THE GRILLEWORK
The front panel is well thought out with a minimum of buttons, each of which has an associated LED to let you know where you are. A pair of LED ladder meters live just to the left of the large dot-matrix display. The seven LEDs per channel span the range from zero down to -40dBFS. Below that the LEVELS button accesses the input and output configuration menus. The first LEVELS screen offers input and output gain, wet/dry balance, and the metering choices, while the second offers analog and digital input levels, mono/stereo input mode, and master output level.
The various gain stages and level matching can be applied to both channels together or either channel independently, and repeatedly pressing the appropriate selection button cycles through the options. A third column of LEDs indicates the sampling rate, with LEDs for 96, 88.2, 48, 44.1kHz, and Ext (which allows the Eclipse to use an external word clock). There is also a separate red LED to indicate digital overloads, which can only be reset from within the metering submenu.
The fluorescent display is bright and legible even at a distance. The dot-matrix display presents text over two lines — the upper line shows the current program and parameter details, while the lower line indicates the function of the associated soft key below. Where applicable, a number in the lower right tells you how many menu pages make up the current mode, and which page you are viewing. A right-facing arrow will appear next to the number if there are additional pages available. The green Edited LED below the display lights when a recalled preset program has been modified. The brightness of the display can be adjusted over a wide range, and there’s also an auto-dim mode, which reduces the display brightness after a user-defined time period.
To the right of the display are the main operational controls consisting of a column of three buttons, a rotary encoder, and two further buttons. The first column of buttons are labeled Program, Hot Keys, and Parameter, each with an associated LED to highlight its current status. The Program button is used to recall and store programs, or to access the program search facility. The Hot Keys button calls up the eight most relevant program parameters, four at a time, to the soft keys, allowing a program to be fine-tuned easily. Any parameter can be assigned to a Hot Key, enabling you to pick and choose which parameters will be displayed when the Eclipse is in the Hot Keys page. The Parameter button lets you get into the Eclipse’s guts and access every parameter of the current program, not only the often-used parameters found by the Hot Keys button, but everything else as well. This includes the underlying algorithms, the signal routing, the levels between the two processing engines, and the modulation block parameters. In effect, the Hot Keys button provides a kind of “Quick Edit” mode and the Parameter button is the equivalent of an “Expert Edit” mode.
The parameter knob (a continuous rotary encoder) is weighted and smooth, and yields varying degrees of control depending on the speed at which you move it and the number of steps involved in the selected parameter. For example, when adjusting the master wet/dry balance, 360 degrees of rotation changes the balance by about 8 percent, whereas the same amount of rotation increments the preset program list by four. To the right of the wheel is the self-explanatory Bypass button (with a red LED), and the Setup button below accesses a range of housekeeping functions. These include setting tempo characteristics (speed and source, Tap button, MIDI, and so on), operating modes (including relay, DSP-block, or hard-mute methods of bypassing), and Digital In and Out configurations (source, clock, sample-rate conversions, ADAT channels, output format, emphasis, SCMS, dithering, and more). The second page provides display and MIDI configurations, pedal type selection and user-grouping of programs, while a third page offers MIDI maps, data dump and various service functions.
To the right of those buttons is a compact numeric keypad, with Increment and Decrement buttons, a decimal point, a plus/minus button, and an Enter key. The keypad is great for entering program numbers and parameter values directly, instead of dialing up a value with the big knob. You do need to remember to press the Enter button at the end to apply the value, but it’s a lot quicker when jumping around in the 300-plus presets. The remaining controls are a Tap tempo button, the power switch, and the Memory Card slot. When the Tap button is active (selected under the Tempo submenu within Setup mode) it flashes at the current tempo rate, and repeated presses will establish a new tempo. When disabled, pressing the button recalls the current tempo value to the fluorescent display for information only. A yellow LED above the card slot illuminates when data is being transferred with the card or, if a card is not inserted, it indicates data being received via the MIDI or RS-232 ports.
IN THE ENGINE COMPARTMENT
As noted, the Eclipse has two separate DSP engines (FXA and FXB) that can be connected in five different ways. Feeding a chorus into a reverb, for example, would use Series mode. As the name implies, one effect is routed directly into the other. In Parallel, the two stereo effects are summed together at the same time. In other words, both engines are fed simultaneously. With Dual mode, each effects block takes its input from a single source and the two are summed at the output. This might be handy for two different VO tracks that use the same reverb effect. Dual Mono is like Dual mode, however the outputs are kept separate. Send a VO track into one input and a sound effects track into the other and assign different effects to each. The last mode, stereo Xfade, enables a smooth glitch-free transition from one program to another. Only one effect runs at a given time, but the old program and the new program will smoothly crossfade over a time you specify in the second SETUP screen.
Unlike some other manufacturers, Eventide has never tried to “hide” the DSP guts from you. Hey, they’ve been writing DSP code for the last thirty years, and they’re proud of it! Why not let you get in and fool around with all the DSP parameters? The downside is that one can feel a bit overwhelmed at first by all the choices. However, you can always get back to a comfort zone by hitting the Program button. Meanwhile, the Eclipse caters to those of you who like to mangle sounds in ways that border on psychopathic.
For example, the Eclipse has extensive modulation routings. Up to 16 parameters per program can function as a modulation source or destination. For instance, you can select an LFO to modulate the low-pass filter cut-off frequency. Or use a Hot Key to let you control the Wet/Dry mix of FXA with the knob, then use this as a modulation source for FXB. This will turn the knob into a “blend” control between the two effects, essentially giving you a “morph” control. If you’re still feeling adventurous, you could then modulate the knob with an LFO, and modulate that with an envelope generator, and keep going until the back of your head blows off.
