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So I've enjoyed my M7 for awhile and it's pretty rad, but I have a chance to do a straight swap for a Ventris. Obviously it's my decision to make but I'm super nervous about things like this, so please opine at me.

FWIW, I do mostly ambient/psychedelic/drony guitar based stuff. The only other verb I have is a SLO, which if it were stereo would likely be all I need...

Much appreciated!

I didn't care for the Ventris. It was cool and all with all the tweaks and what not but I [preferred the Mercury 7 FWIW.

I'm tryna decide what to move on to from the Ventris - it's down to the Mercury7 or Specular Tempus.

Nothing about the Ventris blows me away. The regular modes are fine but like plate in comparison to a good plate plugin is meh and I'm not a fan of having to hook up my phone for deeper editing. I only got to spend a minute with a Merc7 before the world blew up but I appreciated that it could cover a fair amount of ground without needing a dozen modes. Thinking the M7+RM1N that is slowly making its way from Canada would cover me on hi-fi and lo-fi verbs pretty well.

jirodreamsofdank wrote:I'm tryna decide what to move on to from the Ventris - it's down to the Mercury7 or Specular Tempus.

Nothing about the Ventris blows me away. The regular modes are fine but like plate in comparison to a good plate plugin is meh and I'm not a fan of having to hook up my phone for deeper editing. I only got to spend a minute with a Merc7 before the world blew up but I appreciated that it could cover a fair amount of ground without needing a dozen modes. Thinking the M7+RM1N that is slowly making its way from Canada would cover me on hi-fi and lo-fi verbs pretty well.

Speculat Tempus kicks the crap outta' Ventris.
(Yes, I've had all of these...uggghhhhh)

Keep the Mercury 7, It's a stellar reverb. I love mine, it has something special in the sound, and the vector pitch shifting is something very unique to, I never found anywhere else.
Plus the secondary controls give you a lot of flexibility.
I never tried the Ventris, but what I do not like is that to access its full settings/capabilities you need a dedicated app. My taste: I have to be able to fully control and access all the pedal functions on the pedal itself, without "external help".

+1 for the merc7. Ive had both (still have the meris) and I thought the ventris was pretty cool but it didn't sound as good as the merc7. I feel like the merc7 sounds great no matter what but it took some work to get great sounds out of the ventris. I honestly think the ventris sounded a little dull if that makes sense. The secondary controls on the merc7 are a little frustrating at first to try and remember but its way better than having to use my phone/app like the ventris. Plus the merc7 sounds so good on guitars, synths, basically everything.

I will also say that the Slo is a damn fine reverb.

I also did not care for the Ventris. I bought it for the two parallel algos in stereo thing and it was really finicky. I gave up on it pretty quickly. The reverse on it was the worst reverse I've heard yet.

I liked the M7 but I kind of found one thing I like it to do and got bored with that one sound.

I think that is why I like the Empress, because of its versatility, and it always sounds good.

I also just started playing with the Context2 and am having mixed feelings about it I like a lot of the sounds but I am too easily getting digital distortion with it.

I could’ve sworn I posted this, but it seems to have disappeared...

Thanks for all the feedback. I ended up making the trade (before I saw most of these posts). I felt a little pressure (the Ventris was also up for sale), but also I’m really intrigued by the dual verb action. I’m not much of an app-tweaker, but in my brief in-person Ventris experience I felt like there’s enough there that I really need to have it in home to explore fully. And besides, value-wise it seems like a pretty solid deal. And there are other Merises. And, after all, it’s only gear... right?

manymanyhaha wrote:I also just started playing with the Context2 and am having mixed feelings about it I like a lot of the sounds but I am too easily getting digital distortion with it.

Fuck, I hope that's not an innate issue with the hardware! The one problem I've always had with the OG Context, which is my favorite sounding pedal verb maybe ever, is that it's way too easy to clip and it ain't pretty or interesting when it does.

I also have the M7. I find it pretty limited, but it does what it does like nothing else. Played the Ventris, found it kinda bland, mostly.

I thought the M7 sounded really good as a regular reverb. Gorgeous, actually. That being said, I thought the vector pitch shifting was pretty shit. Really didn't like how it made the reverb decay way shorter. I get that's how it works, but it still annoyed me. Plus, I'm done with all of these hidden sub parameters that should have had dedicated knobs.

UglyCasanova wrote:I thought the vector pitch shifting was pretty shit. Really didn't like how it made the reverb decay way shorter.

Yeah, that was a disappointment when I first got it. I also don't really care pitch shifted verbs (especially octave up) all that much, so I basically just use it with the bass cranked + max decay and slow mod. The secondary control function access is annoying but not as troublesome as it is on the other Meris pedals since reverb is *usually* a little more set and forget.

Well, I got my Ventris and while I haven't had a lot of time to explore (and haven't even touched the app), I like it pretty well. What I really like is that it's really easy to use and the manual is extremely well written. Both big pluses for me.