You have no way of backing up such an outrageous claim
3 Likes
They sound okay, the filter is acutally sounding very good. But you cannot expect the quality of sound, say a reverb pedal has, that costs half of what the whole box costs.
I realy enjoy the effects for sketching and basic ground work, but if I need a specialist I use one.
One can easily improve upon the reverb quality by adding a cheap pre-owned external box using the cue outputs as fx sends. Comes in mind: the TC Electronics M300 (2 independant fx (delay and reverb) with KNOBS, no menu diving required, and very decend sound quality in stereo of course. Can be had for as low as 60€ on the used market. Other contendants are TC Electronics M-One XL (some menu diving required but very good sounding, street price 130€ average), the Lexicon MX series (the 400XL can be found for 150€). You can go further and add a cheap patchbay, a hardware compressor with a sidechain so that you can duck the 'verb to get HUGE reverbs yet not drown the source audio) and for a VERY reasonable budget you improve stuff quite a bit. Using the patchbay allows for quick reconfiguration so you don’t even sacrifice your cue outputs definitely, you go modular.
(Or get a Digitone and route the OT Cue outputs through the DN’s FX 
)
2 Likes
That’s pretty much my setup, but for all the instruments.
On the MX400 (which is in my setup) - don’t get the XL version unless you plan to use XLR plugs. I was almost fooled by it’s name. XL only means it has XLR sockets and not 1/4" jacks.
1 Like
Since almost everyone in the live-sound market switched to digital mixers with onboard FX or a Multirack (and similar) a couple of years ago the prices for decent used hardware fx dropped a lot. (With the exception of the very high end stuff that retains vintage aura). But all entry level - mid level fx can be had for ridiculously cheap and most of them, especially the entry level stuff from specialists like TC, Lexicon, Yamaha, Roland… had attained seriously high levels of performance.
1 Like
Agreed! I am super happy with the sound of the MX400 and it was around 200€ about 1,5 years ago. Other specialists like the empress, space or ventris weigh double that.
I recently had one for free. 
Still have one too. But bought it full-price when it was released. Didn’t get much use because I really liked the knobs on the M300, too much menu-diving on the M-OneXL.
2 Likes
Moot point anyway, because I just checked and the OT reverbs are not, in fact, mono at all (except Spring, which should be mono because being mono is one of the defining features of a real spring reverb). Easy enough to check - load some kind of short, mono impulse like a clap or snare, play it through one of the reverbs set to 100% wet with a long decay, record the left ant right outputs of the OT to a pair of mono tracks in your DAW, and then invert the polarity (“phase”) of one of the tracks. Plate and Dark don’t even come close to nulling (spring, which is actually mono, nulls perfectly).
What you might be hearing is that I’m pretty sure they’re running mono-to-stereo not stereo-to-stereo, so the dry signal is summed to mono before it hits the reverb algorithm (which is really common, especially in hardware), but the actual Dark and Plate algorithms are absolutely stereo.
Not really better or worse than true stereo-to-stereo. True stereo usually sounds really good if you’re listening on headphones or sitting right in the sweet spot of a pair of speakers, but in any other context it can just turn a mix into an indecipherable mess. I’d say mono-to-stereo like the OT does is almost always preferable if you’re playing live, and tends to translate better in general, but true stereo can sound great in the right context.
My guess is that Elektron chose mono-to-stereo partly because it might be a bit less processor intensive (I’m not actually sure if that’s true, though) but mainly because the majority of reverbs heard in the majority of recordings since the invention of stereo recording were mono-to-stereo (even actual stereo reverb chambers tended to use a single speaker with a pair of mics AFAIK).
6 Likes
Another vote for mono to stereo here. Real acoustic spaces are not binaural.
That’s correct. Both the dark and the plate reverbs have a stereo image adjustment (the “mono” knob in the main set-up page).
Apparently.
So? I never meant to say the contrary, that’s what I called false stereo.
Yes, that’s what I don’t want. It doesn’t respect dry signal panning, and totally reduce the stereo field with 100% wet, even if there is a pseudo pre eq stereo fx.
So I don’t know how to call that, pseudo stereo vs true stereo, and of course true stereo is more cpu/dsp consuming.
If everyone prefer mono, so be it. Earing that Digitakt was even better because it uses mono samples only makes me nervous. I will always defend full stereo path possibilities, even if I use mono guitars! 
I’d like to do quadriphony with OT!
Ok mono is absolutely great in low register!
(would you admit a stereo chorus fx on bass?)
3 Likes
Acoustic spaces and their sound reflection behaviour respect the stereo position of sound sources. Take a drummer, sit him in a cave near the left side and let him hit a drum once. Then listen from where the earliest reflections are coming (use a wide enough cave to hear the reflections clearly). These reflections are not coming from a virtual center position.
2 Likes
Will do.
10 Likes
Don’t forget to take him with you when you leave. He may starve otherwise 
3 Likes
Don’t worry. I’m an environmental activist. I will never leave any trash behind.
4 Likes
Don’t go with that drummer, you’d be exhausted.
Nice reverb btw.
And +1 for binaural recording, easy to make a stereo pair with electrets soldered instead of in ear headphones “speakers” for very cheap. Tried and approved.
2 Likes
EDIT: NM, I was in the middle of a project when I was messing with the mono/stereo control and thought I’d misremembered how it worked, since I always leave it by default, but I hadn’t.
1 Like
127?
My bad, I misread and thought you meant the algorithm itself was working in mono.
Anyway, it’s a matter of taste and it would be nice to have both mono-to-stereo and stereo-to-stereo but if I had to choose I’d choose mono-to-stereo since it translates better.
But I agree it would be nice to have the option of true stereo, too.