Alesis Microverb III

it's very easy and i found the manual and program chart immediatly on the web (trough google). I like that you don't have any menu's, just some knops to make your effect so it's easy to change in a live situation

this is not an unit for recording (low samplerate and a bit noise on high input level). i use it for an reggae soundsystem to put some delay's or reverbs on the mic and that's what it is fit for.

i only have it a few monthes, but it has survived ruff conditions (tropical storms on open air gig's, dust, moisture, fog, smoke...) and it has dropped from 3m high without any damage on the system (only some surface damgage)

I never had to use it except for the manual wich i found immediatly.

i use it mainly on a reggae soundsystem to spice up the mic of the mc, and it does it's job very wel, it's easy to understand and live adjustable with some very simple operating. The little noise that it produce is not so important on live gig's. It's not fit for recording purposes due to the low bit- and samplerate, otherwise this would be a very good one...

i wouldn't pay more than 100 ? for it

It's very easy to use, but it lacks of MIDI interface for saving sets.
I've created a program called "VMicro3" that is a visual "setting saver" for Microverb III, if you're interested you can download this at:

http://www.sintesinet.net/music

it's freeware!

No noise at all (but my studio is quite old, maybe I can't ear noise cause of Poly800 and BassStation noises!).

It lacks of full setting of delay time

I use this with Kawai K3M and Yamaha TX81Z.... and neve change this!

With my "not so new" synth a must. A "on/off" button is not present, but it's very good!

I got this from my uncle because he didn't use it any more. It is very easy to use, I never had a manual for it but its very easy to pick up.

Its a bit noisy if the input is too high, so you have to found a good level for it.
The effcts are generally quite good except the large hall effect which was way too much reverb.
I mainly use it for vocals and keyboards, where it sounds pretty good, I don't use it for my guitar very much, and again the effects sound good when the guitar is put through it.

I don't know if I use it very much on a gig, but if I did, I would have to depend on it, but I'm not to worried about it breaking, its been going for quite a while now

Not dealt with them

I haven't managed to get it to sound like my favourite artists because I don't try to, I use it to create my own sounds and use those sounds for songs rather than trying to copy others.
I have used it to make music, not a lot but some.
Its generally very good, I wouldn't recommend anyone buying it because of its age and others that are better are available

I bought mine secondhand, and with no manual of anything was able to pick it up and use it straight away, everything is nicely laid out and clearly labelled, the only downsides are that you can't edit that much, only change preset, and that the level meter is one light that changes colour, which i hate, i'd much rather a bargraph. having said that, it was very cheap, and i would rather have decent sounding presets with no control than all the parameters and awful sounding reverb whatever i did.

i use it with a mixer from post fader aux out and a stereo input channel. i think the sound of the effects is nice, particularly the shorter, plate and gated reverbs, but the overall sound of the unit is noisy. i would like to see if an electrician knows how to convert them to balanced jacks, as i think that would help, but mostly i think its down to the 33K sampling rate. i normally drive the aux send master hard until the input light is flashing red so i can turn the input control down, as this seems to be less noisy, and also set mix to fully wet, and have the dry coming off the mixer, this usually works ok and hides it pretty well.

not had it very long, but no problems so far.

i havent spoken in person, but the website is good and even though it is quite old, it is easy to find and download program charts and user manuals.

overall i think it is a good value for money effects unit, although it is a bit noisey when you use the internal preamp. obviously it wouldn't be used on proffesional recordings because of the noise, but for certain styles where the reverb just adds depth rather than being obvious and in your face it is great for home studios, great for beginnners who are put off by complicated units, and is good for live use, where self noise isnt as important as being able to change effect quickly, and reliability. if there is upgrades avaliable i would like to see the dac's up to at least cd quality, and balanced in's and out's.

Can it be any easyer? I think my grandmother could use this thing! It has a low & high EQ knob, input, mix and output knobs, an effect selector knob (16 available), and a 1-16 effect depth knob. How 'large' do you want the effect to be? (the higher the number, the 'bigger' your hall will be... or your room, delay, etc) Only con to this is you won't be able to combine for example a delay with a reverb. But hey.. For this money? I'll buy 3...

