Blue Neb v Quad

[Clive A]

How does the Blue Nebula stand up against the Quad Plus?
I notice the BN is joint first in the poll.

[Rockin' Teddy]

Hi Clive

The Quad gives a much warmer sound compared to the Blue Nebula.

As the Blue Nebula was designed to emulate those early echo units then it's those early sounds that it best replicates. I use mine solely for the early stuff, if I'm playing something a little more modern then I use something else for a cleaner echo. With the Blue Nebula think Magic Stomp that is purpose built for those early sounds. Great if you love that early sound, but as I also play more modern stuff too then I don't rely solely on the BN.

It's all down to what you want to use it for?

Ted

[Clive A]

Cheers Ted, very helpful.
I'm not interested in the vintage stuff, just mainly the modern HBM sound.
Having the ability to adjust the effects is what appealed to me.

Clive

[scmitche]

Jan 9, 2018 8:07:40 GMT Rockin' Teddy said:

Hi Clive

The Quad gives a much warmer sound compared to the Blue Nebula.

As the Blue Nebula was designed to emulate those early echo units then it's those early sounds that it best replicates. I use mine solely for the early stuff, if I'm playing something a little more modern then I use something else for a cleaner echo. With the Blue Nebula think Magic Stomp that is purpose built for those early sounds. Great if you love that early sound, but as I also play more modern stuff too then I don't rely solely on the BN.

It's all down to what you want to use it for?

Ted

I'm a little puzzled by your comment as the Roland RE301 emulation is certainly not the early sound and a user who has the vintage machine for direct comparison has given feedback to say it is extremely close in sound.

All the Meazzi emulations, including the new PA306 one, are now much warmer than was the case previously. These changes we made at the request of users who constantly refer to EFTP as if it were a standard but which in fact tries to emulate recorded sounds using the equipment employed at Abbey Road studios, not the actual individual echo machines. The sound of the new  Copicat IC300, for example,  is a very good representation of a genuine machine as we have good sound files with which to make direct comparisons. Any difference in warmth between Quad and Blue Nebula can only be down to the fact that in Blue Nebula we refuse to use "ghost heads" to artificially enhance reverb.
The frequency responses of the dry and wet signals are modelled on the correct ones from Meazzi machines and the filtering shapes change a little depending on which emulation is selected, e.g. Echomatic 1, Echomatic 2, Roland, Copicat etc.
The preamplifier delivers a harmonic spread, which changes with both amplitude of the guitar signal and the gain setting employed and can be made to follow that of the Meazzi 12AX7 triode preamplifier very closely. We have measurements of the grid leak biased Meazzi-style triode preamplifier with which we have made direct comparisons.

To sum up, I think the warmth of Blue Nebula is now correct and as people like Steve Reynolds or Robby Januarsa point out the tone, vintage or modern, is largely a matter of getting the amplification/EQ correct, e.g. Steve's use of Caline 10-band graphic and Robby's use of an old Vox Tonelab employing Vox ACxx emulations and I have noted use of a speaker cabinet emulator in some of the recordings/videos I've heard/seen.

I would like to add that the modern interface of the Blue Nebula is almost unique in that 1) it allows free updates as we constantly strive to improve the software/firmware via the inbuilt USB port, 2) patches can be selected by a MIDI controller if so required or 3) patches can be preset into correct sequential order for a gig using the excellent Librarian software written by Philip Hawthorne. Any User is getting many man years of development and expertise starting with Piet Verbruggen's original eTap2hw system and the continuation since then by the current team of 4, including Piet.

Regards,
Steve

[Rockin' Teddy]

Hi Clive

I'm not saying it wont do the modern sound as it's more than capable, but what you do get is what they call the halo effect which adds extra harmonics to your sound along with simulated tape saturation which is great for the early tunes it may not be so desirable when you want a crisp clean more modern sound? If I only had the Blue Nebula then I would probably use it for everything, but as I have a few other units here which give a good clean sound without the harmonics then I turn to them for other stuff.

Having said that, I have not gone through all the echo machines available on the Blue Nebula yet as the new update has only been out a short while, I've been busy tweaking the pre-sets to how I like them.

Ted

[Rockin' Teddy]

Hi Steve

I was typing my response to Clive as you posted your reply so we sorta crossed in the post.

