Middleman
Professional Amateur
Man, I should just go in the review business with all the new gear I have been playing with lately.
Tonight I spent a couple of hours playing with the Lexicon MX200, the new VST based external, dual effects processor. In the other corner was my veritable go-to-device the TC Electronics M-One, not the XL version but the earlier version.
I have mixed feelings about the Lexicon; let me say that up front.
The controls are handy and it's much easier with the Lexicon getting into the individual engines for tweaking, this I liked a lot. Even though the front LCD panel is not as fancy as the TC, I liked the MPX200's simplicity and found it very functional and fast to dial in the sound you are searching for.
The tempo button is in a handy spot as is the bypass. I loved having a decay knob instead of punching through menus on the TC. In fact, I loved having all the knobs on the MX200 instead of the multi levels of menus and numerous flat buttons. It was just faster and, if you are visually impaired, like I am, things just go faster when trying to dial in a sound on the Lexicon unit.
It all comes down to the sound. I was looking for an alternative processor to the M-one and that's what caught my eye about the MX200. At its $199 price, I thought if the sounds were even marginally usable this might be a low cost approach.
This is where the mixed feelings come into play. The TC stands out more distinctly against a mix or individual tracks, let me state that first. It's darker, deeper in sound almost across the board in presets but I only compared factory default sounds in each unit. I tried drum rooms, halls, vocal plates and did not actually try and tweak them with exact parameters of predelay. Just the stock sounds with no attempt at matching except the names of their presets. Not scientific but it was getting late in the day.
The Lexicon was much brighter and thinner sounding which is characteristic of other Lex models I have heard under $500. It does sound smoother but almost sizzling smoother which for some things gets annoying. For many things however, it fit with the mix quicker than the TC. Then there is the phasing....
Almost every preset sounded like it was phasing along with the dry vocal. I am was not sure if this was intentional but I had the knobs turned all the way to wet. This was SPDIF by the way; I did not hook up the analog jacks. There was another user who complained that he hated the sound and I had to agree, this sound was not good. However, there was light at the end of the tunnel and I am sure the other reviewer did not find the routing setting which exists in the utility menu which partially alleviates the phasing sound.
One of the Lexi people on the other thread mentioned going into the utility menu and setting the default engine path to parallel and so I thought I would give that a go. This turned out to be the ticket and suddenly I had good separation from the dry track however, as I dialed through the various presets, the phasing kept coming back. I notice that the engine routing button would still continue to change to different engine routings so I assumed the global setting for wet is not so global and you need to tweak individual presets to keep the phasing monster away. My theory is that this is the result of a delayed signal from the original track against a slightly delayed SPDIF return. This really was rather annoying.
Let me say however, that when it worked as 100% wet, the sounds of the presets synthesized with the mix better than the TC. This was promising. Overall I really liked the sound of the MX200 and it does deliver on a different color of reverb, delays, chorusing and many other effects. It was much easier to get workable results on this unit vs. the amount of work I have to do on the TC. The two actually contrast each other very favorably; the TC being deeper in sound and the Lexicon brighter but not harsh like the plug in versions of their software.
Will I keep the unit? I am not sure at this point. I would like the Lexicon people to comment on the phasing sound while using SPDIF. Perhaps I still have something set wrong. There was not a deep explanation of all the Utility menu settings so this may be operator inexperience.
By the way, the software is handy. A prebuilt midi based interface to control the box. This worked flawlessly with Sonar 4.0.3.
Tonight I spent a couple of hours playing with the Lexicon MX200, the new VST based external, dual effects processor. In the other corner was my veritable go-to-device the TC Electronics M-One, not the XL version but the earlier version.
I have mixed feelings about the Lexicon; let me say that up front.
The controls are handy and it's much easier with the Lexicon getting into the individual engines for tweaking, this I liked a lot. Even though the front LCD panel is not as fancy as the TC, I liked the MPX200's simplicity and found it very functional and fast to dial in the sound you are searching for.
The tempo button is in a handy spot as is the bypass. I loved having a decay knob instead of punching through menus on the TC. In fact, I loved having all the knobs on the MX200 instead of the multi levels of menus and numerous flat buttons. It was just faster and, if you are visually impaired, like I am, things just go faster when trying to dial in a sound on the Lexicon unit.
It all comes down to the sound. I was looking for an alternative processor to the M-one and that's what caught my eye about the MX200. At its $199 price, I thought if the sounds were even marginally usable this might be a low cost approach.
This is where the mixed feelings come into play. The TC stands out more distinctly against a mix or individual tracks, let me state that first. It's darker, deeper in sound almost across the board in presets but I only compared factory default sounds in each unit. I tried drum rooms, halls, vocal plates and did not actually try and tweak them with exact parameters of predelay. Just the stock sounds with no attempt at matching except the names of their presets. Not scientific but it was getting late in the day.
The Lexicon was much brighter and thinner sounding which is characteristic of other Lex models I have heard under $500. It does sound smoother but almost sizzling smoother which for some things gets annoying. For many things however, it fit with the mix quicker than the TC. Then there is the phasing....
Almost every preset sounded like it was phasing along with the dry vocal. I am was not sure if this was intentional but I had the knobs turned all the way to wet. This was SPDIF by the way; I did not hook up the analog jacks. There was another user who complained that he hated the sound and I had to agree, this sound was not good. However, there was light at the end of the tunnel and I am sure the other reviewer did not find the routing setting which exists in the utility menu which partially alleviates the phasing sound.
One of the Lexi people on the other thread mentioned going into the utility menu and setting the default engine path to parallel and so I thought I would give that a go. This turned out to be the ticket and suddenly I had good separation from the dry track however, as I dialed through the various presets, the phasing kept coming back. I notice that the engine routing button would still continue to change to different engine routings so I assumed the global setting for wet is not so global and you need to tweak individual presets to keep the phasing monster away. My theory is that this is the result of a delayed signal from the original track against a slightly delayed SPDIF return. This really was rather annoying.
Let me say however, that when it worked as 100% wet, the sounds of the presets synthesized with the mix better than the TC. This was promising. Overall I really liked the sound of the MX200 and it does deliver on a different color of reverb, delays, chorusing and many other effects. It was much easier to get workable results on this unit vs. the amount of work I have to do on the TC. The two actually contrast each other very favorably; the TC being deeper in sound and the Lexicon brighter but not harsh like the plug in versions of their software.
Will I keep the unit? I am not sure at this point. I would like the Lexicon people to comment on the phasing sound while using SPDIF. Perhaps I still have something set wrong. There was not a deep explanation of all the Utility menu settings so this may be operator inexperience.
By the way, the software is handy. A prebuilt midi based interface to control the box. This worked flawlessly with Sonar 4.0.3.