Well, I've read a couple of the other reviews, and it tends to be a slight bit noisy... i agree. That is, compared to what the market has to offer these days (don't forget this baby's seen a couple of summers allready!) but I must agree with Hap as well! One of the prime things in recording is making sure you have a high-as-possible input gain, and making sure the input is high, The noise becomes a hardly noticable factor! So if you can't get it right, get some books on recording. Turning the mix knob up full, and using it as an aux send, Noise becomes an insignificant factor. Something most of these reviews forget to mention is that, apart from being noisy, this machine also has some terribly great sounding reverbs! Plus it's so easy to use, being able to play hardly matters anymore, every fruitcake can make himself sound great! I allways hate the reverbs with so many programmable parameters, you never really get the sound you're looking for... With this things it's like 1, 2, 3. max your input, select an enviroment, and tweak with the effect depth untill you have the sound you want. This ususally does the trick for me, BUT, if you want even more, try using the EQ knobs shaping the sound to whatever you see is fit. I must confess i ususally have my low EQ turned up quite a bit, because i like having some extra vibe to the lower tones... If this doesn't sound appealing yet, go buy yourself a cathedral.

Never any trouble... In fact, i once 'blew it up'. I put a wrong cable in the input, started recording, and i couldn't hear a thing... all i saw was the led turning red. I ended up finding out i'd been sending quite a number of watts into the poor thing... I thought it had seen it's last days, but putting the right plug in, and trying again, there we went... no problem, haven't had any trouble since, and it's been on a couple of tours, on a dusty attic, and has functioned quite some time in a home recording studio since....

Never had the pleasure... Who needs costumer support for a device this simple and reliable?

Like i said, it's been used on the road, for a pop band, it's seen some rock, funk, soul. etc. I've used it on guitars, piano's, vocals, and various other things. I now use it in my home recording studio, used for lounge, drum n bass, house, and club productions. This results in having used the thing for virtually every instrument you can possibly come up with and I love it with all of them... It can be a bit notchy, but playing with the EQ knobs should fix your problem. Unless you want a specified unique sound, this thing'll help you out. If you want my opinion? Any more options will drown you in them. I often came across machines wich had so many options, a large 'small hall' would sound virtually the same as a small 'medium hall'. besides, reverb is usually used just to spice up your sound a little. being like a background extra. In the end, no expert will hear the difference between having your effects depth knob set to 5 or 6, or be able to tell wether what you used was a medium or a large hall. So who needs even more options? They only con i can really think of is you can only use one effect at a time, so you can't combine for example a delay with a reverb.
My final judgement. I must say, this is no studio reverb. It's too noisy for that. But being your avarage home recorder. This thing will do nicely, and the best part is you can add it to your collection without having a reverb in your bank account...

One of my favorite things about this unit is that it's completely easy to use. The manual is available at http://www.alesis.com/downloads/manuals/MicroVerb3_Manual.pdf , but I have not been able to find the program chart anywhere. I'd like to see the descriptions of the special effects - Anyone??

I use this in the effects loop of my analog Portastudio, typically with a medium hall or small room, and it sounds good. Sure, it's not a Lexicon, but IMHO, if you notice the reverb you're using too much. Definitely not transparent or quiet enough for pros.

No problems. This unit was in a rack in a guitar shop I worked at 10 years ago. Somehow it ended up in a dusty storage room at my church and my Pastor gave it to me! I cleaned it up and everything works fine.

I'm glad I could find the manual, but I really want the program chart!! No opinion though, since I havn't tried to contact Alesis about it.

Better than no reverb or a guitar stomp box!

Very easy. The manual is a great help since every setting is preset. I really liked the fact that you can choose the setting you want without having to spend the time creating your own. I use mine for adding reverb to my drums through the effects loop of my 4 track. I can play back the track and cycle through the reverbs until I get the one I like.

