Continuing our Blast From The Past series I offer up the Alesis Wedge Desktop Master Reverb with Impulse Audition.  Now I think I am one of the only people on Earth who discovered this, frankly amazing, funky little reverb unit. 

The Wedge came off the back of a period in Alesis' history when as a company, product-wise they could do no wrong.  In 1986 the first version of the MIDIverb came out, followed in 1991 by the ADAT 8 track recording system. Both these units took the, then very fledgling, home recording world by storm.  This was also the time when no serious guitar player's rack was complete without a Quadraverb GT. Alesis owned the mid-priced reverb market and the Wedge came right on the tail of this in 1994 (this is from memory as I bought one at one of the first trade shows I ever went to, the London Music Show at the Wembley Exhibition Centre). 

It has to be said that as my ears and my understanding of reverb have developed I have learned that the Wedge (bless it) was not the most sophisticated reverb. As someone who now owns a Bricasti M7 and has some of the greatest plug-In reverbs available there are far better quality reverbs available in 2016. However, the plucky little Alesis Wedge does have some very cool tricks. The first being it is very quick and easy to edit. There are 4 sliders that are assigned across 4 banks of parameters.  In my own way, I had convinced myself that this was the LARC on my 480L and I have saved myself thousands of pounds.  The wedge has a sound all its own and in these times of perfect, crystal-clear verb and amazing sampled reverbs, the wedge still has a place in my studio as the unit which adds some grit and character to those, sometimes all too perfect, tones. The thing I loved then, and still love now, is that it is a true stereo unit with a left and right in and out.

I think back to  when I got my first Alesis Wedge I paid about £250 for it.  If you can find one on an auction site you are going to pay around about the same for it now. They were rare but have held a place in the hearts and studios of their owners. I have to thank my dear friend Michael Hurwitz for hooking me up with this one that he had from new and was not using. It gets uses more often than you might think.