MultiFactor or Floor Eclipse – Anyone?

[badmelonfarmer]

Thought I would create a thread to discuss the idea of a MultiFX unit from Eventide….

For me, the Factors are fantastic devices, but … I would like a
more flexible aproach to routing and placement of effects. I use an
Axe-FX Ultra, but still love and prefer the Eventide "Flavour" or
"Colour" that is in the Eventide effects for things like BandDelays,
Reverbs and the whacky stuff that Eventide do sooooo well.

The sort of things I would love to see would be a device where you
could freely route a number of effects together and save them in
different orders … kind of like the M series from Line6… BUT with
the much better algorithms that only Eventide can provide.

This puts us into the realms of …. an Eclipse in stomp box form….which WOULD be very cool.

The biggest problem for me, would be that the interface would have to
be much more simple than the Eclipse, don't get me wrong…. I love my
Eclipse, but it is not the easiest thing to program….it is more of a
find a preset and use that kind of a device and I do not have a problem
with this.

Seems a cool way for Eventide to continue making money from the Eclipse R&D by porting it to a Foot multiFX  form size.

Speaking of the  Eclipse it will also be interesting to see what happens
to the Eclipse going forward. It sounds incredible, it really is
amazing ….it is over 10 years old and it STILL blows a lot of the
other units out of the water…. I wonder if an Eclipse II is on the
cards??

Thoughts / Ideas guys???

[timothyhill]

If they came out with an Eclipse II, I'd order one today! I've already got 4 Factors on my pedalboard and it's just about as big as I care to use. I know a lot of people rack their Factors, too. So, if there's already a rack involved, and at this point, it would probably be just as easy for me to cart around a rack, then I'd vote for seeing the Eclipse stay rackmount. Then again, I'd love a MultiFactor, too, and yeah, I'd order one of those today, too!!

Some of the new DSP chips available now are considerably more powerful than what was available just a few years ago. Of course, I don't know specifics, but I wouldn't have a difficult time imagining being able to put the processing power of the Eclipse into a pedal. I mean, some of the algorithms Space uses seem pretty processor intensive. I don't know how the Space or any Factor compares to the Eclipse in MIPS terms, but I can't think they're too far apart already.

The part I do have difficultly imagining, and I think you allude to this as well, is how they could make a pedal-based interface easier to use without sacrificing a lot of flexibility. I'm sure just having the presets available would satisfy some, but any significant editing would require something like a USB-computer interface and something like VSIG (or FactorLib on steroids).

Throw in a VST and/or RTAS native plug-in interface (for either pedal or rack formats) and now you've got something I could get REALLY excited about. (IMHO, TDM is dying, but that's another topic.) USB or other digital audio in/out would be great, too, but I could live without that on the pedal if it kept the street price reasonable. Obviously, without digital audio, any plug-in interface would really just be MIDI control, but I'm not sure I really care about that, either, for the sake of keeping a pedal within the price range of many working musicians. I think I'd leave digital audio to the rack devices.

Anyway, these are just my first random thoughts… I could see this going either way, or both ways, so I'm looking forward to hearing what everyone else thinks, too…

[badmelonfarmer]

Hey Tim,

I am with you, personally I would love to see an Eclipse II in the rackmout format and I am one of the people who rack their Factor pedals.

Yes, the user interface would be the bigest hurdle, but there are ways of doing it VSIG does not look the most user friendly method, BUT not used it personally so am not in the best position to comment really. There are companies who have done some good interface work for this sort of thing, so if the desire is there to do it, it can be done.

I agree that the DSP has increased so much since the Eclipse was introduced that it probably could be put into a smaller pedal size, I guess it depends if there is a market for it.

I think a pedal format would be well received for a multiple factor, as people clearly love the Factor pedals and when then buy one, they often buy others. but does the Modfactor go before the TimeFactor…flexible routing would give you both for different presets.

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