BigSkyMX or MercuryX: The Ultimate Reverb Shootout

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hey how's it going so I have tried making this video three times and every time I do it I forget something or I'm like oh that wasn't very good or whatever and the reason is it's a very hard video to make you know neither company's asking me to do it neither company even knows that I'm doing it this is really just coming from the requests from you all but I want to know too so question being this how do we compare the stman Big Sky MX to the Mercury X and right now what you're hearing is it's in the Big Sky MX it's the plate I made it this plate I called it 20K plate I just maxed out to 20,000 milliseconds that sounds really cool [Applause] you probably want to hear what it's what I sound like the clean tone this is my Fender Custom Shop Telly into a walrus 385 Mark I straight into the Mercury X straight into the Big Sky MX into and you can barely see it but it is a line 6 HX stop which is acting as my interface so here we go [Music] so there's the clean tone so I'm going to play something here and just kind of get it rolling so that we can have some underlaying things and just kind of discuss more of the differences that you might see um on here and then dive into some sounds more AB sounds that s sort of thing so in the meantime why don't you take a second hit like subscribe and get those fingers ready to drop some comments um you're going to want to mostly because we're having fun talking together we all do oh look at that it's still [Music] there so I like listening to that also this is something I found out actually I found out previously uh if it builds up too much inside that infinite um the infinite Decay it does start to kind of distort uh and overdrive in the Box I don't think this does it real quick um let me NOP right here all right let me just make sure that I have this modifier set let's check this to see make sure we're there [Music] so it looks like I've kind of already dived into this um where we're starting is each pedal's ability to handle incoming signal oh the feedback level self oscillation levels when you have a really high Decay and you have like infinite on stman calls it infinite it's called Freeze here on the Mercury X so there's a difference two between like the overdrive of the pedal and the guitar so like you can kind of hear a little bit of grit there but what I was referring to here is uh it's a different kind of clipping almost like a digital clipping so listen to that [Applause] [Music] is that something that you hear maybe maybe not I mean I'm hearing it pretty distinctly so I'm guessing that you do too okay so while this plays out let's do something let's talk about some of the differences between these two pedals the Maris Mercury X has been out about 6 months or so not entirely sure when it came out and it retails for $5.99 the stman Big Sky was just released I think like last week or the week before and it retails at $679 and this is as of what's today this is like May of 2024 both of them are pretty pretty high priced that six to $700 price range it's it's a pretty steep one and definitely one of those that you you know as you're trying to determine if the if you want one if you don't have either well maybe you have the original Big Sky and you wanted to know you should upgrade to the new Big Sky MX or maybe you've been looking at the Mercury X and you're trying to figure out what to do this is that kind of video I guess like to see what you think for yourself um what are you hearing what are you thinking what are some things maybe that you didn't think of hopefully this helps for that too so both pedals have stereo in and out both pedals have mid capabilities currently they both have the ability to do some presets and to save them and I think this can hold 300 because 150 Banks of two presets each so then I just ended that okay that's okay uh sorry I can just do it [Music] [Applause] again now check that out it's like we're doubling it up it's going to take off it's going to take off uh so this can hold 300 um this actually I I think it can only hold 99 yeah I Can Only Hold 99 so that's definitely a difference the Big Sky MX can hold three times three times the amount of presets on the box in the Box as the Mercury X can right now I mean again it's as of this date you can you can make your own presets take them off send them around and in fact I've done that a lot a lot we've done a lot of that so if you like any of the presets that you hear us making on any of our videos you can head over to our patreon and grab uh you grab them our monthly collaborators um get them on the regular and it's part of them being a collaborator so for the Big Sky MX the stman actually disabled that function right now so while you can can save them you can't get them off of here or at least you can't get them via Nixie it might be something that I have to dive into and see if it can be done so if I'm wrong about this as of today's date please correct me uh maybe there is some a different way of pulling off a preset but Nixie can't do it uh Nixie being stram in software for such things uh so right here we have the Big Sky MX it wins for the amount of presets on board and again to my knowledge Mercury X wins as far as the ability to save those presets off the box and into your computer now uh number of presets that you can access on the fly on the top the original Big Sky had an A B and C switch stman did a way with the c switch to to kind of give you this option for infinite and you can make this a momentary switch or a latching switch um in one of two modes either infinite or free freeze freeze being where it freezes the Reverb but doesn't affect the incoming signal so anything coming in once it's frozen does not get Reverb attached to it or applied to it infinite's kind of the opposite or the addition to to do so right so it's holding it's decaying it's reverbing whatever what you know when you grab it and