The Same Single Reverb Algorithm for 13 Years!

Just going to agree with OP. I love my elektron boxes but the reverbs have all been some of the worst of any reverbs I’ve used. Perhaps some of this is due to the zero latency design of the elektron boxes - they cant use a fancy reverb algo or it would introduce latency during pattern or kit changes or something, idk. I think more full, lush, long-tail verbs would be a big improvement on future boxes.

Hmmm, interesting thought about latency. I know that digital effect hardware devices may have some amount of latency by nature, but from my experience of using such things since the 90s, things like the Quadraverb or Boss reverb pedals, which may be considered examples of better or “fancy” reverb algorithms in a box, I’ve never really noticed it to a problem.

My assumption is that Elektron devs have not been given the chance to make new effect algorithms for their boxes. I assume that all labor resources have been put to developing all sequencing, synth engines, and whatnot for all their machines available, and they just integrate their (probably) super old and basic effects library towards, maybe towards the end of the dev cycle when like 80% of the product has been put in place.

Again, that’s just a personal assumption.

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Since… Machinedrum times? :slight_smile:

Thats the equivalent of the Clone Wars. A long time ago when LFOs were everywhere

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Good old days :wink:

iirc yes, it’s the same, but with AH+FX you can alter by modifying it with the fx chain, like reverb into warble or into chorus or even the distortion circuits, very flexible on paper, would love to get one some day…

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Great point. I forgot about the AH FX.

I’m 100% with you on the notion that their reverb sounds a bit metallic, but personally I don’t really care so much about it because I’d want to multitrack the recording anyway. In theory, even if the reverb was absolutely perfect sounding, I’d still probably realize down the mixing line that the hi hat was too loud or that snare drum needed to be EQ:ed a bit, and then I’d be left with a reverb/delay/chorus stereo stem that were no longer 1:1 matching the new mix.

If they offered more than one reverb type simultaneously so you could pick a shorter room reverb for drums and a more spacey reverb for melodic parts, that would have been great - but I’d still most likely want to replace them in the DAW to pick my favorite reverbs instead.

So I guess my point is that I think Elektron’s reverb is more than good enough and if you care about details such as the feeling of the reverb, you are likely to care about many ofter things in your mix too, which will take you down the path of Overbridge anyway, where you have all the creative freedom in the world.

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The multi-tracking / overbridge argument. For some, yes; for others, no.

The reverb is decent if youre willing to use your lfos, and it’s part of those boxes as instruments. But the octatracks dark plate and the MD verb are even better. we’ll have to see what tonverk is - I think people are willing to pay a little more for a smaller team like Elektron to make a more feature rich (many engines) and unique box (slides and more modularity) like the old days, knowing what things cost. I have some faith despite what some will inevitably say

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That’s a universal truth and not limited to Overbridge. :sweat_smile:

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Not to get annoyingly pedantic, but it’s not quite a universal truth unless it pertains to taste. You know, yes to heroin→ addiction. No to water → death. Yes to smoking → high likelihood of illness. No to exercise → you get the idea.

My point, my man, is that the overbridge / multitrack argument doesn’t provide a reasonable explanation as to why Elektron don’t include some other reverb algorithms in their machines. How likely is it that people are multitracking? You say likely, but I don’t think so. I see most people just hooking up these boxes, not even using a mixer. Does that mean that it’s unlikely that people multitrack? Or that it’s impossible to say?

Same with Overbridge.

Frankly, thought, it’s not just Elektron. I am no fan of the Roland and Korg reverbs either.

I didn’t say that people likely multitrack. I said that if you care about details like the algorithm of the reverb, you likely care about many other important details too, such as applying eq on some parts (the Elektron boxes generally lack this except for a crude base width filter on digital tracks) or to pick a different reverb for some sounds (the Elektron boxes have just one reverb send for up to 16 tracks on the DT2). So once you go down that path of wanting to shape your sound to your liking (which I very much support and understand!), I’m suggesting that multitracking will offer you so many additional opportunities to perfect your sound beyond just the flavor of a single reverb send or whichever other limitations an Elektron box impose on you.

