Converting a rack mount effect into a stomp box silliness

[Confuzzled]

Does anyone get the emails blasts from reverb? Read an article yesterday about 80's effect still currently in demand and the last one featured was the Alesis Midiverb 2. They're pretty cheap online and the sounds described sound cool but I don't have the room for a rack unit in my place. Nowhere to stack it where it won't fall or be victim to some spillage so it got me wondering... Has anyone ever tried to put a rack (any unit not just this one) unit into a stomp box? Is it impossible because the circuit boards inside are too big? Curious.

On a side note, are or were there any Alesis pedals that included these sounds?

[rfurtkamp]

This unit is rather on the large side. Stack it on top of the amp. It'll survive a fall, if it does. Or put it under the amp if a combo, or under the pedalboard.

Run a 1/4" Echoplex-type switch to the bypass, go to town.

Most of the older rack stuff has not just a mainboard but a daughterboard, a PSU that if internal is huge and requires a lot of heatsink - keep in mind these things were in the State Department "supercomputer" export list for a while (not the MV2, but other ones of that era).

Just embrace the cheap and use it.

If the grainy, nasty sounds were in a stompbox, I'd grab three.

Best "conventional" use of the thing is the Blixa Bargeld cover of "Somewhere over the Rainbow" - that crackly grain is why I keep it around.

Size perspective (just note the caps and their dedicated heatsink, it gets HOT) on a ART SGE Mk2:

[rfurtkamp]

And additional perspective, Quadraverb(and Qverb+, only difference is swapping the EPROM):

Qverb has a proprietary monster of a PSU that's all external to boot.

Photo is about 60% of the board/rack unit, I did it before swapping the EPROM on mine and to make sure I put it all back together as it was, most don't have the factory shield, it's unnecessary on some if the individual chip is resistant to EMF/noise.

[D.o.S.]

That wouldn't have been this article, would it?
https://reverb.com/blog/digital-vintage ... onsidering

Because:
viewtopic.php?f=149&t=46486

[backwardsvoyager]

You're probably not gonna have a lot of luck, even the smaller rack stuff like the microverb would be a pain in the ass because of board-mounted jacks and pots etc.
Rack units more often than not have a PCB running most of the area of the unit, and if there's less internals you'll likely have a shorter depth unit with an equally long board, so putting anything in a pedal is gonna require an ungodly size enclosure if even possible at all.
At the end of the day - if it was feasible to put such rack effects in pedal format, we would already have much more sophisticated guitar pedals, so you kinda have to bother with integrating it into a setup as-is, it's the trade-off for them usually being way cheaper than pedals that are often only a fraction as cool sounding.

[fever606]

Stack it on top of the amp.

Done in one.

[rfurtkamp]

Yea, the venerable processors used etc aren't pedal friendly - if they're even available. Z80 isn't going to fit with the supplemental EPROM etc in any pedal worth its spit, and then someone would have to program a knob to parameter device compatible with it (as most expect to just read the patch info and go versus knobs).

And then guitarists would complain they're too complex.

[Confuzzled]

That wouldn't have been this article, would it?
https://reverb.com/blog/digital-vintage ... onsidering

Because:
viewtopic.php?f=149&t=46486

Yes! Just read it yesterday.

[Confuzzled]

I think I'm going to get the rack and see how I can set it up. Thanks all!