Mr Black Deluxe Plus Vs Strymon Flint - Spring Reverb & Tremolo Shootout!

This battle was surprisingly close on sound. I wont be able to explain the nuances, so just go watch my Youtube video comparing the two.

My Youtube Shoot Out: https://youtu.be/QoUbfb32fEM

The only thing disappointing me on the Mr Black was the switch. Its the hardest to engage switch out of any of my pedals and there is an audible pop when doing so in both the room and your mix.

Looks: Mr Black wins...Cause Palm trees.
Switch shootout: Hands down the Flint. Strymon switches are probably the best out there.
Mix Control Shootout: Flint allows you to get a wetter mix.
Speed Shootout: Mr Black goes both slower and slightly faster than the Flint.
Intensity Shootout: The Mr Black has a bit more intensity and a choppier feel over all.

I felt the Mr Black had a bit more attitude and I enjoyed the character of sound more than I did the Flint. But not by much.

The fact is on the control ability front, the Flint gives you a ton more options than the Mr Black.

Flint gives you the ability to:

Global
Turn on or off the tremolo seperatly (Can be done on Mr Black, but you must fiddle with knobs and there isn't a switch to do so)

Tremolo Side
Boost or cut the tremolo
Set tap divisions for the tremolo
Tap tempo
Effect order: Trem Into Verb or Verb Into Trem

Reverb Side
Boost or cut the reverb
Adjust the done of the reverb
Adjust the decay of the reverb

I liked the sound of the spring reverb more on the Mr Black. But, I wanted to dial back the decay just a little bit and could not.

For character of sound I'd go with the Mr Black Deluxe Plus.
For control ability, hands down the Flint wins.

Red Panda Context Reverb Review

I had my reservations about the Red Panda Context reverb.

The first thing I noticed is the lack of stereo ins and outs, which is not a smart descision on their part. But I put my reservations about this aside.

The pedal actually suprised me. It isn't to far gone from many other reverb "mode" pedals out there. As I was going through the different modes, I was suprised at how great each one sounded. Every mode on here sounds fantastic.

Even the gated mode sounds good when used with moderate settings.

The delay mode was actually my favorite. The first thing that hit me was I loved the decay on the repeats. It sounded very analog. Next, you could dial the mix of the delay up to decent levels. Also nice. It also had the ability to do infinate repeats and you could tweak with the time. But it never got out of control volume wise which was nice.

I would say the pedal is well worth the money, and worth forgiving the lack of stereo inputs. But, if you NEED stereo in your reverb, then this might be a deal killer.

I'm a bit disapointed they didn't try to go for "Spring" reverb. I would have loved to have heard their take on that. But they stuck to doing what they do offer well. I can't complain about that.

Empress Tape Delay

First I have to say. Empress...Impresses me. From their build quality, to top notch customer service, down to the way they take and implement customer feedback for new features. Just a solid company.

The Empress tape delay is in my opinion a "basic" solid delay. It'll do tape delay, but it is on the more subtle end of tape delay. Some will argue this is more realistic to what you will hear in real life. I think they are right.

But with our ventures into the digital age, staying true to the originals often limits from what you COULD do. I like a lot of range in my controls, so I tend to gravitate towards pedals that have lots of range. Ones that will go from subtle to all out whacky. This pedal does not get whacky.

The great! 

The ability to go full wet with the signal and cut out the dry signal is awesome.

Time warping your tape delay while fiddling with the knobs sounds really good in this pedal. It is fun.

The "Output" control is awesome, you wouldn't think a volume control on a pedal would be so useful, but it is.

HP/LP filter switch. I love this feature, whether you want your delays standing out or sitting back in the mix. You can have it here.

Both Modulation and Tape Age have very use-able and good sounding amounts of their respective effect.


The Decent 

Having toggle switches for Tape Age and Modulation. This would have been nice to have in knob form.

The pedal can go into self oscillation with the feedback turned up, but it gets very loud.

The Bad 

Unity gain on the mix knob is at about 2 ocklock. From about 3:30 on is full wet. This doesn't do louder than your original signal well with those mixes.

No stereo operation. If for nothing else, offer stereo to preserve stereo imaging. Delay comes late in the chain typically. I don't understand the descision to not have stereo here. This isn't exactly "off par" with other tape delay units however. So you can't knock them down to much.

