some of you may know that Paul Davids is my role model, so I just could not miss his own pedal he recently created.
The Nucleo: Stereo Reverb Pedal
I am focused on acoustic and barely touched the electricā¦ but I would like to share with you, who use pedals a lot and also give you little questions and space so you can help me with some informations.
What do you think about this pedal? Is it something different/extra in reverb world of pedals?
Is price 430ā¬ worth it? This is more theory and personal question likeā¦ is not there something with same quality hardware for half? (I dont plan to buy it, it cost more like guitar I wanna buy in future )
Any catch about this is welcomed - even negative ones! I would like to see some honest opinions because I dont know much about pedals at all.
Iām sure thereāll be plenty who think the cost is ridiculous but I think when you watch the video you see why it costs so muchā¦ a hand made pedal, made by a group of people over a period of years. Anyone who thinks it should cost 100 or 200 euros is deluded.
Thatās not to say that I think itās worth it for me and my level of playing. My guess is you can achieve 80/90% of what it does for a quarter of the price and for most people that will be enough.
Iām not against premium products. Thatās where many of the more affordable products start. If this pedal proves popular then thereāll be cheap clones produced. There is something nice about owning and using premium stuff. I have an expensive carbon bicycle; I absolutely donāt need it, but itās really nice to ride. Everything is just a little bit better about it.
@mattswain Nice opinion.
About having something premiumā¦ I really agree. Even I have one of the cheapest Furchā¦ the guitar in hand just feels āmade betterā than my cheaper Fender.
I think from visual the pedal looks really nice and you can already āseeā it will work great. Like knobs looks super satisfying to set.
But at my stage and aim of guitar I wont be able to use it in any way, because I just dont know this stuff and I am not learning it.
I am pretty interested in the cloning - not because of price, but because it will tell us if it is something extra or not.
By the way, if you watched the whole videoā¦ the pedal idea came from Pauls visiting old plant where he played. That was really great video too.
@mattswain Just going through YouTube commentsā¦ ha ha. Seems like there are brands that are alive like cloning and because Paul is known personā¦ it will be there soon or later.
Yes Behringer have a long track record for cloning stuff. Most recently they got sued for cloning the expensive Klon Centaur pedal, not just in terms of sound but also appearance. Theyāve since made some tweaks to the appearance of the pedal but itās still very much a clone.
I would very much doubt Berhringer, or anyone else, will clone this.
For a start itās not a classic, old pedal, which are the ones that normally are cloned. Also, thereās not actually that much thatās unique or revolutionary about it.
I will point out that cloning a fairly simple analogue pedal, like the Klon Centaur, is really not that difficult. Contrary to popular belief, thereās nothing āmagicalā, nor particularly unique about the Centaur in electronics terms. It comprises about $30 of off-the-shelf electronic components. It was a good design with carefully chosen values for components, but replicating it is fairly trivial.
In terms of circuit, the Centaur has no enforceable Intellectual Property. It was the physical design, copying the ātrade dressā, including the logo and name, that got Behringer sued.
The circuit for the Klon Centaur is pretty much open-source these days.
Cloning a digital pedal is a whole different matter as, to do it properly, you really need to copy the DSP algorithms and coding. And those will be heavily protected by Intellectual Property laws.
Regarding the Nucleo, itās a digital DSP reverb with some nice features, but I suspect itās possible to get similar sounds with a pedal like the Strymon Blusky or Boss RV-500. Yes the Bluesky and RV-500 cost around the same as the Nucleo, but theyāre a lot more versatile. You may even be able to load IRs into something like a Boss IR-200 to get some similar sounds.
What I do think is a nice feature, that Iāve not seen on any other unit, is the ability to pitch control the freeze. The Bigsky has a similar freeze feature (including the ability to continue playing notes with reverb) but I donāt believe it allows you to control the pitch.
It would not surprise me if Strymon or Boss copy that feature in the future, and I suspect they could add it with a firmware update.
Note I said ācopyā, not ācloneā. Itās not the same thing at all.
If by āqualityā you are talking about features and the quality of reverb algorithm, then thereās quite a few decent algorithmic digital reverbs out there, Ranging from the TC Electronics Hall of Fame up to the Eventide H90. In between thereās pedals from Boss, Strymon, EarthQuaker Devices, Electro-Harmonix, Walrus Audio, and others.
If by āqualityā you mean "that sounds exactly the same, none of these algorithmic reverbs of these will sound exactly like the Nucleo, nor will they sound like each other, because thereās always going to be something different about their algorithms and, as I suggested before, actually cloning a DSP pedal like this and making it sound identical would require the internal code to be copied.
But all of these offer lots of nice reverbs with different characters and loads of tweaking options at a range of price points. If you are after an algorithmic reverb, I suggest you research all of them and find one which you like. Thereās lots of great ones out there with reverbs that are as high quality as the Nucleo.
If by āqualityā you mean ābuild qualityā, then I would say that thereās no reason to think that the Nucleo is particularly high build quality or better in that respect than any other pedal.
And that does NOT equate to ābetterā build quality. Mass produced circuit boards have higher quality, better consistency, less noise, and a lower failure rate than hand-built circuits. The only real benefit being hand-built gives is that they are easier to repair and easier to mod (except itās highly unlikely one would want to mod a digital reverb pedal).
