That Ducking Reverb

So in another case of "it was cheap, so why not" I picked up a Boss SX-700 rack multi-effects unit. It's basically the spiritual successor to the SE-70 (and SE-50) that I covered in an earlier blog post, and caters more directly to studio setups providing very clear, refined and powerful effects.

This one is a full 19 inches wide as compared to the half-rack sized effects boxes I've been collecting so far, and unlike those fixed-function single-effects units or fixed-algorithm multi-effects units, this one allows you to assemble your own effects chain in a number of routing patterns (different parallel/series paths), which adds a whole additional layer of flexibility.

There are limitations, of course. For example, each chain only has 5 slots, which can only be filled with some permutation of eq, modulation, delay, reverb and "RSS" which is a psychoacoustic audio positioning algorithm that shapes the frequencies of the sounds so that it sounds like it's coming from above, below, in front or behind you. Which is, you know, kinda neat.

Anyway, the input and output level knob caps managed to come loose from the knob cores, so they'll need to get glued back on.

So some not-so-super glue comes to the rescue, along with some accelerator so that it cures relatively quickly and isn't still liquid when I put the knobs back on.

And while we're waiting for the glue to cure, let's have a little peek inside.

Everything looks nice and clean in here, which isn't too surprising given that there's no air vents for hair and dust to get into.

There is a battery in here though, so let's see how it's doing.

Seems pretty healthy.

There is a bit of rust along the top of the case, which isn't too surprising. Sweaty musicians will tend to put their hands on top of the unit while adjusting settings, and that sweat does a number even on the galvanized steel chassis.

Luckily the rust didn't get too far, so no major concerns there.

The display window is looking a bit nasty.

A quick polish is enough to clean most of it up, but a few light scratches and the spot in the upper left didn't quite come off fully.

There is some bubbling of the polarizer on the LCD panel itself, but it's pretty minor for now so I'm not going to do anything about it.

Naturally some of the feet have gone for a wander over the years.

So to keep everything matching, I'll peel off the old ones and start fresh with a matching set.

And with everything back together, things are looking good.

Note that the vertical lines through the large numbers are normal. It's a 16x2 character display rather than a bitmap display, so the gaps are just the gaps between the characters.