Eventide

Reviews | Eventide Space
96
T
he hardware reverb unit has
taken a bit of a beating over
the last decade. Not so long
ago, dedicated hardware was
your only option for realistic reverb
sounds. Now, any home computer has
enough processing power to handle all
your echo needs. Eventide earned their
reputation back in the days when
computers ground to a halt at just the
thought of real-time dynamics
processing. The company’s fi rst
Harmonizers and delays hit the market
way back in the early 70s, and were
soon joined by specialist reverbs.
The company’s decades of
experience are now also being applied
to a range of stompboxes, which started
with the launch of the TimeFactor and
ModFactor back in 2008. Those two
FM favourites have since been joined
by the PitchFactor and now the Space.
However, as you’d expect from
Eventide, this isn’t your typical cheap
guitar reverb pedal. In fact, it’s
described as a “reverb and beyond”,
packing a serious feature set aimed at
live performance and studio use.
Form
Like the rest of the Eventide stompbox
range, the Space’s build quality
immediately tells you that this is a
serious piece of equipment. You
wouldn’t want to throw it into a gig bag
without wrapping it safely, but the
die-cast aluminium construction feels
built to last. With so many knobs to
play with, it’s reassuring that the pots
also feel solid and reliable.
The preset knob is the only rotary
encoder, slightly looser than the pots
but still high quality. Stompbox
footswitches are usually a bit clunky for
operating with your hands, but the light
action of the Space’s metal switches
make the unit feel perfectly usable as a
desktop effect module.
Round the back, you’ll fi nd mono
and stereo input and output, plus
connections for an expression pedal, up
to three aux switches, USB (for
software updates and preset
management) and MIDI in/out. To
ensure that levels are suitable for
hooking up to your other equipment,
toggle switches allow the input and
output to be set to guitar/amp or line
level. Unfortunately the current draw
would make battery operation
impractical, so the Space only runs
from an external DC adapter.
Function
The obvious way to get started is by
fl icking through the presets, and I’d
highly recommend keeping the manual
and preset guide handy while you do
so. The Space is based around 12
algorithms, each of which is supple-
mented by slightly different modulation
effects. First up, there are fi ve standard
reverb settings – Hall, Room, Plate,
Spring and Reverse – which offer the
usual range of realistic sounds.
On the more experimental side, the
Shimmer, ModEchoVerb, DualVerb,
TremoloVerb, DynaVerb, Blackhole and
MangledVerb algorithms can create
more extreme results with the addition
WHAT Is IT?
Top quality reverb in a
convenient pedal format
cONTAcT
Who: Source Distribution
Tel: [phone]
Web: eventide.com
HIGHLIGHTs
1 Mixture of new algorithms
and code from the H8000
and Eclipse
2 Built-in modulation
effects including chorus,
distortion and pitch shifting
3 Expression pedal input for
live performance
Eventide
Space | £499
Digital effect masters Eventide add a reverb to their
growing stompbox range. Greg Scarth prepares to
blast off into space
ON THE DVD
FMU244.rev_eventide.indd 96 8/16/11 1:17:44 PM