As you can see above in my 2nd post that I said that at the moment I haven't had a chance to test out all the echo machines available on the Blue Nebula yet so I'm basing this opinion on how the Blue Nebula performed prior to the latest update. So far I'm still tweaking the presets to how I like them, once that is complete I shall then test out the echo machines that are available.

As I recently sold a Quad Plus because I personally found it too warm for my needs & knowing the type of sound Clive is after I answered his post on how I find the unit compared to the Quad plus which was the original question.

Ted

[scmitche]

Jan 9, 2018 12:14:15 GMT Rockin' Teddy said:

Hi Steve

I was typing my response to Clive as you posted your reply so we sorta crossed in the post.

As you can see above in my 2nd post that I said that at the moment I haven't had a chance to test out all the echo machines available on the Blue Nebula yet so I'm basing this opinion on how the Blue Nebula performed prior to the latest update. So far I'm still tweaking the presets to how I like them, once that is complete I shall then test out the echo machines that are available.

As I recently sold a Quad Plus because I personally found it too warm for my needs & knowing the type of sound Clive is after I answered his post on how I find the unit compared to the Quad plus which was the original question.

Ted

Hi Ted,
First we need to get some terminology correct:
HALO is created mainly by the signal leakage between the multi-playback heads that gives for want of a better word the ethereal "Cathedral" type reverb sound.
HARMONICS are two fold, the first, mainly even harmonics, are generated by the pre-amplifier and then there are the predominantly 2nd order harmonics generated as the magnetic recording medium (usually tape) goes into saturation/compression-limiting depending on recording amplitude and frequency. 
The even harmonics can be controlled in Blue Nebula simply by reducing or increasing  the Gain control just as in a Meazzi then it's up to you whether you decide to set the PRE control to give sufficient signal to allow the tape emulator to be driven into saturation/limiting or adjust it lower - hence 2nd harmonic content can be set as required, the limiting factor being the available headroom in the FV-1 digital signal processor as indicated by the CLIP WARNING LED, which should not be allowed to light as it will then give its own distortion. 
The whole reason for the 3 pre-amplifier shaping/output controls' concept in Blue Nebula is to allow maximum flexibility, for example, after setting the GAIN and PRE controls to create your desired sound then the MASTER output control can be adjusted to balance the effected level with that of the bypassed signal level so that amplifier volume adjustment is not necessary as the effect is switched in or out.

You will probably note that you generally need a little less Wet in the mix with the new emulations as the different frequency shaping has changed the repeats' energy in the system.

If anything is unclear please ask.

Regards,
Steve

[whitefalcon]

I bought a Blue Nebula as I owned the eTap2 HW that Ecca built for me and it sounded great. I think it's a great machine and when you get the levels correct it is frighteningly good, though a bit fiddly on stage.
I also still have the Alesis Quad GT and had it out the other day. After years of gaining experience and listening to records and comparing sounds, finally realising that the amp settings seem to make the biggest contribution,
I don't mind which of my echo boxes I play through as they are all in the ball park when the amp is set right.
I have to say that the Quad GT gives more to the guitar than the Q2 or Q20, as the latter two were never intended for guitar and many people suffered strange behaviour with sound in the past when using those, including myself.
it took ages to work out that it wasn't our Kinman pick ups that was the problem and it was difficult to accept that it could be the Q2/Q20 because Hank had used them.
I still think the Quad GT is great and it's up there with the best.

[guitarphil]

Hi whitefalcon,

For stage use have you tried using the Librarian to set up your setlist/play order in the Blue Nebula?

This video on YouTube shows how to do it by moving patches around into the required setlist order but recently I've found it's a bit quicker to use the Librarian's Copy and Paste buttons to put the patches into the required order, leaving the orignal patches untouched.

I usually start my setlist at User Patch 41 so I copy the patch for the first tune on the list into patch 41, then copy the next to patch 42 etc. (The Blue Nebula comes programmed with patches 0-40 ('standard tune presets')and 51-67 (mostly 'Binson settings') but I don't use the Binson patches so that allows patches 41-127 (87 patches) free for your setlist. Some tunes use the same patch but with one patch per tune on the setlist you can rename them to match the tune and on stage you simply step through to the next patch for the next tune and the LCD will show the correct tune name which reassures you that you've got the right patch for the tune you're about to play :-)

[mickfds]

Hello friends,
this pedal is sensational, easy to use in programming for future patches.
you created your personal song list.
Regards.
Michel
of France