Roland engineer Paul Rispens looks at the impact of the SRV 2000, a professional Reverb for a captivating price

Two years ago, Roland introduced the SRV Digital Delay, which, which, at that time, represented a major breakthrough as it was the first quality digital delay at a reasonable price. An identical situtation exists now, as Roland launch the SRV 2000 Digital Reverb.

It has some very professional features. The Pre Delay time, for example, can be from 0 to 100 milliseconds. This is used to separate the original sound from the reverb. A snare drum beat with the reverb coming immediately after it would merge into one which would sound unnatural as it normally takes a little time to go into a diffused reverb field. Adding a little pre delay makes it sound more natural.

The SRV 2000 has a maximum reverb time of 99 seconds and can even be held indefinitely by using the Eternity Switch. This is useful for choir effects as the different notes in a chord can be layered together and the reverb 'looped' to give an infinite delay.

The reverb equalisation is very comprehensive having a parametric mid, a parameter high and a low shelving equaliser. The parametrics can boost or cut 12dB and you can adjust the frequency or Q factor (the sharpness of the peak or dip). They can be controlled manually or by the room simulation function which is an inbuilt computer calculating the frequency conditions of any room size and automatically adjusting the equalisation. In a small room, for example, there are many hard reflections from the walls but in a larger room the reverb has a much more diffused sound field. This would sound very natural but can be manually overriden to give unnatural effects reproduced to the sounds of plate reverbs, etc.

When natural sounds die away they gradually lose their high frequencies and this is reproduced with High Frequency Damping. Room size is displayed and can be from 1 metre x 1 metre to a maximum simulation of 37 metres x 37 metres x 37 metres. A small room would normally have a short reverb time but there is no reason why you shouldn't produce special effects by making it longer.

Gated reverb cuts off very sharply and is very popular for drum sounds whilst a combination of a long gate time with pre delay gives an unusual 'reversed sound' effect.

Although the SRV 2000 will work perfectly well in mono it is most effective in true stereo mode because the delay times are spread over the stereo image without resorting to "phase tricks". The noise ratio is 90dB which is more than enough for most recordings.

Everything done on the front panel can be stored in the memory, except the input level, but that is unimportant because you can store the output level. The input level just serves to match with the mixing desk and instrument. Being MIDI equipped, its 24 memories can be selected by MIDI program change information from a synthesizer. Very useful in live performance because it allows certain effects to be automatically switched in when you select particular sounds. By synchronising an MSQ700 to tape a sort of computer controlled mix down can be achieved by letting the sequencer control the reverb, freeing your hands for other things. (This would work with the SDD2500 Digital Delay too).

All controls are well laid out on the front panel and it is easy to understand and operate. Although similar features may be already available on very expensive digital reverbs they have never before been found on such an inexpensive device as this, the Roland SRV 2000 Digital Reverb.