Classic FX unit packed with many lovely settings. I've owned one since 1991 and today I received the FX900 from Ebay, and I have used them in the past but never got around to buying one until now. From my past experience I would say the FX500 and FX900 were known for being solid performers, especially in a live band environment; the FX500 actually clinched an audtion I had with a touring covers band, whom occasionally went into European places. Anyway first job replace battery and then rock!
@leonardolad comp: -22 THR, 1/inf RAT, 1.0 ATK, +8 LVL; EQ: +5 LoG, +2 MiG, 2.0k MiF, 0 HiG, +2 LVL; reverb: Erv TYP, 15 RSV, 10 LIV, 76.0 DLY, 96 MIX, -8 LVL. i haven't touched most of those settings for comp and EQ as they were default like that but that's what it says on the LCD. have the DIST and MOD effects bypassed and dial those numbers in and you'll have the exact same setting. hope it helps!
I've owned one of these units since 1989, and it's an essential part of my rig. I use for its EQ, MIDI-controlled volume, and reverb. I EQ the signal from my ADA MP-1 so that my hi-fi power amp sounds like a guitar amp. I recommend the simple plate reverb; the room and hall suck: they are way over-ambitious for the technology! If you boost the middle on the EQ and assign the frequency to a MIDI expression pedal, you get a *terrific* wah-wah effect.
Dynamic range trick: I made one preset on my ADA MP-1 which uses the tube clean channel to create a sound which is very clean when played softly, but limited by the tubes when you strum hard. You can hardly hear any distortion, except over loud chords. When you pick harder, it's sounds louder due to the extra harmonics being generated, not due to a higher voltage level. I get a warm, loud clean through FX500 without any clipping! No matter how strum, the FX's red light never comes on.
@niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick i finally picked it up(with the original rack mount!), with a midiverb II for $100. i've just plugged it in so i've only gotten to scrolling through the presets. so far soft focus and lush strings are all that seem worthwhile, though sweep gate with tweaking or a MIDI expression pedal sounds like it has promise. i can't wait to find a proper adapter for the midiverb so i can put the bloom patch behind the fx500 and bliss out.
@evilrainbow yep, you'll see what i mean when you're trying to dial stuff in. it's pretty annoying getting the interface to work at first but you'll get the hang of it. there's nothing much else special in there though. i have a preset set up which does a bit of comp and eq with a dash of reverb which i use to just make everything generally sound a bit better. i also did the obligatory "turn all the reverb controls to 11" for just a cloud of mush. pretty fun. and of course this reverse reverb.
@KazKylheku To keep myself honest, I did a thorough re-evaluation of the reverbs with a fresh pair of ears. I take it back; the plate reverb is the one that sucks. Maybe it can be tweaked not to suck, but with basic settings (say 50 ms delay, high frequencies at 5, about 2-3 seconds of reverb time) it is quite bad. Even at only 12% mix, it will muddy your tone to an amazing degree. If you're having a "bad tone day" when everything sounds harsh, that may be mistaken for warmth.
@evilrainbow the delays on the unit are pretty cool though, the soft focus thing actually has a dual delay set up that you can't actually hear unless you blend in the clean signal because it's just a cloud of reverb, but you can get cool mis-matched delays either in mono or in stereo (where it sounds awesome). the unit is really flexible but only a tiny portion of its capabilities are saved in the stock presets.
@SkankerxD right in front of the amp. i don't have an FX loop and the amp is set clean anyway so it doesn't matter. if you're running a distorted amp you could try putting it in front and it will sound like a meteor colliding into the planet.
@evilrainbow i have never played the FX500B but i think that it is the same unit with the same effects but with different presets that are geared towards bass instruments. yamaha reused the same algorithms in a lot of their units even if there isn't a designated preset for them. so you can probably dial this sound and the slowdive 'soft focus' sound in as well and create your own preset for them. that's only my guess though.
@DemoColorScheme "It actually sounds better than the SPX-90." The SPX-90 is an older technology. It filters the input signal to 12 Khz, so it's okay for guitar, but that will affect the tone. (Filtering the output of a guitar pre-amp to 12 Kkz is actually not actually a bad idea prior to A/D conversion; the last thing you want is to under-filter the signal and get nasty aliasing artifacts).
@niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick thanks! i figured it would be about as cheesy and awful as a late 80s digital FX processor could be, but knowing that it's not hobbled by an inability to really dig in and sculpt your own sounds is encouraging. Those reverbs and delays are honestly what I'm after, and I'm sure fiddling with compression and other functions could be fruitful as well. The 500B looks like it has 30 bass oriented presets and that is the only difference. also it's $15 cheaper.
@Veldius nah mine doesn't do that. make sure the input gain is up full enough so that the overload (red) LED blinks when you strum the strings very hard. other than that i don't know what the problem could be.
@niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick thanks, i'm pretty sure it'll seem less cryptic once i've got the unit in my hands and am attempting to program it. any other fun stuff you've found in the depths of the programming matrix, or any tips or tricks you'd like to share? i'm going to grab the 500B and relist if it doesn't suit my purposes. i'm assuming having less preset patches will have left room for more user created ones, but we shall see.
@niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick Well, the "signal" led is lightning up, yeah, when i play something, so i guess it's not my jacks or something. Even with headphones plugged i can't hear it. The input level at 5(middle). My amp is a marshall. :/
@evilrainbow patch has been shared in the comments section already ;) but i'll pop it into the description as well. one of the parameters controls the wet/dry mix so you can blend in the clean sound through there (or take it out completely for the reverse reverb). that was the only patch i made myself other than a really basic one with just some EQ and a touch of reverb since my amp doesn't have any of that. nothing special though. i might have a go at doing some more but it's so finicky!
@mokeymina yeah the fx500 is mostly a piece of crap apart from the spacey effects. i don't have access to mine at the moment as i'm home from uni but iirc it had like 700ms delay time. it's cool setting up a stereo delay with different delay times for the bouncing multi head tape echo effect, even in mono. i'll double check in a couple weeks when i'm back in the UK.
@niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick would you mind sharing your reverse reverb patch, or any others you have found that you like? i assume that blending the clean signal is something that can be set in the patch parameters? i don't have time right now to play with it, as i've got work early, but i'm pretty excited. my goal isn't to rip off slowdive or MBV, but i do love them both, and achieving similar sounds is so much fun. thanks, btw, for all the information you've imparted prior. a definite boon.
@niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick i think the price +shipping for the FX500B vs the price of the unit being sold locally is close enough as to be negligible unless A) the unit has been sold before next payday or B) the preset sounds on non-bass model are decent enough to steer away from the B. What is your opinion of the presets(aside from those few obviously desirable ones we already love)? I'll likely be running this with the midiverb II for my reverbs and a boss DDx for doubling/tripling delays.
your videos for the FX500 have sold me! that, and no one is selling a spx90s for an affordable price near me. Do you know anything about the FX500B? it's the bass version, but I haven't found a lot of info on it.
@evilrainbow my honest opinion about the presets on the FX500... they're shit. the only good ones are the soft focus and lush strings presets. the rest are crap. but you can totally screw them up to create your own sounds and then save them into the 40 (i think) free preset slots, which is how i saved this particular reverse reverb sound. i also made a preset based off the soft focus sound but with the clean signal blended in more which sorta sounds like the electric version of slowdive dagger.
@Veldius hey, yes i plug the guitar into either the input on the front or over on the back next to the outputs, both work. is your unit powering up fine? have you got the gain knob on the front up and is the LED beside it lighting up when you play something?
@niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick is it possible to view the parameters of the preset programs? almost certainly I would want to program some the "soft focus" and "lush strings" patches in if I went the route of the 500B, so I might be in your ear about that if the answer is "yes."
@niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick i got it, sound can be hear but he is normal only if i put the volume up at 10/10, i'm losing a great part of my volume. Is it the same for you ?
Classic FX unit packed with many lovely settings. I've owned one since 1991 and today I received the FX900 from Ebay, and I have used them in the past but never got around to buying one until now. From my past experience I would say the FX500 and FX900 were known for being solid performers, especially in a live band environment; the FX500 actually clinched an audtion I had with a touring covers band, whom occasionally went into European places. Anyway first job replace battery and then rock!
