AW: Thoughts on the Eclipse, Fireworx, G-Force, and PCM81

["Rainer Thelonius Balthasar Straschill" <rs@moinlabs.de>]

I'd like to chime in here, 'cause Kris might very vell be referring to a
text written by me here...:

> > I have been reading a lot of reviews on the Eclipse and Fireworx.  
> > Oddly, there appear to be a lot of mixed reviews on the 
> Eclipse for it 
> > lack of flexibility,
> 
> What is it lacking in flexibility? Do you want to build your 
> own reverb (etc.)? Does the Eclipse not give you enough fx 
> that you know you will use? And what reviews are you reading, H-C?

You can only load a maximum of two algorithms at once, and you can't
feedback between those two algorithms. True, you can do completely crazy
stuff with those algorithms, but it's rather counter-intuitive to have to 
go
through a list of hundreds of algorithms to find which ones to select to 
get
a combination of two pitch shifters, four delays and two chorusses.

What really pisses me off is the fact that the manual tells you that "some
algorithms can't be loaded together", but doesn't tell you which ones!

Personally, I never wrote audio algorithms myself (meaning writing DSP code
or something), but I like to work on an abstraction level one step below
that of the Eclipse: put together lots of small building blocks instead of
two big ones. The approach of the FireworX, the Nord Modular G2 (which I
believe would also be excellent as an effects processor if you can live 
with
the fact that it doesn't have any UI) and the Kurzweil KSP8.

A few of the deficits of the Eclipse are smaller details: maximum LFO sync
cycle time is one bar. Reverse delays only work to a length of one bar when
MIDI-synced. Hard bypass only affects the XLR connectors. 

> > in my experience, the stability is not as good.
> 
> Did the person writing that review have the latest OS? I tend to  
> doubt it.

I got this thing with OS 2.50 and never had any problems. Upon upgrading to
3.00 (which according to eventide's website is "the latest OS"), I 
sometimes
experienced the following: upon loading one of my own patches, the unit
would simply freeze. Power reset worked around this problem. It never
happened when loading factory patches or at another time than when loading
patches. And it hasn't happened for a long time.

There are a lot of great things about the Eclipse as well. A decimal
keyboard, the multitude of connectors, great sound quality and some very
interesting algorithms for crazy stuff are only some. If I was to compare
hardware effect processors in roughly the price range discussed, it would
be:

FireworX: Quite flexible and good UI for an acceptable price. Lacks some
processing power. Great for completely whacky stuff.
Eclipse: Problems - see above. Best pitch shifters of the batch.
Kurzweil KSP8: most expensive of the batch. Most flexible choice of 
reverbs.
Very flexible system structure, very powerful. DOESN'T HAVE ANY PITCH
SHIFTERS.
Nord Modular G2 Engine: very powerful, very flexible, cheapest of the 
batch.
Would be my choice if I could live with the fact that it doesn't have a UI
whatsoever. Or you could get the keyboard version (still cheaper than an
Eclipse).

        Rainer