Boss RV-6 - anyone got one yet?

topomorto

The word on the street is that they are now... on the street?

Very happy with my current reverb options but still interested in 'impressions'... is it the RV-5's modulate mode with all the other rubbishness fixed plus some tasty extras? Or is it yet another mixed bag?

FaCow

I too wish to know! Current demos on the net look promising IMO. Hoping to try one in a store soon. With it being from Boss they should be easy to find to try out I hope!

I said nothing woudl ever take the place of my dispatch master...let's see

monquixote

This is relevant to my interests.

JDE

Will let you know at the end of the week!

Fwiw, I really liked the RV-5. But, well... this is new, isn't it.

Dopesick

Still torn between getting this or a Supernatural...

JDE

Got mine today. Initial impressions....
Delay setting - actually v good. Decent delay time range (ie - not stupid short or stupid long), mixes well with the verb, which on this mode is what I would call "generic digital verb."
Shimmer - fucking awful, sounds like an organ mixed with a steel drum. Really loud.
Dynamic - nice "ducked" verb. Actually sounds more reverse than true ducking, but pretty usable nevertheless.
Room - really nice. One of the best room settings I've heard from a pedal.
Hall - capable of huge verb. A bit like a cleaned up version of the RV5's Hall, with longer decay. Not quite infinite though.
Plate - best plate setting on a pedal I've heard from a pedal.
Spring - disaster. Has that awful fast slapback delay thing all low end spring emulators have.
Modulate - better than the RV5 version (which again, I really loved). Cleaner, longer, less hissy. Ace!

Mixed bag overall, but again, these are my immediate impressions. Disclosure - I am a Boss fanboy and predominantly a jazz guitarist.

UnclePsychosis

Thanks for the review.

When you say the shimmer is awful - do you mean its awful for a shimmer effect or that you just hate shimmer in general?

JDE

I don't hate shimmer. I'd never use it personally but I don't mind a bit of ambient synthy paddy stuff. It's the worst shimmer of all I've heard. It's very heavy on the octave note, with less of the chorusy in between tone that makes it smooth (sorry for the awful descriptions, I'm not sure how they actually make the shimmer sound).
It sounds more like the EHX organ pedal to me, as opposed to the soft choir-y sound of other shimmers. Any sense?

Also the black writing on a silver label thing that Boss are now rocking must go. Can't read owt without angling the pedal away from the light!

not_the_dj

That's disappointing if the shimmer is rubbish....and the lettering issue is a poor effort, Boss are usually great at that but that sounds like it'll be an issue to use live.

UnclePsychosis

Thanks @jde

Will be such a shame if they've ballsed up the shimmer. Would be a big selling point for them otherwise.

JDE

White lettering on a black background has worked so well for them, I don't know why they changed. There's a lot of settings, it's not like a drive or something.
I'm not a shimmer aficionado, but it sounds very "hard" to me. I'll try and get a little phone video tomorrow if my kids go to sleep early enough. Funnily enough, when she heard the shimmer setting my wife said "is it supposed to sound like an organ? I like that!"

Because I'm husband of the year, I immediately switched it to plate

monquixote

I am a big plate verb whore so this excites me. 

Have you heard the Hardwire reverb, if so how does it compare?

ThePrettyDamned

JDE;714330" said:

White lettering on a black background has worked so well for them, I don't know why they changed. There's a lot of settings, it's not like a drive or something.
I'm not a shimmer aficionado, but it sounds very "hard" to me. I'll try and get a little phone video tomorrow if my kids go to sleep early enough. Funnily enough, when she heard the shimmer setting my wife said "is it supposed to sound like an organ? I like that!"

Because I'm husband of the year, I immediately switched it to plate

With shimmer, will it go 100 percent wet? If so, try volume swells. I've found most shimmer sounds are organ esque unless you play it right.

It still sounds horrible though. Really not a fan here much prefer modulated reverb and plate emulation. Glad to hear they got those right!

JDE

@monquixote generally I use a plate 50% of the time, a big hall 25% and a modulated 25% of the time. The Hardwire Plate setting sounded a bit lifeless to me. I definitely prefer the RV6 plate to the Hardwire, TC (Nova and HOF) and previous Boss. I don't like Strymon much at all because it seems to change the tone of everything. I wanted to like the Hardwire because I like the Alesis rack verbs but I don't think it sounded much like them tbh.

@ThePrettyDamned I will have a go 100% wet tomorrow. I'll also try the swells. I did try a few swells tonight, but I was on my archtop, so I don't think I was really the target market for it!

monquixote

Interesting. 

I'll have to give one a try.

monquixote

Just listened to some YT demos and it sounds great other than as you say the spring which sounds balls (but then so do the Strymon ones). 

I don't think the shimmer sounds vastly different to similar pedals and it's getting a bit cliche now.

aswefallintostatic

i refuse to believe the modulate is better than the RV5 until i hear them side by side... :P 

Dopesick

If the spring and the shimmer sound shit then that's turned me right off. I'll give it a go down the road at Coda but these aren't actually giving me hope.

Shame really.

Sassafras

I'm going to get the Hardwire Supernatural.

monquixote

Dopesick said:

If the spring and the shimmer sound shit then that's turned me right off. I'll give it a go down the road at Coda but these aren't actually giving me hope.

Shame really.

I've honestly never heard a digital spring that wasn't shit.

not_the_dj

Sassafras said:

I'm going to get the Hardwire Supernatural.

I really liked it....although the gold lettering black body was invisible on stage.

The shimmer variants on that are really nice, but I wish it had pre-delay adjustment so the reverb can wash in over the top. The TC Trinity/T2 have a little toggle for that, and of course the Big Sky.

(yeah I still like big clichéd shimmer verbs)