then anything incoming also has that Reverb applied so that's what infinite is now um okay so you have 2 A and B and the infinite switch on the Mercury X you have the 1 two and three presets so you have three right there but they've popped that fourth switch in there so it's like a hold modifier and what that does um because I mean you were watching me tweak it earlier you go over into the modifier section and you canjust you can adjust it to be latching or momentary um this switch and then you can figure out what you're assigning it to so you can I mean you can assign it to any any number of things tap tempo for the pre- delay um you can adjust the the the divisions like the subdivisions um and how much feedback there is the cross feed you know half speed I don't know how clear you can see this but there's a ton of things basically any parameter you have loaded into your Reverb selection um here you can tweak it with this hold modifier freezes the function that Maris calls um like the saving or sorry the holding it there you go so I'm going to save this real quick just so that I don't forget so recap that one real quick two presets available on the Fly freeze or infinite with momentary or latching three on the Fly for Maris and then you know we can't say infinite in terms of like the amount of things you can have this do but definitely more than two a whole lot more than two and also a little fun thing here you can actually there's a tuner built into the Mercury X so you can actually tune stuff too that's pretty cool there's that one something that's actually bothered me about the stman timeline and Big Sky currently it didn't bother me when they first came out a decade ago but it bothers me now and maybe it's because when Maris released their lvx which is their delay version of this if you look at the knobs none of them are algorithm selectors most of them have things they do and that's it's written down there but none of them are algorithm selectors versus the way that Stan's done it for the last decade they have their selector knob and 12 algorithms that are written here Cloud Shimmer Bloom blah blah blah blah on the Maris you go in you click into the menu go to the reverbs and you can change the algorithm that way why does this matter let's say that both pedal companies wanted to add a an empty swing pool as a new Reverb algorithm that they wanted to add in here on the stman Big Sky m X they could do that for sure but it would not be they couldn't make this a pool it would say it here but not here uh you'd be scrolling and then the light would turn off but with the Maris Mercury X I mean what they could do that's not really a dilemma because the algorithms are they're not printed on they could add whatever they want they can take away whatever it's all inside that screen so a little maybe it's a pet peeve of mine I'm not sure but that's something that's kind of bothered me and to be fair it didn't really bother me until Maris came out I think I mentioned that already but previously it was fine you have these seven knobs here on the Big Sky MX and they are they relate to certain things that were on the original Big Sky Decay pre- delay tone mod then perimeters one and two in the mix and on the Maris Mercury X you have Decay pre- delay mod mix and uh this one kind of being like your menu function button and then these are two knobs that do a bunch of different things but the reality is that when you're in a screen like this and you see all of these options oh and by the way I'm in text edit mode it's my preference there is a graphic edit mode which is prettier Jenna did a great job making it but I prefer this my brain just functions better on these modes um where these different parameters are placed top left is this knob top right is this knob middle right here bottom right here and so on and so forth you really can do a lot of different tweaks you can you can do a lot of different things you can assign on perimeters one and two you can assign what you tweak so that's pretty cool like let's go here you want to assign it it would default as lowend here and size here but if you wanted to do voicing you hold H let me show you what I mean low end there and size there but if you wanted to do voicing you would just push this down and turn that right isn't that what it is no how do you I thought that's what they said oh that went to global mode sorry all right hold oh okay it's a sign to one so there you go now it's changing the voice between Big Sky MX voicing and classic mode so okay that's something something else we kind of discussed there and let's let's get some more tunes going [Music] another thing that I want to kind of talk about real quick and then we'll get to the sounds because you know we're here we are quite a bit into this and we haven't really gotten into the sounds and that's okay you asked for this video so thanks for being here so far maybe I mentioned this already or I hinted at it but the amount of parameters you can change in the Big Sky MX From Any Given preset or any given algorithm is fairly limited compared to the Mercury X so what I mean by that is uh all right so we're here in plate mode pressing down on that gives us parameters to change low end uh size voice and that's it low and just being a uh you know a slider yeah size small or large and voicing classic or MX the other ones output level panning and then infinite mode you can choose like momentary latching no sorry freeze or infinite on and off infinite mode infinite latch boost persist expression setup dual whether you're doing dual we'll get to that one next or not and then copy from those are more like global settings so the actual settings that can change and adjust the tone of this that aren't labeled on these knobs there's only three low end size and voice on the Reverb now if we go into the Maris and we look at the Reverb this particular one that I have set up here you can adjust the decay of the mids the base and the treble as well as the crossover