Worst Hardware Multi-FX That Deserve Emulation?

[ghettosynth]

Ok, a little bit more info on the UE-400 series. I'm a bit busy so I don't have time to explore it all, but, I picked the first module that I could quicly find schematics for, the compressor. I think that it's a little bit interesting, you may, or you may not. YMMV and all that.

So the "O" series CP-835 compressor II is the right vintage to match the UE400. When you look at these two the schematics look similar. However, the CP-835 uses a CA3080 and the UE400 uses the LM13600. Other than that, the circuits are very similar, almost identical. The "9" series came after and the CP9 compressor also uses the LM13600 and, again, looks very similar. One difference is that it renames the "sustain" control and to "threshold and adds an "attack" time control. If you look at the schematics it's clear that the adapted the circuit around Q105 of the UE400 schematic to do this.

So, here's what I think, and maybe I'm wrong, so there, I said that up front, so don't go saying that I said this and that, it's just what I think, and opinion.

I've had a TS808, a TS9, and a TS10. They pretty much sound the same to my tin ears and if you match the tiny handful of parts that are different they definitely sound the same. I think that they're all pretty much the same and they are just small evolutions of the same circuit. I bought the TS808 when it was the cheapest thing in the pawn shop. I didn't buy it because it was god's gift to anything.

At any rate, I think that these are just the core of the guitar circuits from Ibanez's point of view. However, each product captures the evolution of the core circuit at some point in time. So, for whatever reason, perhaps cost, perhaps signal to noise and sound quality, they started using the LM13600 in place of the CA3080 and that core circuit made it's way into the UE400. Then, they continued to adapt the same circuit and it gained an attack control and was back into the CP9 stompbox.

So while I think that they are essentially the same circuits as the stompbox cores, if you are a fanatic about miniscule differences in "tone", then the are all probably unique to your ears. I'm guessing because of the price though, that there is something about the sum of the parts that doesn't capture that TS-808 magic in the UE400.

I doubt that there's much point in exploring further, the UE400 is clearly a collection of stompboxes that are right between the O series and the 9 series. This of course makes sense, it's a product adaptation of stompboxes, and then lessons learned could be applied to the new round of stompboxes.

[plexuss]

Yes, the UE400 is a unique beast sonically. I had one as did a friend of mine when they were new products. We also had an assortment of Ibanez pedals made before and after the UE400 (not all of them though) and the UE400 definitely brought a different sound to the table. It was a very nice multu-FX actually but prone to noise and EM pickup.

[arkmabat]

I actually like the sound of Line6 distortion and some cheap guitar multi-effects (Digitech?) pedals.

Ya but you live on the edge.

There's something to be said for okay-sounding, low-cpu effects. You wouldn't necessarily want to use them in a final mix, but they'd be very usable for just slapping on an instrument during jamming or composing. The KORG MDE-X sort of scratches this itch, though.

[DrGonzo]

This! Mine is broken and I miss it dearly! It's got the crappiest awesome digital FX section ever and also some semi-useful analogue distortion going on.

Slight OT - but didn't ART take a quick dip into the sampler market at one time? Or am I confusing ART with Peavey?

/C

[ghettosynth]

This! Mine is broken and I miss it dearly! It's got the crappiest awesome digital FX section ever and also some semi-useful analogue distortion going on.

Slight OT - but didn't ART take a quick dip into the sampler market at one time? Or am I confusing ART with Peavey?

/C

Peavey definitely tried. The Peavey synth products were definitely very Peavey. I don't think ART did anything with synths/samplers.

[Etienne1973]

Sure far from being a real sampler or even synth. But ART Multiverb III and SGE Mach II effect boxes provided sampling + pitch transpose via MIDI. Guess Delay RAM only was used and further sample storage was not possible.

Source: http://www.muzines.co.uk/articles/the-a ... ating/7259

[andrelafosse]

Alesis Quadraverb GT

[Audiority]

For whatever reason, the image wasn't showing up for me...



Yeah, the deltalab stuff was quite popular back in the day.

[sokoleski]

I would LOOVE to see a Plug-In version of the Lexicon MPX-1.

I has a wounderful modular fx architecture , and quit the modulation section.
But the cpu was a bit underpowered and it's really awkward to program.

A proper GUI would take this to high heaven.

I wish upon star