Past its prime, but still very useable

Alesis gear has never been top of the line, but back in the '90s you were thrilled to have it around if you were on a tight budget. I bought my Quadraverb over 20 years ago, and it's still going strong today. I don't make much use of its modulation sounds, which are all done far better by pedals and plug-ins these days. That said, its reverb is still excellent, especially on synths. You can even get more out of it by cranking the input knob to overdrive the reverb, which works better than you'd expect.

Like so many rack units and synths from this era, programming it is a bit of a pain, with lots of menu diving on its little LCD display, but it's not as bad as it could be. Choose one of the preset signal paths, edit each effect to your taste, and hit save. The buttons don't feel great, but at least the value up/down buttons speed up the longer you hold them which makes scrolling through the numerous built in and user programmable presets a little more convenient. It's probably not going to be anyone's primary effects unit these days unless you're intentionally going for the cheesier side of '90s rack sounds, but as a companion to your favorite hardware synth, it's a great affordable unit.

From Gear Setup

a personal favorite of mine

I obsessed about this reverb for at least a year. For me personally the sounds are unique, it may have to do with me growing up with music in which it was used heavily, namely the verve. The weird thing is that with the upgrade to the + version the sound slightly changes, becomes a bit clearer, but it is not the same anymore. Once I figured out all its tweaking abilities I spend endless hours creating new patches. It has a limited era sound, but for me it is hard to beat. It has been mass produced so it can be found relatively cheap. I advise to read into its different versions, namely the + upgrade, the GT. The quadraverb 2 is fundamentally different. If you are looking for a cheaper produced but similar sounding reverb I think the midiverb III would be that. The AC power adapter is bulky. Use it with both inputs and outputs, it is meant to be used that way.

Preferred Settings + Usage:

From Gear Setup

meh

I have a love hate relationship with the quadraverb. Its not as outright bad to my ear as the midiverbs. I remember the first unit I owned I saved all these patches and called them things like "5 man anal BBQ"

This is the infamous reverb monster!

I always loved this thing but it was pretty darn noisy. Years later I found a wonderful MOD on the web (switching out a couple of caps) and it cleaned up all the noise and made it very usable for recording. You can get these pretty cheap on Ebay right now. This is a must for electronic, shoegaze, goth, and ambient musicians! It's not a Lexicon or Eventide but it sounds pretty good with the MOD.

It's crap. But it's great crap.

It's got crap reverbs that I use all the time. It's not really very good at anything. Except when it is. I like this crappy box. Everyone should own one. Don't pay more than $50.

More of the nineties!

This time, a warp records circa early nineties, this instantly takes my synths to where i want them... which is the early nineties.