Mid-Size Delay & Reverb Guitar Workshop Pedal Alternatives

If you already own an H9 Max, then you can transfer the full library of effects / algorithms to any lesser H9 variety - across as many as 5 units I believe. The lowest cost H9 is the Core - which comes with a limited subset of algorithms normally, while if you have a Max, you get everything twice over. And while I feel that there are lots of better delay pedals out there compared with the original Eventide TimeFactor pedal, I feel that the Eventide Space algorithms are still really quite special - when combined with crystalline shimmers etc. you have a magnificent Reverb pedal in this small form factor. And you often see dual H9s on pro pedalboards - total outlay here would be £963 plus the Barn3 OX9 and Tesla Tap for me x 2 - for better control. I acquired the latter from Custom Pedalboards at £89 and £33 respectively. As things stand for me right now, I will likely just go with the one H9, and have stand-alone units for the other disciplines, yet I may change my mind at some stage too, you never know. Within my current thinking I feel that there are more easily usable devices for my purposes - so practicalities and usability are of course key factors here too.

As mentioned in the intro - Meris take a few algorithms and really go to town on them with modulations and unusual variations. They bill this as a super-modulated delay, which engineering and layout-wise seems to owe a little bit to the mid-size Strymon pedals. I like how there is a separate Alt (Hold) button for accessing secondary functions on each of the main dials. There's a whole load of flanger and phaser -style modulation settings available across 3 modes - Slow, Sync and Slow + Sync. This is a proper tweaker's pedal which you need to explore to find those interesting 'inbetween' settings. Spend some time here though and you will be duly rewarded by some of the most beautiful modulated delays you may ever have heard.

A proper sci-fi style reverb inspired by the original 1982 Bladerunner Vangelis Soundtrack. This has the same sort of layout and functionality of the Polymoon, based on 2 core algorithms in this instance - Ultraplate and Cathedra - essentially fast and slow build massive ethereal soundscapes. Has some really smart Shimmer dynamics via the Pitch Vector control, and generally excels in creating otherworldly atmospheric sci-fi sounds. It's quite evident that the Meris pedals are their own thing - very heavily directed towards more ambient players, and providing a broad range of features within a small range of algorithms. They are certainly distinctly different to the other offerings, and don't really cater to the more broadbased vanilla-type crowd. Total outlay here for both is £636.

This mid-size delay was everyone's darling when it first came out, and was high on my wishlist for a time - that is until the just slightly larger Empress EchoSystem emerged - which to my mind improves on everything the Nemesis does - at the cost of a slightly larger footprint. In any case - the Nemesis gives you up to 8 presets onboard, and really neat fully-accessible surface controls to tweak and adjust the 12 onboard full-range algorithms. Empress gives you more of everything including dual simultaneous effects in series or parallel - so to my mind the Empress EchoSystem is still king of the delays for now. The Nemesis also has an App like the Eventide H9 - but it is not accessible via Bluetooth which is a slight disadvantage. In terms of range of features and algorithms its second only to the H9 in this feature.

I was so keen to get my hands on this when it was first announced - it was going to be the world's first dual simultaneous reverb, but then got caught up in some engineering shenanigans which meant that the Boss RV-500 pipped it to the post. I do feel though that the extra time paid off for the Ventris as they had more time to hone and perfect their algorithms, which overall, and including the 'Spring' type sound rather more melifluous than the Boss equivalents. Source Audio have definitely followed Strymon in terms of 'flavouring' their algoritms - i.e. hitting more sweetspots by default, while Boss tends to favour a more neutral / flatter EQ approach where you add flavour to your own taste. No one has more settings and tweakability than the Boss, but the process can be complex and arduous - and of course time-consuming. With Strymon and Source Audio - the presets are tweaked for maximum first impressions - so if you just want to press and play - those are your obvious front-runners. I've stated that if Empress had a Reverb equivalent of its EchoSystem, I would jump on that immediately, but as things stand Source Audio took too long to deliver on the Ventris and I moved over to Boss in the meantime. I am now thinking that I may want to get the Ventris in place of the Boss - even though overall Boss has more on-tap as such. These are also the only two boxes that offer dual simultaneous effect capabilities across all algorithms - so it's a question if you want more tweakability or overall more ease of use. I have always liked the triple footswitches of the the larger workstations - I love the ability to easily bank up and down through 100 or more presets - yet there is much to recommend the Ventris too. Where I am leaning at the moment - I will likely acquire the Ventris at some stage - I've yet to decide where it sits in the pecking order vs my Boss RV-500 and Strymon BigSky. Acquiring both Source Audio pedals will leave you out of pocket by £668

At one stage Strymon was the most significant brand in my pedal chain - with the stereo Stryfecta at the end of the chain, and the Riverside and Sunset half-way along. Since then I've bumped the Mobius, TimeLine and BigSky for the Boss MD-500, Empress EchoSystem and Boss RV-500 - and there's an Eventide H9 in their midst too. So the big Strymon workstations were my first loves in the areas of Delay and Reverb. Had I been more constrained by space, I would be looking at the smaller box solutions - or the classic Strymon mid-size pedals. I find it sort of odd that Strymon has a Jr BigSky, but not really a Jr version of the Timeline - the Timeline sort of gets split into 3 different mid-size pedals featuring Tape (El Capistan), Digital (DiG), Analogue (Brigadier) - style delays, all created via digital signal processing. Of those 3 the most appealing to me is the El Capistan, although the DiG is excellent too in its own way. Yet none of those really compete with the full-range of features of the Eventide H9 or Nemesis. For the same form-factor, and in this company, if I was just concerned with delay, my likely choice would be the Nemesis.

The BlueSky is very much the BigSky Jr - with just 3 of its bigger sibling's algorithms and no presets, but a plethora of settings and alternative dial functions to add modulation and secondary effects. If you can do without the finer settings, you might prefer the Strymon Flint which largely has the same reverb algorithms, but this time accompanied by a separate Tremolo. For many the Strymon Flint is seen as the perfect Reverb, others rate it as a Tremolo. I've gone for the BlueSky here as it covers more generic reverb ground.