Alesis Quadraverb

198?, midi, digital stereo multi-effects unit.

The Quadraverb is a very flexible and controllable multi-effects unit with EQ, reverb, delay, resonator, flanger, phaser, ring modulation etc. The reason my Quad has been such a major part of my music is the midi control; 6 selectable realtime controllers based on which effects you have running in that patch. I have a patch setup especially for this job: Midi controlled reverb and delay; delay time left, delay time right, delay feedback left, delay feedback right, delay input level and reverb input level. What more do you need! Everything starts dry until you bring the delay or reverb input level up via midi. This is an excellent patch for making complex short delay patterns and again you will hear this a lot in my older music.

Unfortuanatly my PC isnt quite as good at midi parameter control as my old Atari was. Maybe it's just my CPU or whatever but the Atari could handle far more midi data simultaniously than my PC can and this is highlighted by the intensive Quadraverb control that I used to use. Allthough this is kind of annoying it doesn't stop me using this kind of midi control.

The presets on the Quad are very good quality and inspiring to flick through. It has flexible routing options and plenty ways to customize the sound. The resonator has 6 channels so you can produce some great pitched sounds with that. I really like the phase shifter too, excellent for using before duby delays in the chain. This unit is also my primary unit for feeding back mono dub delays as it is pure and clean with no detremental colouration. An all round usefull effects rack. I actually have two but the screen on one is totally dead so I just blindly wonder through its presets.