ART Multiverb Digital Multi-Effects
Last Update 07-18-2025
Definitely from the "gotta start somewhere" department. In the
early days of my music studio, I had an ART ProVerb which wasn't
very good so I acquired this MultiVerb. A friend had one - it
didn't sound bad, and it included delay, tapped delay, chorus,
flanging, and pitch shifting in addition to reverb. All the
effects were in the digital domain. It could also be MIDI
controlled. Effects could be chained in any order.
Promotional material declared it a professional device... far from
the truth. It's not a bad multiFX for a beginner but the more
I dug into it the more I was disappointed. The reverbs aren't
very good, pitch transpose was very glitchy, so about the only
useable effects were chorus, delay, and multi-tapped delay.
The big problem was that the internal effects would clip way too
easily, and this was despite the level meter indicating below
clipping with plenty of headroom. You had to keep the input so
low that it ruined the signal to noise ratio and the output of the
unit was noisy.
The box came with about 90 or so presets but only a few were
useable. I never did program many of my own effects as the
noise became a problem. I also quickly learned as I was adding
gear to my studio that a single effects unit was not enough.
Sure it could be controlled over MIDI but what good is that with a
noisy unit?
This MultiVerb soured my taste for multiple effects units.
While the concept of chaining effects sounded cool, the harsh
reality is as you pile up the effects in the chain the process
sacrifices DSP horsepower at the expense of achieving multiple
effects. That means you had to use reverb algorithms that used
less DSP power, which sounded inferior as a result. While that
is good bang-for-the-buck, I wanted all that DSP power reserved for
reverb. In my experiments I have found that dedicated effects
boxes (digital reverbs, delays, chorus, etc) sounded superior to
all-in-one multiFX boxes.
Editing patches wasn't fun either. The user interface of
up/down buttons and a single LCD display was one that I grew tired
of over time, and I swore never to own gear (with VERY few
exceptions) without a panel full of knobs for changing a program.
I made a big jump into professional effects starting with my Korg SDD-2000
digital delay. That progressed to the SDD-1200 and the SDD-3300.
The Korg SDD series are excellent digital delay products. But
what digital reverb should I acquire...? I attended the NAMM
show in 2005 and decided to audition the professional products that
I would never find in small town music stores back home. The Eventide 2016
won my heart. That was a BIG leap into professional digital
reverb. As an experiment I attempted to duplicate the reverbs
I was using on the 2016 with vocals, with drums, etc but the
MultiVerb was now outclassed as its reverb algorithms paled compared
to the 2016, and especially the Lexicon Model 200 I
later acquired. To be fair, this product was released in an
era (late 1980s) where microprocessors just did not have the number
crunching horsepower that today's DSP and microprocessor devices
do. Today if I wanted a multi effects unit I would reach for
the Eventide Hxxxx products.
I tried the MultiVerb inline with a synth and uncovered another
problem. If you use the mix control anywhere other than full
dry or full wet, you get tone suck as the original tone of your
guitar or synth is significantly affected. This is a hardware
problem that no firmware can fix.
On top of that, the MultiVerb generated a lot of heat. You had
to be careful what it was placed under in a rack, because if too
much heat is trapped then the excess heat starts to degrade
electronic components... poof.
To put it plainly, the MultiVerb was no longer useful. I no
longer own this device. It was literally worthless on the used
gear market (they sit unsold at $50) so I donated it to a church
where a guitar student might appreciate it.
"Gotta start somewhere"...
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