2 sends 1 mixer (pedal recommendations)

The Lounge General Discussion
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I have a Mackie 1202vlz4 with 2 mono sends and 2 stereo returns.

Looking to add a couple pedals to fill those slots, something that can be midi synced if needed (or not, tell me why?) and maybe has presets or at least a saved state (or not, if it means missing out on a cool pedal).

If music genre matters think techno (industrial, minimal, Detroit, hypnotic) and house (deep, minimal) but not opposed to IDM/experimental etc. I use Elektron boxes and have a view to add a small modular setup.

As a starting point, I’m considering the Strymon Timeline and Eventide H9 pedals. I have an Analog Heat Mk2 that already warms up the master.

What can you suggest?

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Source audio pedals are great with stereo, midi and a huge community where you can find and tweak presets (neuro editor).
I‘ve nemesis delay and ventris reverb.

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Pretty good choice to be honest.

You could maybe argue that the dedicated effect should be a reverb as there might be more cases where you’d use two reverbs (like a plate and a hall) than two delays.

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decent priced units, not sure i like the in/outs on the side?

that had come to mind, cant remember now why my brain settled on that configuration
(the original plan was a timeline/bigsky combo)

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Nice topic, happy to think along: I overlap a lot with you (both your music genres, and setup).

I think a good reverb and a good delay is the logical duo:)

I had the Timeline, wouldn’t recommend actually. I feel in the end it’s not the best sounding delay for drum machines. Better for guitar / melodic synths. It missed some punch/transient distinction for drums and percussive elements to my ears. I like the DIG a lot actually. The secondary delay has such a great easy dial for different rhythms. Which brings me to midi:

I started with trying midi on all my pedals. Because I love syncing and program changing all my synths, especially my electrons. But in the end, I always stop using program changes and midi on my pedals. Maybe you’re different, but with pedals to me manually tweaking is nicer, and simpler then manually controlling complete synths. So I prefer simpler pedals instead of top tier 1000-function pedals like Timeline (which I thought I would prefer). For delay in the end taptempo and ideally good control for different rhythmic intervals is way more productive and musical to me. The tap tempo also sounds better then the exactly-perfect BPM of a midi-synced clock.

Perfect pedal for me is Empress Reverb. Most beautiful reverb for all kinds of synths. Plus it has a great simple but sweet spotty reverb+delay. And knobs for dedicated control of lows and highs of reverb (and the delay). It has the option of midi but only with a splitter cable or something you have to buy. The form factor is also great, nice and small but big enough for great manual control.

If you’re gonna use your mixer sends mono pedals should be fine, but thinking long term I think you’d be better off to stick with stereo pedals, in the end they’re best for our kind of gear.

The Oto BAM is my last pedal I got. Amazing, but more of a specific sound. I love it for send-returns of hats and snares.

If I’d be buying new, I’d look at the new Blackhole pedal, small, simpler and slightly cheaper version of the more complex Space. Looking forward to read along in the thread - some pedal threads are too boutique / exclusive for my techno taste:))

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Cheaper as strymon and eventide. :wink:

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Oh and especially with pedal I’d always go secondhand. They’re not too complex and vulnerable compared to other gear I think; so snagging up second hand saves a lot of dough without too much risk.

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I realised lately that I prefer using normal mixer channel for external fx returns, so I can feedback loop it back to the effect, that way you can open new dimensions of sound design

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I also really like the DIG. The 12 bit mode has a very nice quality, the best of that type I’ve heard. However I feel sometimes you’d want a good tape style delay, which the DIG doesn’t do but Eventide does.

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I have the same mixer (well vlz3) and I settled on Eventide Space and Red Panda Particle 2.
Those 2 pedals create sounds I can’t get anywhere else. Both are stereo and have MIDI sync & preset memory.
Lots of other pedals have passed through and been sold e.g. Timeline (the OT delays are enough for me for “standard” delay work), Big Sky (preferred the darker vibe of Space), many esoteric distortions (ProCo RAT survives and is plugged directly into my 303).
Whatever you choose I’d say try to pick a sound you can’t get anywhere else - there are far too many pedals to duplicate something you already have.

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DIG is a pedal that can seem boring when you look at the specs, but it sounds very good. I really like how the modulation works. It just sounds good!

I found that feeding back the DIG with a mixer can get some tape style delays. But i still bought a Volante last month. hehe.

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Source audio Collider might be worth a go. Delay and reverb or two delays or two reverbs. Side input/output is a pain, and side midi - but presets so can be hidden away once you set those up - not tried controlling it via midi apart from program changes yet. Frees up one of your send/returns to :slight_smile:

Have a Meris Mercury 7 and a Polymoon on my mixer send returns at the moment. They’re pretty safe and cover lots of ground - unless you want a tape delay.

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Could you use both in paralel (using Left and Right as two mono’s) or only in series?

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If you use the app on a Mac/pc and possibly the one that connects to via mobile - you can have any combo in parallel or cascading…

Edit - easier to copy paste the manual lol

Flexible Stereo Routing – Collider is equally at home in a mono or stereo rig. The Collider Auto- Detects the Inputs and Outputs that are being used and accordingly routes every delay and reverb effect engine in Mono-to-Mono, Mono-to-Stereo, or Stereo-to-Stereo modes. It is also possible to select between series, parallel, and split stereo modes, when both engines are engaged.

Dual Processing – Features two completely independent processors. Its Dual DSP platform gives the pedal massive processing power, essentially providing two high-powered pedals in a single enclosure.

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Hang on, are you asking - left Chanel goes to delay, right goes to reverb?

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Just for consideration: You could also treat the stereo returns simply as two stereo channels for some other synth or whatever.
Sounds kinda obvious, but for one project that I was doing a while ago, I assumed I would be running out of channels for longer than I would like to admit :sweat_smile:

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Besides the aforementioned H9 and Source Audio pedals, take a long look at the RV-500. Two parallel independent reverbs each with stereo delay that could take care of both your sends and only need one return. Tons of nerdy configurability in the midi and routing.

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I had no idea the RV-500 could do that.

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a lot of good input here, very much appreciated :slight_smile:

i have been looking at the Empress EchoSystem too, i think that one might be a winner

i like allowing for expansion and if needed controllability hence hoping to keep midi and reach beyond mono to something that supports stereo

the blackhole algorithm on the H9 is one its drawcards but the blackhole pedal can definately meet my needs without a bunch of additional fluff i probably wouldn’t use

worth a consideration, like the nemesis and ventris in a single pedal but still has that awkward ergonomics of side entry/exit cables which i feel will bug the hell out of me

these are two good alternatives to the strymon timeline/bigsky combo and something i’ve looked at as well but need to revisit as i take in the great comments here and look over options armed with more insight

i have been using the CR submix fed through the AH and back into a stereo return, for a small mixer the routing options are quite useful

seen this mentioned elsewhere with a positive response before and need to take a closer look

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It’s deep. I would have one now but the simpler H9 fits my setup better.