This is going to be your standard fare workhorse delay. It is going to sound good. But aside from time warping, you are not going to get any "out of the ordinary" sounds out of this pedal. I only suggest getting it if the only thing you are looking to do is tape delay. If you are looking for more versatility I would suggest looking elsewhere.

Nuenaber Immerse Reverberator - The Good, Decent, And Bad

I had heard amazing things about this pedal. I figured I would give it a shot.

This pedal has some great features.

Kill Dry is awesome, though a lot of reverb pedals incorporate this simply by turning the reverb all the way up. The trails switch also nice to have but not that innovative. Stereo ins and outs are great but should be a given now days. It looks nice. The color scheme, graphics and box are awesome.

But in the end it is the sounds that define the pedal. So how did the modes stack up?

The Modes
Detune    - 7/10 - This could get pretty. It's not the best detune I've heard but it was alright.
Echo - 4/10 - The echo was weak. Not really inspiring.
Shimmer 1 - 10/10 - For the record, I hate shimmer. It is my number 1 most hated effect. But they actually did a damn fine job on this. It sounded amazing.
Shimmer 2 - 6/10 - This was darker and less defined. More subtle. I didn't find it inspiring
Spring - 4/10 - Didn't get up to "splashy", and I didn't feel it accomplished vintage warmth either.
Plate - 9/10 - Plate was great for ambient stuff. Also a standout on this pedal.
Hall - 10/10 - Even more ambient. Very ethereal.
Wet - 10/10 - Wet is just an awesome reverb sound. Very ambient. The algorithm gets a 10, the ability to not dial it up louder however hurts.

Total Score: 60/80    75% C

The Bad

• The FEEL of the construction. I'm sorry, but the neunaber platform just seems a bit tacky and "cheap" to me. I'm not saying it isn't quality, but it doesn't feel like quality. From the light weight to the kinda rubberyish knobs. It feels a bit cheap.

• The FX Level Knob Taper. Dialed up to about noon, you couldn't even tell there was reverb on the signal. You had to really crank it up to hear the reverb. This is partly because of the way they implemented the "mix". They keep your dry signal pure and present, it is not a "mix" knob like you are used to. It simply brings the reverb volume level up. Thus the NEED for the kill dry switch.

•  Depth - Depth controlled how long the reverb tail was. Decay would have been a better name, but the taper on that knob was very odd. Everything below about 2 was short and then ramped up super quickly after that to almost infinite (Not complaining about the infinite)

• The knob that controls various aspects on the respective reverb types I felt didn't have enough range. Neither did the tone.They seemed to me like play it safe knobs.

• No volume adjustment. Things sounded a bit thin and low in the mix in the reverb department, very apparent with kill dry. Thinking about it now what I mean by no volume adjustment is the reverb just didn't get loud enough. The FX level is the volume adjustment :)

• The Spring Reverb in my opinion just didn't cut it. I want my spring to go from vintage warmth to surfy splash. I don't really feel it accomplished either.

The Decent

•  Detune, Echo, Shimmer 2 - These did just ok at their jobs. They didn't really wow me.

The Great

•  Wet, Plate, Hall - These modes were awesome sounding

• Trails for days. No other reverb pedal decays like this pedal. It will go on forever if you let it. Very awesome.

The crap you don't think about

•  Kill dry switch being left on, and wondering where your dry signal is for 20 minutes while trying to record the demo :)

At first I thought I was being to critical of this pedal. Then I stuck this next to the Empress Reverb, and the decision to get rid of the Immerse was made almost instantly. With the lack of stand alone "proprietary" reverbs, it had to stand alone on the reverb sounds. And it does not do anything but perhaps "Wet" better than any other pedal. But that is a proprietary algorithm, so no real competition on that one.

I do recommend their Expanse series of pedals however. Simpler controls, much better mixes. The ability to go full ambient, and amazing sound. Everything this pedal should be.

If they ever released a new version with better tapers to the knobs, greater range, and an actual "Mix" knob, I'd be all about it. Most of the reverbs sounded great. But there were just to many things adding up to make me want to keep this one. I look forward to seeing what these guys put out next though.

If you are interested in a video demo, you can view mine at the below link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jic4z6Z0p6s