Effect pedals

I’d go Reverb first, without any hesitation.

Elektron onboard delays are OK enough IMO.
And Strymon Deco is subtle I believe.

Just as I suspected, thanks for the confirmation.
It’s a toss up between the Space and the Bigsky, although I’m still leaning towards the Bigsky based on reviews I’ve seen comparing the two of them. I wish I could demo both but unfortunately that’s not possible. What is it you prefer about the Space?

I feel like it can go dirtier than BigSky.
“BlackHole” algo is a must buy if you get an empty H9.

Dennis Kayzer does amazing demos for FX (unfortunaltey only with his guitar)
Be careful to listen to the tail, not the guitar sounds :wink:


He has some loop based demos that includes one of the box, look for them and you may be able to make up you mind between the two of them.
If you have this kind of money, you might want to try the brand new Empress Reverb. I love this company, they do quality and tank-solid FX.

But maybe the cheapest and wisest solution would be to go for an empty Eventide H9 (=Eventide Space in a can) and buy BlackHole algo for reverb and Tape algo for delay…

Great, I will try to check that out. Thanks for the suggestion.

I’ve been trying to build up my pedal collection over the last few years and think I’m pretty much there, researching for hours really helps with the decision making process. Also understanding how you want to use effects helps with choosing. And having a clear credit card :wink:

First two I got were Strymon Timeline and Eventide Space which is a really great combination and arguably all you really need. Both are deep pedals and with a bit of diving into the menus you can create pretty much any type of delay or reverb you could want. Plenty tweaking available.

I got an Oto Biscuit for that grit and filter, the pitch shifting is cool too - and it can be a synth if you want. It is also not something that everyone has which makes it cool for adding a bit of unique layer to your sound. Liked it so much that became a bit obsessed with getting my hands on the new Oto effects units (BIM and BAM) which have been worth the wait (and obsessing over). Really fun to use and great for adding interesting modulation and punchy reverb/delay effects, only just scratched the surface of these guys. They both have a freeze button which is really cool function for live performance.

Most recently I’ve added some distortion/saturation with dual Moog Drive pedals and a Strymon Deco so trying to cover the odd and even harmonic distortion. Plus more filter with the Drives. I have been surprised by extent of extra dynamic control adding these distortions/boosts to the chain has given me.

Waiting for an EH V256 Vocoder to arrive which I thought would be a fun thing to play around with.

I keep on saying to myself “just one more piece of equipment and I’ll have the perfect setup” and never seems to be true but the final pedal on my list is a Fairfield Randy’s Revenge to use with my Rhodes sounds.

Happy to expand on the qualities of any of these pedals if you want more detail.

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I’ve been looking at reverb pedals lately too. I have a bunch of delays (timeline, el cap, deco) but no dedicated verb pedals. Pretty sold on the new Empress.

The ‘real’ verbs sound great. The ‘weird’ verbs sound cool. Has a nice Tape wow + flutter thing for example + it has 3 cabinet sims (+beer mode!?) and they’re currently doing polls on their forum for what to add in new Algorithms update etc.

But I’d also add that if I had none at all I’d maybe go Timeline before a reverb. That pedal covers A LOT of nice/weird stuff :wink: But I haven’t used the Eventide verb etc so maybe that’s just as useful/fun.

I ended up ordering a Bigsky today, which will arrive in a couple of days. Very surprisingly, I found a great price for one here in Seoul that I couldn’t ignore. Now I’m giddy with anticipation. I still plan to get a Timeline at some point, but as LyingDalai mentioned before, the Elektron onboard delays are pretty decent.

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Those reverbs on the Empress sound amazing but jeez, that’s a lot of button juggling to get anything done. Too many functions for too few switches IMO.

Doesn’t really seem that bad to me? Kinda reminds me of the Timeline UI? Screen would have been good tho. Could get a little hairy at shows if you get lost with what patch you’re on…

Most recently, I have been using a Zoom MS-60B on kick. They’re pretty affordable.

It transforms my MD and TT-606 kicks.

It can chain up to 4 FX internally, so using a line select as a pre-gain trim first , into a SansAmp preamp emulation, into a compressor, into a 2 band parametric EQ… all of that affords a wealth of tonal control.
All the drive algorithms have dry/wet mix too, which is nice if you want some subtle overtones. Plus, the noise is low.

I love how it gets some good sustain out of the MD kicks, brings them squarely into Rytm territory. A great pedal for any kind of individual drum sounds, really. I don’t think I’ll be owning just one for very long.

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I sometimes use the Boss CS-3 Compression Sustainer for that kind of effect on kicks, but that Zoom box looks like it has an awful lot of tricks up its sleeve.

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I’ve been having some luck with linear drum patterns all on one AK voice, sending that output into a Moog MF Drive and then doing some parallel distortion by feeding the distorted signal into an input and giving it some Chorus.

Then using a CV out to fluctuate the filter, doing some weird FM cymbal sounds on top of the distortion.

Good fun. Highly recommend experimenting with parallel stuff using a voice out and an in.

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Just got the Moogerfooger 102 ring modulator which sounds great on the AR individual outs, same goes for the 104m delay, obviously these are far from budget but the cheaper alternative would be the minifoogers which gives the same sound with less options.The drive is great on both.

Just discovered my original DOD Meatbox (bass harmonic subsynth) has been in a closet at my mum’s place for almost 20 years - anyone got experience running synths/Elektron gear through one of them? I fear for my speakers’ well-being.

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+1 on CS3

TC Electronics Dark Matter works nice with synths for Overdrive/Distortion

since it seems that we are past the original topic of “budget pedals for elektrons”, I wanted to recommend the Boss DD-500. It works really well with my rytm. The sound of the DD complements the rytm texture wonderfully.

I am looking forward on hearing the new Boss rverb pedal version of the DD-500 which was just announced. It could be superb as well. As in eventide/strymon good, although ovbs these things can be subjective.

The DD-500 has a parametric eq on the wetpath, which is great to have if you do not have a channelstrip to spare for the fx return. Fully MIDI controllable as well and some clever modulations onboard. I bought it to complement my eventide H9 Max but it has actually replaced the H9 as far as delay needs are concerned in my rig(s).

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I wanna revive this thread since I just got the Digitone and updated the software on my Boss DD500 and MD500.

Both of these pedals are fantastic. I just updated the DD500 and I think I can now run the A and B effects on each pedal in parallel. If I set the pedals up in series I’ve got a basic effects chain for [source -> modulation -> delay -> mixer] for two mono channels. I plan to pitch the left and right channels out of the Digitone into A and B paths.

Is anyone else using the Boss pedals? There are pretty lengthy threads elsewhere that really dive into them but even on just the surface they’re great purchases.

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I have the DD-500 and the RV-500. The midi implementation on these pedals is very good and you can control almost every parameter from an external midi device like the Octatrack. That means, one can use them like an internal effect. They sound great and the programming possibilities are deep.

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This thing is really weird in a good way.
http://lalweb.com/mc/mc-e.html

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By the way, the OT allows you to p-lock the parameters of the boss pedals via midi.

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I concur. The toneprint app is pretty cool as well.