Alesis Quadraverb

The Quad, by its nature, is quite sophisticated - it takes ALOT of tweaking to get the sound you want. But, its complexity also makes it very versatile.

I own two Quads and currently use them in my PA effects rack for vocals (and occasionaly use one to gate drums). The Quad works great for this application (where I use some reverb and a very slight delay), but may be a bit of overkill (using a unit with 100 patches for a single favorite vocal patch). I also play a Les Paul Standard through a Vox AC-15, but I was disappointed to find that the Quad killed the great natural tones of the Vox, i.e., the Quad adversely colors the sound of the amp even when bypassed. (I have found NO effect which improves the sound of my VOX . . . am I doing something wrong here?) Grade for vocal PA applications is an 8 - because it sounds decent - and it's nice to have one "no muss, no fuss" patch; grade for instrumental applications is a 3 - if you have a great guitar tone, the Quad may wreck it, but if you have a lousy tone, the Quad may provide some improvement.

My Quads have never really seriously broken down, but one of my display screens is now failing, although I haven't done anything about it.

My last experience with Alesis customer support was about six years ago, when I shipped them my 16 channel mixer. For a very modest price, they took it apart, cleaned and refurbished it, and returned to me very promptly. I was very pleased, grateful and impressed. Having no other experience with the customer support, I must give them a 10.

I play original music, as well as everthing from Hank Williams to the Sex Pistols, Elvis and the Beatles to Megadeath and Stone Temple Pilots. I have gigged and recorded with Quads for years now. If my Quad was stolen, I sure would miss my vocal patch, but I might be inclined to try something else. I love the versatility of the unit, but I hate the sound coloration. I have not compared it to other products of its kind. It is a very cool unit, however, and has a multitude of uses.

Always easy to call up the right algorithm & tweak it to sonic madness. Kudos to Alesis for making a consistent, easy to use interface.

The patented Alesis grainy-ness is evident in the reverb & delay settings, but the chorus, flange & often over looked phaser are warm & FAT! I run my guitar rig through this box & have since '88, &I'd feel naked without this box onstage with me. I've run it through Marshalls, Fenders & Mesas & it always sounds great!

Two breakdowns in eleven years. Not bad.

Each time my unit broke, Alesis went out of their way to get me up & running as soon as possible. The first time, the unit had come completely apart, gut & all, & they fixed the whole thing & upgraded it to a Plus for $30. If I ever DO need to buy a new multieffects unit, it'll be an Alesis.

I play funk guitar in an eight piece band. I'm the only guy that can play chords, so my sound has to be versatile, to say the least! I get every sound from a B3 to clean scratching with this box. I love this box & would be lost without it!

I've had it a good ten years now. I still use it. i've recorded a whole pile of albums with it. I have killer vocal patches set up and i use it at home with my midi/audio computer rig as an insertable. I still use a midiverb ii even!! i have had them powered up in my rack for about seven years continously and have only had to re-flash the QV once.

It ain't a Lexicon. But it is decent and fully represents audio spectrum if you tweak the sucker.

As I said ....one flash upgrade that was it. My road effects rack was sorry to see it go.

Only once and it were easy.

Audio Engineer, I would have four of these used rather than a 4 in one "studio" processor anyday. You have to like the Rev5 though....

Simple to get a good sound and to edit patches. I have a manual, and like all manuals it may be easy for the person who can retain what they read, but for me, I needed to fool around with it to understand it. This is the original Quadraverb.

This rack is great for recording with keyboards and is okay for vocals. For playing live I use it for vocals. So the effects are great. For guitars, nah, unless you like the digital guitar sound, its not good unless you have a crappy guitar.

I never had a problem with it.

Never had to call

Okay, I use it strictly for vocals. Again it is great for recording and live play. I've used it for 10 years and if I had to buy another one, I would. I haven't had many rack processors, but this one I know is great sounding, thats all I care about.

This unit is much easier to use than some of the Very button laden competition (particularly digitech). It has a pretty simple architecture so it is pretty easy to set up. I found myself coming up with my own patches within an hour.

I have seldom heard a more musical guitar processor. It has a beautiful chorus (Dave Gauverin from the Sundays uses one) and it makes no attempt to do what most multi-effects processors can't do... distortion. It has really warm reverbs that can be used very textuarally (Bill Frisell uses Alesis reverb). It is fairly quiet though that depends on the algorhythm used.
There are certain things this processor can't do very well at all. Tremelo: This circuit is noisy as hell and sounds thin and cheesy. Auto-panning: Uses the same bad path as the tremelo. It also tends to muck up clean vintange tones when you run your guitar into it and stariht into an amp. Meaning, if you hit bypass and listen to your sound through your amp, it will pale by comparison to being plugged striaght in. In that sense, it's a vintage tone killer. But on the whole, it is very wamr and musical, not very digital and cold like some others.

Traditionally they are very very reliable though they are a little sensitive to power surges. You can fry the memory that way.

Alesis has always been helpful to me on the phone. I recommend buying the 2 ear warrantee for $39 if you buy a new product from them. Effects and DAT machines... they'll always break because they get so pounded on.

I would definately buy this product again; it's the basic multi-effector I recommend to most people. It doesn't do distortion (get a tube screamer and a Boss ditortion pedal) or compression but it does do all your basic guitar effects and it also works well as a basic home studio reverb too.

Easy enough, although I've never really been certain what was the equivalent of "unity" gain in all of the digital mixing. Touch sensitive up/down buttons are nice.

Ok for guitar. Reverbs can't hang with a higher-bit reverb of course. Fairly quiet. Leslie sim is prety decent. The midi sys-ex mod stuff is great. Getting a bit dated these days I think.

Never had any problems with it. No dropouts or glitchs.

Never had a problem

Great overall; it was the ebst deal going when I bought it. As it stands, probably the best deal you can get for a multi effects under $300 used.