frequency between the mids and the base tank modulation the diffusion level the pre- delay blend and U some gate things so gate things aside that's quite a bit more of things that you can tweak and on top of that you can tweak the pre- delay there's two pages there of predelay you can add Dynamics there's a whole slew of Dynamics you can add in a whole bunch of them you can adjust the preamp you can adjust if whether you have a filter or not what kind what it's filtering at so many different things the pitch there's a lot of pitch going on you can just adjust shift or Loi whatever modulation and then again you go into modifiers and you can apply like lfos to any of those parameters that You' set so the options here again in comparison are quite Limitless now I hinted at it so let's talk about it one thing that the Big Sky MX can do that the Mercury X cannot is dual Reverb so the Big Sky MX you can actually combine any two of these uh reverbs at one time on one preset you can do it in parallel you can do it in series you can do it in Split Let's uh let's get an example of it here's one that I made I think this is a previous video with you all so you may be familiar with it this is a uh looks like it's a nonlinear verb going into a Magneto [Music] that's pretty cool here's what I made uh it's an Impulse response going into [Music] Magneto so that's pretty cool you can do that you can do these dual things that you can't do on the Mercury X but I'm pretty sure like if if I tried hard enough some of the duels could be mimicked or gotten close to like for example like if you did a plate with a coral you could probably knowing knowing that one of the modulation is valm mod you can add a chorus or Coral sounds to your plate and while it wouldn't do the split it would get close certain things like impulse response this sorry this has the ability to load impulse responses that you can't do on the Mercury X as of yet so that uh the ability to do dual path and impulse response is something that you can't do on the Mercury x uh let me think what else am I forgetting in terms of like hardware and processing power that's uh something that you can just go to the webset websites dive into yourself um strans and marises down download those the manuals if you want or you can just look they probably haven't listed but what the uh what are those details okay so I've made four different presets and I made them on the Big Sky MX and then try to copy them on the Mercury x to the best of my ability now granted I may hear it I have a little cold right now so what I hear may not be at all what you hear so forgive that or at least with a grain of salt let's try so this is the one that played it's one of my favorite favorite algorithms and I really like what it sounds like on the Big Sky MX here's here's that [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Laughter] really really nice it's warm it has that dryman warmth to it it kind of envelops you it wraps around you it's really good really really good stereo spread which reminds me what it was that I was thinking about a minute ago uh second ago the Big Sky Mex has the ability to do panning so you can adjust the panning on these things so I have it centered now but we could take it all the way to the left if we want which would be cool like you could do du and then tweak and adjust what it is that you're doing or like if if you want to you could send your dry signal out one side and the W out the other currently the Maris Mercury X can't do that so uh now how does it sound on here this is the one that I made to get as close as possible to that stman sound [Music] so on the Mercury X I hear a more Hi-Fi sound it's not well it doesn't have that warmth that the big skym X has and I think that that's like to some people a make a break between these two some people are Die Hard stman fans because it has that stman warmth and they love it and so they're going to find it in every box that stman makes it definitely it's there uh on the Big Sky MX versus others who want a more let's call it uncolored an uncolored tone which is what you get out of the Mercury x uh neither is right or wrong they're just completely different ways of going about it that particular setup I feel like at the Decay wasn't quite as high it didn't go on as long as this um it also again it doesn't have that warmth it doesn't have that the same kind of stereo spread that that this one did didn't wrap around you still a really good plate one of the most po popular and original algorithms that it had on the original Big Sky from a decade ago was the cloud algorithm I think it it's like their most popular algorithm so much so that they made the cloud burst pedal which you've seen uh so when I originally did the cloud burst and sorry the cloud bur has a new function called Ensemble mode where it adds a in a choir or like a string orchestra feel when I originally did a cloudburst versus Mercury X I did not add that memble Lo in and the reason is because I personally do not like The Ensemble mode uh it feels like a um it feels like a metallic String orchestra um it just it feels a little bit too lifeless to me in my opinion but y'all have asked for it so let's see what we can do I added it in they put the Ensemble mode here in the Big Sky X so I made it here and then I attempted it here so cool let's check it out [Music] now here [Music] [Music] so again the big skym has that warmer vibe that that algorithm is kind of like that Ensemble mode is kind of just sitting right there in the mix where you kind of want it it's not too much it's not too little uh it's exactly where you want it and how do I do that on the big sorry the Mercury X is I used a pitch and I put in a in the feedback loop and the mix is kind of high and perhaps that needs to be adjusted and to not make it so prominent in the end I felt like they both kind of had that same kind of vibe and I kind of cool that I could grab that Ensemble feel out of the Mercury X because I hadn't