The SPX90 goes further than any other unit to be all things to all musicians/engineers. You name it, it does it — as long as you name one of the things it does, of course. But the chances are you will, because within its modest black casing lies a digital heart capable of realising most popular effects of the day. There are 30 editable factory presets with a further 60 memory locations in which to store your own edited versions. Types of effects covered include reverb (normal, gated and reverse effects), delay/echo, modulation (chorusing, phasing, etc), pitch changing, sampling, autopanning, vibrato, equalisation, compression and gating, there's also flexible remote programme change via MIDI. All this for £599. It's a revolution.

If you've heard and like the REV-7 you'll like the reverb effects although there aren't quite as many editable parameters and the quality is possibly slightly less. Reverb time (0.3 to 99sec), pre-delay (0.1 to 50ms), HF content, HPF and LPF are all adjustable.

The pitch change is phenomenally good and apart from its relatively limited 12kHz bandwidth, it's comparable with the likes of AMS and Eventide. The delay/repeat facility is also limited by the bandwidth and also by a maximum delay of half a second or stereo repeat time of a quarter of a second.

The sampling facility is monophonic up to half a second, and it's possible to build up harmonies etc with the overdub function. Although it is possible to change the pitch of the sample on replay via a MIDI keyboard, it doesn't work well in practise. For simple fixed-pitch sampling, though, it's quite excellent being able to capture the attack of even the fastest transient signal and also allowing editing of start and finish points.

It seems rather ungracious to complain about its slight limitations when you consider what's being offered for the money. Everything does at least what you would expect of it, with the exception of the compressor and gate both of which are very unorthodox and limited in their applications.

Simple to operate, though complex in function, this is the ideal all round processor for the home studio, the stage and the pro studio alike. Incredible value. Highly recommended.

YAMAHA SPX90: £599.00