MEANWHILE - Effects talk, with some Demos!

I know this has been a very quiet space lately, but have been extremely busy and ended up neglecting this space that I really enjoy to write at.


I haven't really been able to do much music related activities, but as I have been trying to sell some equipment I got recently in a bundle, I managed to record some demos trying to show off how those effects can sound, using my Clavia Nord Modular G1 as the sound source in each of those demos!

The first unit I recorded with was my new Roland SDE-1000:

Roland SDE-1000 Digital Delay Demo

Playing with it, reminded me a lot on how great early digital delays can sound!

Some years ago, I remember doing quite some improvisations using essentially an old monophonic analog synth, to get plenty of controls I can use to tweak the sound in real time, and a set of old digital delays (my Ibanez DM2000 and HD1500 as well as my Korg SDD3000), and the results were just amazing!

This delay seems to me to be on the same league as those, but chose to put it for sale as I am currently away from my studio and space available is not much...
Despite this isn't a real plate reverb, I end up never being able to set all the gear I have here together...

And as you have been able to notice, my time has been very limited as well, so I rather just set a simple setup up and do everything with it, which means my Clavia Nord Modular G2 Engine ends up being used for delays.


The second unit I recorded with was my new Roland RSP-550, which is a considerably more complex unit!

From what I could find, I think this ends up being the only multi effects unit for the studio that Roland had back at the time, and was released before the 330 series (featuring the SDE-330, SDX-330 and SRV-330, which were units dedicated for delays, modulations and reverb, respectively).
Before that Roland had also released the Roland R-880, which is a monster reverb (and was featured in my Roland JX-3p videos in the youtube channel!).

What sets it apart from those units is that it can do all kinds of effects, from amazing delays, to really nice reverbs and strange modulations, and it even features a vocoder!

I tried to demonstrate most programs in two different demos:

Roland RSP-550 Demo - Processing a Sequence with the first 100 effects!

Roland RSP-550 Demo - Vocoder + Effects on different sounds

In the first one, I just play a sequence that is processed by the first 100 effect programs, while in the second demo, I started using the vocoder and then use 4 different sounds which are processed with different effect programs that I felt fitted the sound.

It is a really good unit, but having a Roland SDX-330 (which also features an emulation of the classic Dimension D) and two Roland R-880 (truly amazing reverb unit), I feel this unit ends up not being essential for me.

Despite it should give a different flavour to what I can get with the Clavia Nord Modular G2 Engine (just like the Roland SDE-1000 should), I feel that right now space is more important for me than keeping this unit...

But as you can listen to it in these demos, the sound is really really nice!


You might be asking now... Can the Clavia Nord Modular G2 Engine really replace these units as a proper effects processor?

I honestly would expect it to, since it is such a versatile unit!

For instance, last night I was creating a simple 3 band reverb.
It consumed basically all the resources available (so much that I had to settle for a 18db lowpass filter to separate the bands, rather than a 36db one...), but I got 3 different reverb times depending on the frequency, which really gave some nice ambiance to the sound!


As I said before, the Clavia Nord Modular G2 Engine will probably give me a different sound than what you'd get from those Roland units, but unless you really want that sound, it should be enough! ;)

If not, I am also keeping an Alesis QuadraVerb (with the Plus OS upgrade), just in case an extra flavour is really needed! ;)


It might seem a bit weird I'm keeping this Alesis over the Rolands, but this is a unit that is considerably less valuable than any of those two Rolands, and is also considerably more compact (despite it also needs an external power supply...).

I only tried it briefly, but for me to get 50€ or close to that for it (which would likely be the case since it has some issues with the gain knobs), I think I rather just keep it since it seemed a pretty cool unit (and it was even featured in that Autechre article I shared a while ago)!

Probably I'll still be using the Clavia Nord Modular G2 Engine for effects most of the time, but it's always nice to have some different flavour of effects available just in case! ;)


Anyway, if any of you are interested in any of those two amazing Roland effects processors, just send me a message as I'd really like to get rid of them soon to get some extra space in the apartment! :D

And if you happen to need a MIDI Patchbay, I also have a Roland A-880 available that gets no use here...

The price for these 3 items is only 300€, plus shipping costs from Portugal! ;)