New Lexicon PCM 70 Day

[Whizzinby]

Always wanted to try one of these. Decided to take a punt on one after trying Nielsen’s IR’s of it.


First Observation
I’ve been using this shit for years. All this stuff is in the AxeFX and every other pedal released since. Kind of hits like “oh, this is the source code”. My beloved AxeFX Gymnasium, oh that’s a Lexicon verb. Tunnel, oh that’s Lexicon. (Insert that realization for 90% of the algos in it) Kind of drives home the chase is still classic Lexicon, Eventide, and TC. Crazy how many presets you go through and realize “Oh that’s XYZ pedal/algo”.

WTF
Holy shit the control scheme. Rows & columns for an invisible grid, which you then disengage from Program or Reg mode to get to another invisible grid of parameters controls?

We got it good now, this shit is a trip to use. I totally get why those presets were legendary, because nobody wanted to fucking bother tweaking their own.

A New Hope
I got this Synthasist desktop editor working.

This is way.

There is a crazy amount of parameters you can edit per preset, but at least they are visible.

The Vintage Risk
The fucking 9 button is stuck and 4 feels like it ain’t that far behind it. “It’s fully functional”, yeah if you don’t press all the buttons. Debating whether to pop the face plate and see if the spring mechanism is fine and if I can use them without a face button. I don’t want to send her back and look for another., (Which would be another risk itself) but it’s tough to know how discerning to be with these old units. The editor to some degree reduces the need for them tho.

Algos/Presets
All the classic shit sounds dope as I expected. Concert Hall, Tiled Room, Gymnasium, Circular Delays, Pan Delays, Rich Plate.

Smooth. Sits nice under your playing. Classic shit.

Concert Wave, Mod Wobble, Inverse Room, id say are hidden gems, but this thing is forty years old.

What’s sort of surprising is the amount of creative stuff in it. There are a lot of BPM / Multi delay programs that really do a sort of grain-delay thing really well. Like, Six Across and Auto Suspense sound like major Chase Bliss influences. Lots of cool and quirky rhythmic/multi delay badassery.

The Major Chord & Minor Chord programs do the resonant filter - tap thing really well. I didn’t not expect it to have those sort of tones in it.

Anyways, I’m rambling, but having fun turning back the clock with this, in a “Dude realizes the OG’s were already on the good shit all along” kind of way.
__________________________

Anybody got tips/tricks/faves with it?

 

[Tritium3H]

@Whizzinby ,

Excellent write-up.

Glad you are lovin' your PCM-70, as well. Its lookin' good, installed above your Axe-Fx. I will have to get myself a copy of that Synthasist PC Editor program you are using. Looks sweet.

I have been living on the "Concert Hall" (v2.0), "Rich Plate" (v2.0), "Concert Wave" (v3.0) and "EChorus" (v3.0) presets.

Enjoy!

P.S. -- I have gone completely nuts...as I also just purchased a PCM-92. The PCM-92 Should arrive early next week.

Oh well, lots of fun times ahead.

 

[Tritium3H]

@Whizzinby ,

By the way, if you haven't read this thread on Gearspace, I think you will enjoy checking it out. It is a great history and discussion of Lexicon reverb effect processors. The thread was started and contributed to by Michael Carnes, who was the Lead DSP reverb engineer at Lexicon for the final, Swan-Song PCM92/96 era (although I believe he was there during the 960L and PCM 90/91 development, as well.). He has since gone on to found Exponential Audio.

Lexicon Reverbs -- A Brief Bestiary

Here is a short article/interview with Michael Carnes:

Last Word with Michael Carnes, Part 1

 

[AZG]

Kind of a trip to see classic old stuff like this. I was a high school kid who could only dream of having something like this back then. It's MSRP in 1985 was $3k. That was a lot of cheddar back then, especially for a kid. Kids today have no idea how good their gear choices are today comparatively.

 

[2112]

Siiiiiick!

 

[Orvillain]

We had a PCM96 at the old fxpansion studio, and it was pretty freaking good!

Congrats on the buy!

 

[Stone]

Vintage sweetness, congrats

 

[Eagle]

Still the best tones for reverb that doesn’t sound like an effect. These make H90s sound like glass and show up the Strymon big turd as a fake sounding sheen instead of an environment.
Enjoy everything except programming it.

 

[Whizzinby]

Glad you are lovin' your PCM-70, as well. Its lookin' good, installed above your Axe-Fx. I will have to get myself a copy of that Synthasist PC Editor program you are using. Looks sweet.

Yeah the editor is awesome. You can easily bounce between Program and Register presets, tweak, save, reorder etc. It has the V2 presets in the software so you can upload them directly from the editor if you’re on V3.

Only mild downside is that you have to initiate a scan of the PGM and REG banks each time you initially start it up. There is a button to scan both, so it’s easy to do and takes about 30 seconds.

There is a VST that comes with it too, so it has some sort of plugin capability, but I haven’t dug into that yet.

Still the best tones for reverb that doesn’t sound like an effect. These make H90s sound like glass and show up the Strymon big turd as a fake sounding sheen instead of an environment.
Enjoy everything except programming it.

