A Tale of Three Effects Processors.

In the world of music production, I love effects. I even consider effects as part of my compositional writing tools. Now this article is not a debate piece on whether VST effects are better or worse than physical rack mount effects units - nor is it going to be a head to head competition between effects processors. Let's just leave that at - virtual vs. physical has a multitude of pros and cons; and every processor has beauty in what it does.. except maybe the Digitech DSP128, The Yamaha FX500, and the Boss SE50, and the Behringer rack effects unit... They sucked ;-)

This is about how I came to fall in love with three particular dream effects processors, and how I finally came to possess them in some future reincarnation.

There wasn't a lot of players in this market space during the digital boom in the 80's and 90's, and nowadays - we have less physical manufacturers, and the've been replaced by software developers.

Let's get the lists....

First, garden variety stuff. This stuff was either noisy, lacklustre, or just doesn't stand up to the test of time.
Alesis Quadraverb, Q2, MIDIVerb. Too many algorithms, nothing spectacular.
Boss, Zoom, DigiTech boxes. No comment.
Digitech IPS-33b Harmonizer. A decent stab at automatic harmonization.
Yamaha SPX processors. Pioneering, but not that great. Horrible to program.
The newer rash of mundane units from T.C.Electronic, including the M350 and M-One XL.

Delays.
If a dedicated digital delay is what you're after - there was the Roland delay bloodline - SDE-1000/2000/2500/3000 and finally the SDX-330; Sony DPS-D7, Korg SDD-3000, and even the more modern T.C.Electronic D-Two. Then you have timeless (haha) units like the Lexicon Prime Time 93 or the Prime Time II (95).
But none of them compare overall to the T.C.Electronic 2290 Digital Delay.

Reverbs.
First there was the EMT 250, AMS RMX-16, then the Roland bloodline of SRV-2000/3000 and the SRV-330, the interesting Roland DEP-5; Yamaha REV5, Sony DPS-R7, T.C.Electronic's M2000/3000/5000, and then you have Lexicon's bloodline, and this is their arena: 224, PCM90, 300 and arguably, the king of Digital Reverb - the 480L, famously known for it's white LARC remote controller in studios, and the depth it provided on thousands of records. The newer PCM-92 and PCM-96 are pretty amazing, but don't really have the same impact. The newest player in the market is the Bricasti M7, which the short demonstration I've had, is probably the best room reverbs ever.

Notable Multi-Effects and special effects.
Sony DPS-M7 and DPS-V77. The Ensoniq DP/4+ was amazing.
The exotic and rare multi-tap delay: Ursa Major Space Station.
Lexicon made a number of great units over the years. The LXP15 and LXP15II. If you got an LXP1 Reverb, and LXP-5 effects unit with the MRC remote, you had a great pair of Lexicon processors with intensive remote programming. The PCM70 and PCM80 are industry standard multi-effects units, with the later MPX-1 and MPX-550, borrowing much of the great algorithms at a lower cost.
Then there is Eventide.
H3000, DSP4000, DSP7000/7500, Orville, Eclipse, H7600, and finally - the H8000FW.
Yes.... Eventide Harmonizers.
The machine that lets you "Fuck with the Fabric of Time." - Tony Visconti.
The dream machines that anyone who listed closely to Visconti's work, Brian Eno, Robert Fripp, Steve Vai... these were the holy grail of making sounds from other universes.
I'm not even going to talk about the new H9000.

So after 30 years of experimenting, listening and dreaming - I had the ultimate goal of having three units - a delay, a reverb, and a multi-effects processor... a T.C.Electronic 2290, a Lexicon 480L, and an Eventide Harmonizer.

Current going prices for Lexicon 480L is USD$4200.
For a TC 2290 Delay, the average price is USD$1500.
A used Eventide H8000XL goes for USD$3800.

That works out to $9,500 to go get 7U of effects processing heaven. So there is a benchmark.
But that is just the cost. The next thing to evaluate is reliability.
Both the 480L and the 2290 came out in 1986. That is old hardware. At that age you start worrying about displays, power supplies and capacitors. Plus there are some modern amenities that these old beasts don't have - they don't have digital I/O from stock - good luck finding the AES/EBU option boards. The 480L has a fan. It was meant to go in a different room than your mixing console. You know - the room where you keep the Studer and Ampex tape machines? That's why it had a LARC remote control.
On the Eventide front, I started with a DSP4000. Everything I dreamed it would be. Coolest coincidence is that three days after I bought it, I met Tony Visconti after one of his shows. After acquiring an Eventide Eclipse, I finally sold the two units to buy a mint H8000FW, figuring the ability to run two machines in the H8000 would be equivalent to having the two older Eventides, along with various other benefits... I had really no idea. The H8000 compared to the DSP4000 is like upgrading from a really awesome Ferrari 348 to a (holy $#!%) Ferrari Enzo. It's a whole other level.
I currently run it using ADAT lightpipe at 96kHz, giving me two stereo paths into each of the two effects engines. I haven't even tried the AD/DA converters on it.

Reverbs. I've tried a lot of them. My first reverb was a Lexicon LXP-1. Since then, I've had numerous multi-effects units, including the Lexicon MPX-1, an MPX-550 (still have it), and some T.C.Electronics reverbs. In the DAW world, I've tried many, but none of them did "That sound". For special effects, I love the Eventide Blackhole, and the Valhalla Shimmer. I tried out Softube TSAR-1 (which feels like a Bricasti), and Relab LX480, which is really awesome - but when I had a chance to buy the new UAD Lexicon 480L plugin for the same price as 10 months of my Relab subscription, I went to the UAD 480L... and it is PERFECT. It uses a lot of DSP, but I basically can have what feels like having two 480Ls in a studio - 4 reverbs at once, and still maintain enough DSP for my other UAD plugins. What the 480L Random Hall does is breathtaking and at the same time, familiar and warm.

The final piece of the puzzle was getting that 2290 sound. I had bought and sold a T.C.Electronics D-Two. It could do what the 2290 was supposed to do, but it just lacked mojo. My old Strymon TimeLine pedal was the closest thing to getting that mojo - very nice dynamics, but even the Strymon was missing functionality - not to mention balanced I/O at a minimum. In the plugin world I tried out FabFilter's delay - very powerful, yet sterile. I already have my tape delay game down with AutdioThing OuterSpace. I also have Eventide UltraTap (one trick pony), and the Eventide H3000 Factory - which can do a lot of stereo echo effects, but just doesn't feel like it blends into a mix like a 2290. Then T.C.Electronics released the new 2290DT plugin. What really blows me away is the amazing USB hardware control unit that feels like a real 2290 in miniature, desktop form. But then there is the sound... To explain the formula is easy - the 2290 is just one delay line. but then you add modulation the the delay time at one speed; then add modulated panning at another speed, and then you can modulate the dynamics at a whole different speed to force the echo to sit in a pocket in the mix with the dry input material. The plugin itself is very lightweight, taking about 4% on my CPU at 96kHz.

Total spent:
Eventide H8000FW USD$2800.
UAD Lexicon 480L USD$100 (Sale!).
T.C.Electronics 2290DT USD$375.

$3275.

Now if only I could find an Eventide Eve/Net remote for the H8000 (rare and expensive) and UAD/Lexicon released a mini Lexicon LARC USB remote for the 480L plugin.....