Note that I’m not disagreeing with you or with the OP, quite the contrary. The reverb on the Elektron isn’t good enough, nor is it on the Polyend Tracker Mini, or the Roland MC-101, or the MPC.

And if Elektron somehow offered 4 different reverb sends and a couple of different delays, and you could apply a chorus effect as an insert instead, etc etc, I too would probably stay in the Elektron box and skip the daw.

But in a hypothetical world where the only additional thing Elektron adds is the option to pick another reverb algorithm for use on all those 16 tracks, you’re still leaving a lot of sound sculpting on the table of you don’t multitrack.

I agree also with the idea of drinking water. And beer. :beers:

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Oh I feel you about multitracking. I would love indy outputs and it’s why I… just… can’t… on a DTmk2. Some kind of saturation, an EQ into the preamp, to eat up some peaks, a compressor maybe. You know, the TR8s has a decent saturation insert with a decent EQ and soft clip on the whole kit. DT2 has distortion and base width filter as inserts and global. Many things exposed to the sequencer. :thinking:

Anyway, yeah a decent channel strip per channel opens up a whole new world. Heck, I’ve got dirt cheap Chinese EQ pedals feeding a Bastl Bestie and it sounds fantastic.

How low could latencies go, theoretically, with oBridge… I guess I’ll find out.

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I heard that the reverb on the octatrack mk3 is amazing.

If I’m allowing myself to expand my thoughts a bit more, I think that Elektron boxes are inherently designed to be performed on live, kind of like an electric guitar or another instrument. You make a sudden twist, perhaps with ctrl+all, and you end up in an exciting, if a bit chaotic, place. Maybe you opened up the filter on one of the sounds a bit too much in the moment and you forgot to close the filter on the other one. Or maybe you drove down the filter with a resonance hump a bit too low so you got an unpleasant spike in the muddy frequency range at a particularly exciting point of the song. Overall it was a great performance, but you wish you could have fixed that one thing. With multitracking you can fix anything that didn’t fit into the vibe you were going for, but you get to keep all the other happy accidents that you could never recreate no matter how much you rehearsed.

Now even if you had the best sounding reverb algorithm in the world in that Elektron box, you’d have to throw the effect stem away anyway because once you’ve fixed the issues you didn’t like with your performance, the effect stem will be the glaring, un-fixable and inseparable sum of all of the effect sends of that entire performance.

So that’s the studio side of the performance spectrum. But let’s flip it and say you’re on the other side of the spectrum: playing live in front of a real audience. If this is you, then first of all you’ve probably rehearsed quite a bit and ideally you’re a reasonably experienced musician, so perhaps you’re less likely to make big mistakes on stage. But still, you’ll be blasting your music through a PA system at close to unpleasant levels… and then the reverb algorithm will play a very small role in that overall mix and vibe of the show.

So I just don’t see how the quality of the reverb algorithm will ever b that important in the scenarios Elektron designed these machines to be used in. It’s important that the effects are good enough and pleasant sounding, which I’d argue they already with some tweaking of the parameters depending on what stuff you send into it. So in the end I can see why Elektron hasn’t made it a priority over the past decade.

Still, it would sure be nice with more options anyway. :slight_smile:

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I never had a “groovebox” or synth with a really amazing reverb on board. My external fx are always better. But i still use the onboard effects because sometimes i don’t need the best reverb for a good sound.

I think if you want to include a very good reverb the device will become quite a bit more expensive. And Elektron probably went by “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. Their reverb algo works to add some reverb to a sound and that’s enough for their devices. They don’t produce high end workstations. They produce fun tools for creative electronic musicians that can do a lot but are still affordable.

But i definitely would like to see an Octa(16 or 32)track Premium with 3 crossfaders and 20-30 analog and digital highend onboard effects. :sunglasses:

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I’ve always kinda wished there was an overbridge hardware FX option, like ah+fx, but which could separate and process each DN/DT track separately.

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The new feature of the DT II help in that regard. You can choose which Tracks go into Ctrl-All.

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that’s the coward’s route

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