The H90 and MX kick ass, but they are just doing different things. I don’t really approach it winner-takes-all tho.

Definitely agree the rooms and room variants really sound/feel like environments, but it’s interesting to see that some of the classic verb presets aren’t actually using algo’s that correspond to their type. Some are built on delay engines, chorus engines, or halls using a plate or vice versa.

Kind of a trip to see classic old stuff like this. I was a high school kid who could only dream of having something like this back then. It's MSRP in 1985 was $3k. That was a lot of cheddar back then, especially for a kid. Kids today have no idea how good their gear choices are today comparatively.

Holy shit, I didn’t realize those things were that pricey then. Wow.

Completely agree about having it good these days, with easy to use devices loaded with the history of fx in the palm of your hand. (for a fraction of the cost)

I do wonder though if the newer kit will be viewed with the same level of romanticism in the future.

___________________________________


Gonna wire this dude into the line mixer today for some parallel action with Axe/H90.

All rack dreams will be realized today.

 

[Eagle]

Yeah the editor is awesome. You can easily bounce between Program and Register presets, tweak, save, reorder etc. It has the V2 presets in the software so you can upload them directly from the editor if you’re on V3.

Only mild downside is that you have to initiate a scan of the PGM and REG banks each time you initially start it up. There is a button to scan both, so it’s easy to do and takes about 30 seconds.

There is a VST that comes with it too, so it has some sort of plugin capability, but I haven’t dug into that yet.



The H90 and MX kick ass, but they are just doing different things. I don’t really approach it winner-takes-all tho.

Definitely agree the rooms and room variants really sound/feel like environments, but it’s interesting to see that some of the classic verb presets aren’t actually using algo’s that correspond to their type. Some are built on delay engines, chorus engines, or halls using a plate or vice versa.



Holy shit, I didn’t realize those things were that pricey then. Wow.

Completely agree about having it good these days, with easy to use devices loaded with the history of fx in the palm of your hand. (for a fraction of the cost)

I do wonder though if the newer kit will be viewed with the same level of romanticism in the future.

___________________________________


Gonna wire this dude into the line mixer today for some parallel action with Axe/H90.

All rack dreams will be realized today.

H90 and MX are ass adjacent but no kicking is happening . More like a bit of falling and some wiping

 

[Whizzinby]

H90 and MX are ass adjacent but no kicking is happening . More like a bit of falling and some wiping

 

[FuzzyAce]

Very nice, enjoy!
Looking forward to your next, new rack day, soon.

 

[Tritium3H]

Some of the reverbs on my Fractal FM9T get “close”, in relative terms, to my PCM70, when heard in a live guitar playing context. Same with the UA Golden.

However, when listening to recorded tones, and hearing the warmth, depth, movement and 3-Dimensionality of the reverb decay trails…the PCM70 simply outclasses the Fractal.

The PCM70’s magic and mojo probably has as much to do with its analog circuitry (analog power supply, input filters, output stage Burr-Brown PCM53 DAC, etc.) as its proprietary reverb algorithms.

I notice a similar inscrutable quality in the Roland SRV-330, which just isn’t quite captured in the contemporary digital effects hardware, and in particular the ubiquitous reverb and/or delay floor pedal/stompbox.

 

[Eagle]

Some of the reverbs on my Fractal FM9T get “close”, in relative terms, to my PCM70, when heard in a live guitar playing context. Same with the UA Golden.

However, when listening to recorded tones, and hearing the warmth, depth, movement and 3-Dimensionality of the reverb decay trails…the PCM70 simply outclasses the Fractal.

The PCM70’s magic and mojo probably has as much to do with its analog circuitry (analog power supply, input filters, output stage Burr-Brown PCM53 DAC, etc.) as its proprietary reverb algorithms.

I notice a similar inscrutable quality in the Roland SRV-330, which just isn’t quite captured in the contemporary digital effects hardware, and in particular the ubiquitous reverb and/or delay floor pedal/stompbox.

This is exactly right and I add the 2290 to the list.

 

[Tenebris]

Some of the reverbs on my Fractal FM9T get “close”, in relative terms, to my PCM70, when heard in a live guitar playing context. Same with the UA Golden.

However, when listening to recorded tones, and hearing the warmth, depth, movement and 3-Dimensionality of the reverb decay trails…the PCM70 simply outclasses the Fractal.

The PCM70’s magic and mojo probably has as much to do with its analog circuitry (analog power supply, input filters, output stage Burr-Brown PCM53 DAC, etc.) as its proprietary reverb algorithms.

I notice a similar inscrutable quality in the Roland SRV-330, which just isn’t quite captured in the contemporary digital effects hardware, and in particular the ubiquitous reverb and/or delay floor pedal/stompbox.

yup this, and I'm usually deeply cynical about vintage mojo. I did tracks with a guy who *really* knew how to use one of those. Was just using a plugin for reverb when I was tracking, and then when I heard the mix it was one of those "wtf is that me?!" moments and just started grinning. even after a fully digital production chain it still had that thing.