandwidth 80db (see review in Mar 87 Keyboard)
		rack mount
		no quote - guess same as below

    MIDIVERB II	16 bit 99 presets stereo in/out (1/4") list $399
		15K bandwidth
		rack mount
		best quote $300-$325

    According to Shane Long @ Profound Sound, all these sound better
    than the old MIDIverb, and don't have the rF problems.

    Again, has anyone had a chance to play with one of these things?

8^)

Brad where did your best quotes for the midiverbII and the microverb
    come from? I can't come within $50 of those up here in Maine...
    I assume these are mail order prices......
    
    dave who's payday is soon!

Re: .32

    Profound Sound in Wichita - 1-800-63-SOUND.  Ask for Shane, and
    use my name (but not in vain, please  8-) if you need to.

8^)

    
    no. use MY name. 
    
    Point is to remind them of the notes NETWORK of 
    hundreds of potential customers all linked together,
    such that 'good' dealers and 'bad' dealers are,
    thru the miracle of the networking age {yawn},
    identified.

    We also do competative product reviews....