attemp attempted it before okay so let's move on let's see what else I've come up with those are other ones that you'll hear about later okay okay this one I can honestly say I didn't get it it right let's try this one the sound isn't precise the feel the vibe what I was attempting to do it is it's two different ways of doing it I wanted this Reverb that's kind of like a very delay Reverb that wrapped kind of wrapped in an encircle Jew with some modulation and I started out in the Big Sky MX made it with a Magneto mode and try to get on the Mercury X and approach it in a completely different way to get the end result and the end result being like that not the initial attack and Decay but as it blooms and grows uh let's hear it let's see what we got here we go [Music] [Music] like that bad note [Music] [Music] poor playing aside um you get it here hear that I'm talking about that encircling modulate can we say modulatory modulated sound uh let's try it here all [Music] [Music] no argument here that is not the same not the same let's leave it at that it gets to that end result that I was looking for but not completely the same um which one you liked that's up to you and for those of you who are saying that why did you do that well I'm just being completely honest I tried I made it on here I tried to get as close as I could I could not get the same initial attack the way I wanted and found something that I liked that's it the end on that one okay let's go let's let's do this oh spring you know when I originally got the Mercury X I was super stoked about all the presets it's got like some of the same algorithms you can find on their collaboration with Chase Bliss the 6m 1978 those are in here as well as the two you can get on the Mercury 7 which is their smaller box Reverb and some new ones and one of the new ones added in here was spring and initially I didn't like it I felt like it was maybe a little not authentic in not not inauthentic it wasn't like it like pretending it just what it just wasn't there uh and then I I made this and I'm going to do it in reverse this time and may maybe that makes sense to you but I made one on hero on the stman Big Sky MX and then tried to make it on the mercu X so this is what came I came up with on here [Music] [Applause] try not to hit the wrong note on this one [Music] so what you just experienc is me trying to hit the same wrong note on both times and then getting it wrong the second time so the wrong wrong note so cool all right uh what did you hear between the two take a second uh let you compile your thoughts let's do this way a a good way of hearing how a spring R sounds is just by slapping your strings while muting them like so I have my hand so sorry let's do this I have my hand like this on my strings I'm just going to slap it you can hear what that spring sounds like okay so what I'm hearing out of the stman Big Sky Mex is more of a thop as opposed to a springy sound this now feels like it's not quite a spring versus this one it feels like a spring to me I I've mean I've playing with spring spring reverbs in an amp and just done that I've just like grabbed the spring and like thed it and hear that I mean it's can only really be described as a springy sound right and it's just not quite there on the stman Big Sky MX yeah I don't know so there are let's see I did four things there are a total of eight more algorithms that I have not yet attempted and I didn't want to get there sorry I didn't want to spend time to make 12 whole algorithms and then make this a super duper hourong video I may make one and uh I might make all 12 and then do something but I wanted to get out there my initial thoughts I mean I've had the Big Sky XX for a week now um play with it with a while I've had the Mercury X for like a long time and y'all know I love this thing but I really did want to try and make a non-biased video an opinion of them so that if we can recap at least the sounds that I really liked the plate on here I felt it was a little better of what I wanted on this than the Mercury x emble uh kind of a tie for me uh but that is like a classic classic Cloud Ensemble is a big straming thing so a lot of you like it and um then the circle mod couldn't quite get the same thing out of the Mercury X maybe I can try a bit more and try and find a way to do it but I was at it a while last night and it ended up where I ended up and I'm okay with it I liked what it sounded like at the end but it's not the same it ends up the same but it doesn't start the same and in Spring definitely like it better on the Mercury X than the Big Sky MX thank you so much I really appreciate you hanging out here with me this is a long one uh long girl lot of talking some playing I I hope it was educational I hope it gave you some insight into the way that my brain functions when looking at these two I'm super curious to hear what you think and would love love to know that uh know that at some point in the near future all the presets that we make on the Mercury XO that that go after the Big Sky MX will be available on our patreon right now currently all the ones we made for the original Big Sky are available to our patreon collaborators as an exclusive set of 12 presets so they're on our patreon down below um once stman allows us to rip off um that's the wrong word to download offload let's call it offload presets from what we make on here those are also going to become available to our collaborators on patreon um all right you've hung in there a good long while we could keep going but let's not I greatly appreciate your time I appreciate your attention I appreciate the conversations that we get to have have together so so grateful for each and every one of you if you want to see something else hit us up we love doing these sorts of things and making a video that that reaches what you're wanting um it's about us as a community how can we educate each other how can we support each other that's what this is about until next time peace