@evilrainbow soft focus: reverb->delay->symphonic. comp-thr-40, rat1/2, atk1.1, lvl+15. rev-typR->D, L-DLY 250.0, R-DLY 380.0, fb 72, l=r, dmx 70, rvt 3.4, rmx 100, lvl 0. mod typ sym, sped 1.6, dep 75, mix 55, lvl +5...
lush strings: cho->rh1. comp-exactly the same as soft focus. mod: typ cho, sped 0.2, pmd 100, amd 0, mix 75, lvl 0. rev typ rh1, rvt 3.2, hf 5, dlt 125.0, mix 50, lvl +2.
hope that makes some kind of sense.
@leonardolad comp: -22 THR, 1/inf RAT, 1.0 ATK, +8 LVL; EQ: +5 LoG, +2 MiG, 2.0k MiF, 0 HiG, +2 LVL; reverb: Erv TYP, 15 RSV, 10 LIV, 76.0 DLY, 96 MIX, -8 LVL. i haven't touched most of those settings for comp and EQ as they were default like that but that's what it says on the LCD. have the DIST and MOD effects bypassed and dial those numbers in and you'll have the exact same setting. hope it helps!
I've owned one of these units since 1989, and it's an essential part of my rig. I use for its EQ, MIDI-controlled volume, and reverb.
I EQ the signal from my ADA MP-1 so that my hi-fi power amp sounds like a guitar amp.
I recommend the simple plate reverb; the room and hall suck: they are way over-ambitious for the technology!
If you boost the middle on the EQ and assign the frequency to a MIDI expression pedal, you get a *terrific* wah-wah effect.
Dynamic range trick:
I made one preset on my ADA MP-1 which uses the tube clean channel to create a sound which is very clean when played softly, but limited by the tubes when you strum hard. You can hardly hear any distortion, except over loud chords. When you pick harder, it's sounds louder due to the extra harmonics being generated, not due to a higher voltage level.
I get a warm, loud clean through FX500 without any clipping! No matter how strum, the FX's red light never comes on.
@niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick i finally picked it up(with the original rack mount!), with a midiverb II for $100. i've just plugged it in so i've only gotten to scrolling through the presets. so far soft focus and lush strings are all that seem worthwhile, though sweep gate with tweaking or a MIDI expression pedal sounds like it has promise. i can't wait to find a proper adapter for the midiverb so i can put the bloom patch behind the fx500 and bliss out.
@evilrainbow yep, you'll see what i mean when you're trying to dial stuff in. it's pretty annoying getting the interface to work at first but you'll get the hang of it. there's nothing much else special in there though. i have a preset set up which does a bit of comp and eq with a dash of reverb which i use to just make everything generally sound a bit better. i also did the obligatory "turn all the reverb controls to 11" for just a cloud of mush. pretty fun. and of course this reverse reverb.
@KazKylheku To keep myself honest, I did a thorough re-evaluation of the reverbs with a fresh pair of ears. I take it back; the plate reverb is the one that sucks. Maybe it can be tweaked not to suck, but with basic settings (say 50 ms delay, high frequencies at 5, about 2-3 seconds of reverb time) it is quite bad. Even at only 12% mix, it will muddy your tone to an amazing degree. If you're having a "bad tone day" when everything sounds harsh, that may be mistaken for warmth.
@evilrainbow the delays on the unit are pretty cool though, the soft focus thing actually has a dual delay set up that you can't actually hear unless you blend in the clean signal because it's just a cloud of reverb, but you can get cool mis-matched delays either in mono or in stereo (where it sounds awesome). the unit is really flexible but only a tiny portion of its capabilities are saved in the stock presets.
@SkankerxD right in front of the amp. i don't have an FX loop and the amp is set clean anyway so it doesn't matter. if you're running a distorted amp you could try putting it in front and it will sound like a meteor colliding into the planet.
@evilrainbow i have never played the FX500B but i think that it is the same unit with the same effects but with different presets that are geared towards bass instruments. yamaha reused the same algorithms in a lot of their units even if there isn't a designated preset for them. so you can probably dial this sound and the slowdive 'soft focus' sound in as well and create your own preset for them. that's only my guess though.
@DemoColorScheme "It actually sounds better than the SPX-90." The SPX-90 is an older technology. It filters the input signal to 12 Khz, so it's okay for guitar, but that will affect the tone. (Filtering the output of a guitar pre-amp to 12 Kkz is actually not actually a bad idea prior to A/D conversion; the last thing you want is to under-filter the signal and get nasty aliasing artifacts).
@niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick thanks! i figured it would be about as cheesy and awful as a late 80s digital FX processor could be, but knowing that it's not hobbled by an inability to really dig in and sculpt your own sounds is encouraging. Those reverbs and delays are honestly what I'm after, and I'm sure fiddling with compression and other functions could be fruitful as well. The 500B looks like it has 30 bass oriented presets and that is the only difference. also it's $15 cheaper.
@Veldius nah mine doesn't do that. make sure the input gain is up full enough so that the overload (red) LED blinks when you strum the strings very hard. other than that i don't know what the problem could be.
@niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick thanks, i'm pretty sure it'll seem less cryptic once i've got the unit in my hands and am attempting to program it. any other fun stuff you've found in the depths of the programming matrix, or any tips or tricks you'd like to share? i'm going to grab the 500B and relist if it doesn't suit my purposes. i'm assuming having less preset patches will have left room for more user created ones, but we shall see.
@niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick Well, the "signal" led is lightning up, yeah, when i play something, so i guess it's not my jacks or something. Even with headphones plugged i can't hear it. The input level at 5(middle). My amp is a marshall. :/
@evilrainbow patch has been shared in the comments section already ;) but i'll pop it into the description as well. one of the parameters controls the wet/dry mix so you can blend in the clean sound through there (or take it out completely for the reverse reverb). that was the only patch i made myself other than a really basic one with just some EQ and a touch of reverb since my amp doesn't have any of that. nothing special though. i might have a go at doing some more but it's so finicky!
@mokeymina yeah the fx500 is mostly a piece of crap apart from the spacey effects. i don't have access to mine at the moment as i'm home from uni but iirc it had like 700ms delay time. it's cool setting up a stereo delay with different delay times for the bouncing multi head tape echo effect, even in mono. i'll double check in a couple weeks when i'm back in the UK.
@niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick would you mind sharing your reverse reverb patch, or any others you have found that you like? i assume that blending the clean signal is something that can be set in the patch parameters? i don't have time right now to play with it, as i've got work early, but i'm pretty excited. my goal isn't to rip off slowdive or MBV, but i do love them both, and achieving similar sounds is so much fun. thanks, btw, for all the information you've imparted prior. a definite boon.
@niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick i think the price +shipping for the FX500B vs the price of the unit being sold locally is close enough as to be negligible unless A) the unit has been sold before next payday or B) the preset sounds on non-bass model are decent enough to steer away from the B. What is your opinion of the presets(aside from those few obviously desirable ones we already love)? I'll likely be running this with the midiverb II for my reverbs and a boss DDx for doubling/tripling delays.
your videos for the FX500 have sold me! that, and no one is selling a spx90s for an affordable price near me. Do you know anything about the FX500B? it's the bass version, but I haven't found a lot of info on it.
@niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick Thanks!
@evilrainbow my honest opinion about the presets on the FX500... they're shit. the only good ones are the soft focus and lush strings presets. the rest are crap. but you can totally screw them up to create your own sounds and then save them into the 40 (i think) free preset slots, which is how i saved this particular reverse reverb sound. i also made a preset based off the soft focus sound but with the clean signal blended in more which sorta sounds like the electric version of slowdive dagger.
@Veldius hey, yes i plug the guitar into either the input on the front or over on the back next to the outputs, both work. is your unit powering up fine? have you got the gain knob on the front up and is the LED beside it lighting up when you play something?
@niiiiiick out of curiosity, what are your parameters set for to get the dagger electric sound.
@niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick is it possible to view the parameters of the preset programs? almost certainly I would want to program some the "soft focus" and "lush strings" patches in if I went the route of the 500B, so I might be in your ear about that if the answer is "yes."
@niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick i got it, sound can be hear but he is normal only if i put the volume up at 10/10, i'm losing a great part of my volume. Is it the same for you ?
Hey man, i got this today but no sounds out, do you plug your guitar input and your guitar amp in output L/R ?
@Veldius how about in bypass mode? still no sound there?
hi there, man. would you mind to tell which parameters you used to get this sound?
@niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick it's quiet in space..
You seem very rich.