Eclipse Discrepancies

[zap]

I will as politely as I can, briefly summarize the main discrepancies between Eventide  customer and sales service assurances along with advertising of Eclipse vs. the actual characteristics of my eclipse… that is – the real life functionality of the unit, not the claimed functionality.  I will then ask the admins what to do with these unacceptable and irrefutable facts.

1) I bought the unit with an assurance of function up to 88.2 or 96 sample rates, and when I finally get my optical/spdif inserts working in pro tools –  i find out I cannot use most of the presets as those sample rates are not supported!  HUH ??????? I should have been told the functionality is up to 48 with some less processor intensive presets to work in 88 or 96.   This is also what the brochures and website should indicate. Summary: claimed specs do not reasonably match the real specs with regards to sample rate.

2) There are less bypass options in my Eclipse than my previous MF and TF pedals which I was assured was a good idea to trade in for the eclipse because "the eclipse will include everything those pedals have after the upgrade, and more!". 

3). The 1/4 inch outputs on relay bypass mute the whole unit – huge problem!  (Which made me go have to purchase a high end Rane balance buddy BB44x for my rack which was rather expensive to merely just be able to convert the signal from 1/4 inch to XLR so that the relay bypass does not mute on me … wow.  All this to have a relay bypass on my Eventide which I was told it already had and that it "would be perfect for my guitar Rack –  lol,  ( i was also told the eclipse was designed with Guitar players in mind –  but guitar players use 1/4 inch, not XLR! LOL ).

4) A lower DSP bypass quality than the pedals! LOL (feel free to independently corroborate that with an FX loop of a guitar amp – especially a tube one).   The DSP bypass heavily removes high frequencies and high harmonics when placed in the FX loop of a high gain tube guitar amp, or any amp for that matter

This has become quite an awful situation, and I have my sights set on many review sites if there are no solutions provided to me by this company.

Thanks

[nickrose]

Dear Mr Zap

It is clear that you are very unhappy with your Eclipse. There are many thousands of happy Eclipse owners around, so I think it is safe to say that the basic unit is not deeply flawed. I would like to cover the points you raise, and if after this you are still unhappy you should consider returning the unit to your vendor for a refund. Your previous posts suggest that a Pitchfactor is what you really want – if this is indeed the case I would recommend that you act upon it.

Zap:

1) I bought the unit with an assurance of function up to 88.2 or 96 sample rates, and when I finally get my optical/spdif inserts working in pro tools –  i find out I cannot use most of the presets as those sample rates are not supported!  HUH ???????

The majority of the Eclipse presets will operate at 96K. Those that do not are usually constrained by delay amount, and there is often a 96K version with less delay. I will accept that the details of this are not spelled out clearly in the manuals – you have to study the Algorithms and work back from there – this is poorly arranged, and needs to be improved.

There are two approaches to 96K support – the simplest is to only use presets that will run at 96K – this means that at 44/48K, currently the most widely used sample rates, over half the power of the machine is wasted.

We take the other approach, and have larger presets that only run at 48k, along with a good selection of smaller ones that will run at 96K.

Zap:

2) There are less bypass options in my Eclipse than my previous MF and TF pedals which I was assured was a good idea to trade in for the eclipse because "the eclipse will include everything those pedals have after the upgrade, and more!". 

Not sure who told you this – if it is in any of our published literature, please let me know. The Eclipse certainly has most of the features of the pedals, and a lot more beside ( AES, SPDIF, ADAT, WordClock, hundred of presets, multiple sample rates, more powerful remote control, compact flash, long delays, etc, etc). But, it is a different machine from the pedals, and not surprisingly does not have every tiniest thing that they do. If these omissions are crucial, an Eclipse is not for you.
Zap:

3). The 1/4 inch outputs on relay bypass mute the whole unit – huge problem! 

The relay bypass only supports the XLR inputs. Sorry. This is clearly stated in the User Manual. The Eclipse was indeed designed with guitar players in mind and many people do find it suitable for their guitar racks. But, it is a rack-mount studio type effects unit, not a stompbox, so may not suit all guitarists. Our expectation when we designed it was that most people would use a separate preamp to get their tone, and would feed the unit by XLR. Since then the guitar world has changed, so this assumption is less valid.
Zap:

4) A lower DSP bypass quality than the pedals!

The DSP bypass in the Eclipse is of higher quality than that of the pedals, due to better analog to digital components. I suspect that you are using it in a parallel effects loop – almost any digital unit has a delay of a few samples across it, which will lead to phase cancellation at high frequency when used in a parallel effects loop. This does not just apply to our products.

In this case, you should use a KILLDRY type bypass – this is supplied by most of our pedals. It works by muting the direct output when bypassed, so as to prevent the above cancellation. Interestingly, this is exactly the behavior of the Eclipse relay bypass that you so dislike above.

To conclude – if you are as unhappy with the Eclipse as you suggest, you should certainly contact your vendor and suggest a refund. Other comments should be addressed to support@eventide.com, referencing this post.

[sshogrin]

I bought my Eclipse (V3) years ago and run it in my guitar rig. I was first using it with a Boss GT-Pro hooked up using 1/4″ plugs (in stereo) in the Boss’s FX loop. The problem I found with that was there was no setting to achieve a “trailing” effect when turning off the FX loop, so mains from Eclipse were sent out to rack mixer. Worked like a charm! I have since upgraded to the Line 6 Helix Rack, still using the Eclipse hooked up to FX Loop 1/2 in the Helix and using the “Trails” function in the Helix for natural delay/reverb decay when turning the FX Loop off. I don’t use the Eclipse Bypass function, even with MIDI CCs. I use the MIDI controller in the Helix to change progams, CC values etc. for the Eclipse, but the Eclipse’s signal from IN to OUT is never set to Bypass. I guess I’m really using the Eclipse as an insanely powerful stomp box in a dedicated FX loop. 

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