I suspect the hand-built nature is, mostly because, whilst automated PCB assembly is cheaper in the long run, getting it set up in the first place can be quite expensive and if you are only going to make a small number, it may not be worth it. I suspect if the Nucleo starts flying off the shelves by the thousand, then they will look at moving to a SMD PCB made on a production line.
But I also suspect they wonāt sell that many.
Is it overpriced? Yes and no. Compared with other algorithmic reverbs out there, it is overpriced considering you can get a much more versatile algorithmic reverb for around the same price (and some which are much cheaper).
But the electronic component cost for this is probably in the region of $150, and the controls, case, and the manual labour will be significant costs. Thereās also a considerable R&D cost. If they were going to sell 50k of these, the R&D costs would be negligible, but if they only sell 500 of them, those costs are significant, and they need to recoup them.
Personally, I wouldnāt pay that much for any reverb pedal and, if I did want something similar, I would look for a Boss RV-200 or Strymon BlueSky on the second-hand market.
But I do realise that some people will buy it just because itās associated with Paul Davids. If that brings them joy then, why not?
@Jwaters Yeah, the price is really big and I would buy guitar too instead of one pedal.
@Majik First of all I would like to say my honest āhat downā for all your replies all over the forum. You always offer deep answer with knowledge and understanding the thing. In my eyes you are really rational in this way and I really like all your topics and replies.
Thanks for so much informations. I am gonna look for pedals you mentioned, but for research only. I am not into buying any of those, because like I said - I am acoustic guy in this time.
I think that biggest ad for this is Paul Davids signature, but of course it sounds really great to me. When I was hearing different video I had goosebumps waves through whole bodyā¦ it is really something.
Also thank you for bringing more light about that cloning and copying. It is like in many other life aspectsā¦ hardware could cost few bucks, but the knowhow and the human stamp on that cost the most.
I will definitely look for someone else who will buy it and use it. Would love to see how it works for someone with Tele.
I have to post a correction: I took a closer look at the video whilst at my PC, and with my spectacles on and, at the 4 minute mark, they show the PCB.
I do not believe that is a hand-assembled PCB. That looks like a modern, flow-soldered PCB made in a factory. It certainly has surface mounted devices (SMD) which would be quite difficult to reliably build by hand.
So I would put money on that being a factory-built circuit board.
Which means the āhand builtā part means āhand assembledā, which is largely a marketing thing as, many many guitar pedals are assembled by hand. As an example, all JHS pedals are hand assembled in their facility in Kansas, and many of them cost under $100.
@Majik Will do some data and then jump into it. Thanks for sharing.
My previous job was electro technician - I was repairing smartphones so I have little experiences with main and sub boards, but just with soldering USB ports and vibras.
Edit: The price of pedals are what they are. Boutique pedals are spendy. If someone wants or feels they need it, it is worth what people are willing to pay for it.
Thats cool. But it being realistic and a knowing they dont really need it, and maybe as a beginner and asking honestly can use that money be used for other more important equpment? Then passing is not unwise. Waiting until they are sitting there saying maybe I really need this equipment for a project then buying it might be the way.
Sometimes its fun being a gear whore, nothing wrong with it if you have the funds to play with lots or different ideas. Niether are wrong.
That is a thorny point, and I offer a counterpoint: no-one, not even Paul Davids, needs the Nucleo.
He even admitted as such by calling it the reverb āof his dreamsā, therefore, itās a desire, not a need.
I say: buy what you want and can afford. If (after a bit of level-headed research into other pedals and, ideally, some auditioning of it) the Nucleo is what you really, really want and the kids arenāt going to go hungry this month (and, more importantly in this modern world which is credit-based, you arenāt going to go into debt by buying it) then get it.
Personally, I have no problem people buying things out of pure desire, if they can afford them.
But I do try to provide some counterpoint to the Marketing BS that come out of these companies: Iām sure Paul is passionate about this device, but heās also financially invested and wants to make a profit from it. Thereās nothing wrong with that, but it comes with a healthy dose of Marketing (and if you think you are immune to Marketing then I have a bridge to sell you).
And if, after realising that thereās actually not that much thatās unique or innovative about about the Nucleo and, whilst itās more capable and different sounding, itās actually not any more āboutiqueā or āhand-madeā than a Boss RV-6, and that there are more capable (and, perhaps, better sounding) reverb pedals in that price rangeā¦
If after realising all that, and you still crave it, then I have no problem with people fulfilling their desires.
And, it does sound really good.
But, to be honest, we are discussing a hobby here where everything is, really, a āwantā rather than a āneedā.
@Majik To make a little bit lighter statement about hobby and we buy what we need and wantā¦
We all should be thankful, that we are musicians and not fishermans.
(just joking, nothing against this hobby, only I know from some it is really really expensive one but you can also ābeā on really budget gear and that mostly apply to most hobbies)
One of my other hobbies (mentioned above) - bicycles - also makes a 400GBP pedal seem not so unreasonable!!! Iāve got a rain jacket that cost almost as much (Iām still not buying this pedal to be clear)
Lol, when approaching retirement, I spent a lot of money on golf lessons in anticipation of it being my retirement hobby. I did get a lot better, but I decided to learn guitar instead. I love music a whole lot more than I love golf. Havenāt swung a club in 3 years.
)
and, at the 4 minute mark, they show the PCB.
