Alesis Quadraverb GT

I found this unit easy to use and relatively easy to program.

The 'clean' effects are just beautiful. The distortion is crappy. I did not find any of the distortion sounds usefull. Therefore, I rate this unit a '9' for the clean sounds.

My main complaint is in it's reliability. The unit never worked properly in stereo. The left side would intermitently go out. I spent $80 to have the unit repaired and the problem still existed. It never did work right.

As stated above, I spent a lot of money on repairs and it never got fixed. I was told by a rep for the company that they were too busy designing the ADAT to worry about something as trivial as the GT.

Because of the problems I had with the company getting the unit reparied (or the lack there of), I will never buy anything made by Alesis again.

I bought this unit used, so had no manual, and it still only took me a few minutes to figure out how to use it. My background isnt in rackmount units (this is my first real programmable one, the other one i have is an all-preset one and a million fx pedals).

It depends on what you want to use it for. THe noise gate is very good so it is possible to get it to be dead quiet. If you want this unit to be your all in one unit, you probably wont be happy if you want to use a lot of distortion. THe main complain one hears about this unit is it's poor pre-amp section. The speacker emulators are nice, but the distortion is lacking (the overdrive is ok). I bought this unit for it's classic quadraverb features (reverb, delay, chorus etc). In those areas they shine (as well as with the flange, phaser and leslie speaker emulator). The tremelo is terrible and noisy. I give this unit a 9 for sound, because it does what I want it to do, but it doesnt do everything well (pre-amp).

No problems yet, but i've only had it for a few months.

I would buy it again. I wanted a unit for reverb, chorus and flange and it does them great.

I got mine and had it sussed out in less than 2 hours. It's very easy to get set up, and programming of patches could only be made easier with a dial to scroll through values. Their touch-sensitive value buttons (push harder to go faster) are a decent substitute and work well once you get used to the feel. The manual is alright. A bit wordy, but complete.

Once I got past the idea of using its guitar preamp for my main tone- shaping tool, the sound is excellent. The preamp in this thing is lame. I've found that the only things I have used it for are to mess with the send to the digital effects, like putting overdrive on the Leslie simulator. The digital section on this is excellent. The main reason I'd recommend this unit over the regular Quadraverb is for the mix section's direct output setup, which lets you blend the effects output with the dry signal easily. This lets you mix a nice Leslie effect with the dry signal in any proportion you like. Another cool feature of this device is the preamp output level control, which lets you shut off the reverbs and delays from the input end via a continuous controller, so that reverb and delay sounds decay naturally after the effect is turned off, rather than being chopped off at the output side. My bottom line: If you have a good channel switching amp, or a good preamp and power amp setup, this device can give you a ton of good digital effects. Its preamp can also let you do wierd things to the effects signal, like compressing it, so that the sound is almost dry when you play hard, but gets wetter and wetter as the note decays. A really cool sound... A little overdrive on the Leslie simulator works well, too.

I haven't had a problem with this device in the four years of (ab)use it's gotten from me....

I would probably buy it again if they hadn't come out with the Quadraverb II unit with completely flexible signal routing and mixing capabilities (as well as 8 FX at a time...). I'd certainly advise anyone looking for a good unit at a decent price to look for one used....

Main drwaback are value up/down buttons which are not as practical as knobs/alpha dials.

Pretty good considering the price. Nice chorus/flanging and reverb. Main drawback here is that the preamp section (which makes the difference between a quadra plus and a quadra GT) isn't great. It works OK for mellow drive, but forget any heavy riffin' sound.

Very reliable. I once had it sitting on top of a fender tube amp (which produces a lot of heat) during a very *hot* day: After an hour it apparently overheated and shut off automatically. I powered it up again and everything was back on line without a problem, nothing blown.

It's great value for it price. Buy a simple floor unit or some stomp boxes and you've spent just as much, while the Quadra GT gives you far more possibilities and at least as good a sound. Nowadays I'd probably invest a bit some and get a Digitech 2101 or comparable unit with a better preamp section (that's what I miss most).