quick verbzilla review
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Posts: 6,638
it's very, very good soundwise. my only quibbles stem from it's physical characteristics.
anyway, sound:
with the exception of the "octo" setting (which pitch shifts up the trails and, like all digital octave up, sounds terrible) the settings are all useful in different situations. the "echo" is a little redundant for me since i have a delay but someone might like it. my favourites being the 63 spring, plate, tile and cave right now.
cave and plate are great for the jeff buckley thing (he used a quadraverb GT i believe). the spring model is perfect for "normal" reverb into my orange. which is the main reason i've been trying to find a good reverb pedal. my fender has a spring already.
stereo in and out so i run it after my DL4 and into my two amps and it almost makes you seasick it's do three dimensional. my studio room is small and it feels like swimming.
no hiss or hum. i've heard you have to use a dedicated power supply or a pedal power 2 to avoid hum. no daisy chaining. well, i have a pp2 so no problem. no hiss when the pedal is on. even in front of preamp sections. the EH holy grail is bad for this. but the verbzilla is fine even when you don't have an effects loop available. i haven't tried it in front of high gain sources but, at that point, the amp's hissing so much that it's a non-issue. runs on a battery too but i'll never try it.
with my POD, i run out of my gains into the POD, out of the pod in stereo through the DL4 and verb. this will probably be how i use it 90% of the time. the reverbs in the POD sound good but this pedal has more options and is more flexible.
anyway, it sounds great. i imagine it's perfectly usable for vocals and what not as well. i haven't tried it with acoustics yet. i think the plate model might work well. not sure.
now the bad stuff:
it's ugly as sin. and for a giant chunk of metal, the switch and pots feel pretty flimsy. i'm not hard on pedals so i don't think i'd have an issue but some might. the flimsy pedal is just a matter of spec'ing a firmer spring. minor but there's a psychological reaction when the pedal engagement isn't very positive.
the knobs on the pots are skinny and tall and look like they'd break somewhat easily. i guess we'll see.
but god it's ugly.
anyway, sound:
with the exception of the "octo" setting (which pitch shifts up the trails and, like all digital octave up, sounds terrible) the settings are all useful in different situations. the "echo" is a little redundant for me since i have a delay but someone might like it. my favourites being the 63 spring, plate, tile and cave right now.
cave and plate are great for the jeff buckley thing (he used a quadraverb GT i believe). the spring model is perfect for "normal" reverb into my orange. which is the main reason i've been trying to find a good reverb pedal. my fender has a spring already.
stereo in and out so i run it after my DL4 and into my two amps and it almost makes you seasick it's do three dimensional. my studio room is small and it feels like swimming.
no hiss or hum. i've heard you have to use a dedicated power supply or a pedal power 2 to avoid hum. no daisy chaining. well, i have a pp2 so no problem. no hiss when the pedal is on. even in front of preamp sections. the EH holy grail is bad for this. but the verbzilla is fine even when you don't have an effects loop available. i haven't tried it in front of high gain sources but, at that point, the amp's hissing so much that it's a non-issue. runs on a battery too but i'll never try it.
with my POD, i run out of my gains into the POD, out of the pod in stereo through the DL4 and verb. this will probably be how i use it 90% of the time. the reverbs in the POD sound good but this pedal has more options and is more flexible.
anyway, it sounds great. i imagine it's perfectly usable for vocals and what not as well. i haven't tried it with acoustics yet. i think the plate model might work well. not sure.
now the bad stuff:
it's ugly as sin. and for a giant chunk of metal, the switch and pots feel pretty flimsy. i'm not hard on pedals so i don't think i'd have an issue but some might. the flimsy pedal is just a matter of spec'ing a firmer spring. minor but there's a psychological reaction when the pedal engagement isn't very positive.
the knobs on the pots are skinny and tall and look like they'd break somewhat easily. i guess we'll see.
but god it's ugly.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
I also wonder how much "better" it might be than the Digiverb.
as for the digiverb comparison. side by side would be the only way to tell. i prefered the grail (hiss aside) over the digiverb but the digiverb was quieter.
the line 6 has more usable models and a bit more tweaking with the pre-delay time.
the stereo in's is a very nice feature too.
whether it's $50 better, it is for me but i don't know about other folks.
no, that's fine. they are readily available here.
when trails are "off", the pedal pops on engagement and bypass. rather annoying. the DL4 does the same thing in true bypass mode.
won't be a big issue as it's sort of an "always on" thing for me but i'm going to research when i have time and see if others have experienced this as well.
i could do without the octo, ducking and echo settings. those are a waste of space for me. spring, plate, tile and cave are still my favourites. plate is perfect for acoustics.
slight bit of hiss when on because i'm running out in front of the amps (no effect loop) but not nearly as bad as the holy grail and less hiss than any other pedal in my chain (including my phaser and chorus). i imagine in an effect loops, there would be no hiss.
when running acoustic guitars into it and direct to recording, it's pretty much dead silent.
the mix knob is a bit too touchy at the low end. my ideal mix range is about 10-25% and it's hard to work in that range as it's a fraction of the knob's travel. i don't need 100% wet signal but that's a minor quibble.
anyway, still happy with it. working out well. i've used it lots on recordings so far for airy stuff. mostly cave and plate. when i'm just playing electric, it's on the spring model.