revoib

[TWANG]

I tried the vox amplug for a headphone practice device.. found it lacking. returned to sweetwater.

 

 

a word about sweetwater. they send a huge nice catalog with the order.. and a magazine.. and candy.

 

free shipping.

 

I paid return shipping and ordered the

 

Alesis Picovoib.

Ok I'm not from brooklyn, I just love the word voib.

 

It should be able to handle the VJ's preamp signal..

that will let me put in the reverb post preamp where it ought to be.

 

it's settings are simplistic and not very variable.. but I don't want a rack or I'd get one.

 

reviews are kinda spotty.. they church guy who plays on sunday.. the solid state amp kid who puts it in front..

but.. they all had a pretty consistent opinion as to noise, setting hassles, quality of effects, affect on tone, etc.

 

My preview then is.. should work well for reverb.. the delays, since they are set, will probably be less so but still,

same with chorus.. and those three are great since I'd have paid 80.00 for a decent reverb alone.

 

but it has other things, like room hall and plate.. and a mock vibe.. one setting.. probably very limited but still .. maybe!

 

very small unit, good processor, decent reviews, specs out ok as far as I can tell..

 

will say more when it comes in.

 

VJ and acoustic: my taylor sounds pretty good, piezo bridge pup, with a compressor in front, bypassing the

preamp by plugging halfway into the loop d' jr.

 

It's simply all high end or mooshy lows when I use the preamp.

 

I may tweak that thing for acoustic sometime.. and then see what happens to a magnetic pickups tone.

 

but.. it's doable so long as you cut the preamp out of the equations. I think a better compressor, nice to damping that piezo attack peak, with more eq... probably pretty nice!

[cGil]

I bet you're gonna love what you hear from that thing. It may not be fancy, and it may only be designed to do one thing at a time, but Alesis has actually had some practice at making tone sound good from their keyboards. I have a QS6.2 rompler, and it's capable of faking some really decent sounding sample stuff. I would expect the Picoverb to do the job, and do it well. And it's stereo, so you can really have some fun with it. Try using a post OT line out on a dry amp to feed the Picoverb, and feed the Picoverb's stereo outs into a couple more VJr's loop returns. You will freak!

 

Oh yeah, VJr and acoustic guitars... Try the original v2VJr's 68k/68k arrangement for R1 and R2. And you may have to tie R1 back to the grid the way it used to be, as well. Smooths those nasty peizo's right out as long as you keep the guitar's preamp away from "10". And NFB takes care of the boomies for a sweet, harmonically complex tone with more headroom.

 

An easy (sort of) way to rig that up is with two input jacks wired the old fashioned Fender way. Marshall even stole that mod, too for their Hi Lo jacks. One jack gives you 1M/33k (R1/R2), and the other is 68k/68k (R2/R1) with R2 after R1 just the way you want it for acoustics. Fender's '59 Bassman reissue manual says this drops 6db. I think it helps give you a little extra headroom you need to work with, so it's all good.

 

Gil...

[TWANG]

that sounds good.. I may have to do that.. I do like to amp the acoustic up now and then.

and yeah on the alesis.. many said while limited it really was pretty sweet.

 

I'll have to dig up a schem/diag for the dual input.

[cGil]

For the schematic, pick a Fender. Okay, almost. Try anything from a Deluxe on up. Here's one that shows it twice! http://www.schematicheaven.com/fenderamps/deluxe_reverb_ab763_schem.pdf

 

It's just two jacks, two 68k's and a single 1M. In the actual layout, both 68k's are connected directly to the grid to reduce noise. There's more wire involved because it requires a shielded wire from each jack; but overall, it's worth it.

 

Gil...

[nighthawk]

I bought the Picoverb a few yrs ago. After I got it home, I realized that you can't adjust the delay times. I wish that had bought the Nanoverb instead for a little more money. But after using it for a while I liked the reverbs enough that I decided to keep it. I don't care too much for the chorus effects though. I run mine into the front of my VJ, and it sounds real nice to me, but I have to use a buffer between it and the guitar or else it sucks away my tone, real bad. I use an EQ pedal for a buffer and it works great. It doesn't even need to be switched on. I've been wanting to install an effects loop in the near future and try it there. I'm interested to know how yours works out. The Picoverb worked well in the loop of my solid state amp.

[cGil]

I traded in some old gear for a Digitech GSP1101 a few weeks ago. That thing is insane in a VJr with a loop, but it's sabotaged just enough so that the only way to control tap tempo is ya gotta use THEIR pedal with it. That's a bit of a scam, but it's a good board and I really like the simple cat-5 phone cord a lot better than the midi cables and wall wart of the midi controller pedal for my old rig.

 

Gil...

[TWANG]

should be here pretty soon and I'll test the thing as well as I can, front and loop.

I know it's not very adjustable.. and chorus complaints are fairly common..

I don't expect a really great full feature device though.. just like the vj..

I'm just hoping it doesn't ruin the tone..first, and then can do it's job with reverb..

anything else would be a plus for me!

[TWANG]

I sent it back.. just didn't mix well in phones with cd.

and overall.. the unit just didn't give me any confidence for durability.

I guess I'm spoiled.

 

also tried the alesis picoverb.. that sucked, too. it sucked all the punch and lows and tone..

solid state.. when will I ever learn.

[cGil]

Hey, check out one of those Korg Pandora pocket rockets if you get the chance. I had a v1, and even it could pull duty driving a loop return. Wasn't that great, but the v4 (or v5 now?) are supposed to be vastly improved.

 

Gil...

[TWANG]

checked 'em out.. look good, too! thanks.