The Fourth Man

In this case, for some odd reason, I didn’t buy another Yamaha product. It makes even less sense, as the Yamaha SPX-90, 900, 1000 multi-effects units were industry standards. Once again it came down to bangs to bucks, at least in terms of the specs on paper. I recall the sales guy at the store telling me that the Yamaha SPX-1000 “gets records made”. For some reason, that bit of rhetoric pissed me off, and I think I may have partially bought the Quadraverb out of spite.

Alesis Quadraverb multi effects unit

Though the Quadraverb was capable of multiple simultaneous effects, there was a trade off in quality depending on how many effects were used. The presets also seemed to lean towards sounding harsh and screechy. All told, a combination of the Quadraverb, the FM synths, and a lack of mixing and recording experience contributed to the thin and screechy aspects of the music we were doing, most notably with the vocals. Then again, there was also a strong psychological component to why the vocals turned out the way they did.

The Quadraverb went missing around 1993/94.