As I have seen in the other reviews many have said it is a noisy unit. I don't agree. It depends on how you adjust the input gain and the EQs. I always try to make sure I have a strong input signal from my source, then use very little input gain. The more you use the input preamp the noisier it gets. I also use the H freq EQ sparingly because if it is set too bright, the digital noise of the sampler comes through. Some reverbs sound cleaner and more realistic than others. I found the chambers and plates were the cleanest and most natural sounding. Some of the delayed reverbs have a little digital noise to them so I don't use them.

10 years and counting.

N/A

I use it from Rock to Ambient music (I.E. Patrick O'Hearn), the long reverbs are my favorite, they work very well for creating unbelievable ethereal and spatial sounds when used with keyboards and electric guitars.

Can't get any easier. Fiddle with the input/output until you're satisfied, select program and go. Comes with a price though - you can't edit any parameters whatsoever. The different programs sound like they just changed the time parameter in increments.

Extremely noisy. Low quality converters (in addition, they sample at only 33 kHz!). Delays sound really bad, reverbs are OK.

Never failed on me.

If you are at all concerned with getting hiss-free recording, don't buy this. Since you can pick it up very cheaply, I guess it's prime application would be when rehearsing or whatever, when noise isn't such a big factor.

Really easy !!

This unit is too NOISY to be used... (Compared with the Quadraverb I use in the same conditions)

Fine... 8 years of work...

Never dealt with them

This unit is EXTREMELY SIMPLE to use. No digital menus, no garbage. 256 program presets plus low and high eq make a killer combo. Unfortunatley I don't have a manual for this one, that is what I set out to find tonight and instead I stumbled across this rating page => I can't imagine much use for the manual except putting a name to all of those presets. Silly I suppose cause if it sounds good, it is good.

At the moment I am only using this with my mic since I don't have enough patch cables to use it as my effects loop yet. I just got a mackie 1604 today and plan to use it with that and the rest of my gear. When I first plugged it into the mackie I was shocked to find how noisy it was, then I turned down the input sensitivy to about half and it quieted down considerably, still a little noise when you get DEEP into the delays. I think ANYBODY no matter what style of music could incorporate this piece of gear, DEFINATELY worth my money =>

I've had it for aproximately 8 hrs so I can't yet comment on the reliability. But by the reputation of alesis, I think I could stick it in my rack and forget about it

Never dealt with them, couldn't tell you Although, I tried to buy a power supply for the unit today and it wouldv'e been $29!!! To heck with that! I do have one BIG peav about alesis, they use 9 volt A/C output power supplies instead of you standard D/C output(more in a minute

Ok kids, this is what happened. I went to the pawn shop, they had this little black gem sitting there marked $29 needs work? I asked them and they say the guy who sold it to them SWEARS it works and the guy who bought it couldn't get it to work and he brought it back. But there was no power pack with the unit(in fact, I've never seen ANYONE that I know who owns both the microverb and it's wall wart) I remember a little factoid from back in the day when my friends had left a micro2 at my house for a while. These little gadgets take a 9vac output as opposed to the standard d/c output. Ok, the only other thing I even knew took a 9vac wall wart was none other than the original Nintendo. I dashed home and grabbed my nes adapter and went back down the the pawn shop. wouldn't you know that the damd plug wouldn't fit so I asked the pawn shop owners for a couple pieces of wire and electrical tape and went to work right there on their counter. Sure enough a little makeshift hackery(no permanent damage) and I found myself with a mv3 in extremely good condition for $29.95. Next trip was to Radio Shack to get parts to make an adapter so that I wouldn't have to cut the end off my nes adapter. Here's the part list: 274-1568c(coaxial dc plugs 5.0mm od 2.5mm id), 274-1577B(inline coaxial dc power jack 5.5mm od, 2.1mm id), a piece of wire, solder, and a soldering iron and your set. Don't worry about polarity since we're talking a/c here and polarity is irrelevent. The parts say dc plugs and dc power jack but ignore that since it is BS. If you don't have one already, you can obtain a 9vac NES replacement power pack at the Rat Shck while you are there. But if you have to buy that, you're ALMOST as well off buying the alesis scam pack... I've got no shame about using a NES pack though. An overall fantastic value => If I ever get sick of it, it will be on eBay for four times the price I paid.