Choose between Walrus Qi Etherealizer & Matthews Technician!

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hey so let's try something new here You know the other day I was uh messing around with my Dr Scientist Bitquest which is a fantastic and wonderful uh effect but it is mono And I wanted to kind of see what I had in my arsenal that could kind of be an end all uh or end of the chain do it all in terms of my reverb delay modulation that sort of stuff and really thicken up that sound And so I grabbed these these two boxes the Matthews Technician and the Walrusqi Etherealizer And I wanted to compare them You know they're they're roughly the same size Um actually hold it like that cuz the they're both top top jacks Roughly the same size They both have reverbs delays and modulation as well as some sampling Um some granular type stuff But I wanted to see how they'd work And I wanted to then show y'all kind of the differences in how they function because they are very different in how they function and they can sound really great but which one of these would work for you so we'll check it out in a bit but let me kind of give you the rundown on these on both of these So like I showed you they're both top jacks Um stereo in-n-outs Uh they also have um well on the Matthews you've got or the technician you've got the USBC here for firmware updates It is also on the chi you've got MIDI in and out also on the chi Um those are all via 8 in jacks there Um the Matthews does have expression control which theqi doesn't but because they're both MIDI you can do a lot with MIDI especially if you have like a um like a MIDI like an expression to MIDI type controller So taking a look a little bit closer at the chi itself Uh it is has four different effects all laid out here Uh on the top level there is no menu diving in this which is really sweet Uh you've got your controls here for your chorus There's two different choruses to choose from And in fact this little button here helps you determine which whether it's a tri chorus or stereo Uh your delay is here You can choose you you only get one delay but you do have three different options in terms of the subdivisions Your granular is here both from a grain cloud to a sampling function Uh and then this level of controls this line here you've got your reverb you've got your uh master tone and then your overall mix dry You've got your mixes on top for for all of your uh different effects You also have this button here where you can change the path So whether you want to be series or parallel Uh and then you have these three foot switches So um right here is your onoff Also long press that to clear out your grain um cloud like whatever's in the buffer Um this is your freeze knob or button Sorry Um you would hit this to engage the uh the sampler and kind of freeze it uh to be like a microl loop Uh you can also long press this to ramp that reverb up to 100% and get really ethereal and creamy It's great You also can uh do your preset switching uh for the first three presets uh in true walrus fashion So you have your red your blue and your green Both those at the same time You also get a fourth which is the uh live mode which is what you what you see as everything is And then you have your tap tempo which can do taps but it can also self oscillate when you hold that down So with the technician here uh it's a little bit different You have only two foot switches Um you have an onoff and then you have a tap tempo or a looper control Uh you have eight knobs which all uh have secondary functions You have um four arcade buttons light across the top and they each have four different LED colors to coordinate with what you're choosing They also have secondary functions Now the secondary functions can kind of be controlled by this middle bottom middle arcade button Basically uh if it's turned off then you're at top level what you see If it's pressed and turned purple then you're at secondary level And it is really cool because you have um you've got at least laid out here bold letters tells you what's top level and then the italiciz tells you what's uh bottom level Um but you can do a lot of different fun controls here uh you get four different reverbs four different delays And while there is no chorus uh dedicated you can actually add that modulation via VBR to either the reverb or the chorus I'm sorry your reverb or the delay or both Um and then you also have like your looper functions Uh your delays are all laid out over here Those controls your reverbs on this side and then you have uh one for your looper as well So a lot to dive into here um it's not quite as easy to see what you're doing as it is on the chi but is very powerful Um and a cool function that I have not really checked out a whole lot yet is the ability to unsync the stereo signal which means that the the adjustments that you make on the modul modulators and whatnot for the left side and the right side can be individual So you can do one thing on the left and one thing on the right Uh which is kind of wild So all right let's uh let's dive in and listen to these and see how we how we like them Okay so kind of like I we talked about the reason that I got down this Quest was because I found a really cool setting on my Dr Scientist Bitquest and uh while I love it it's in mono and I do like me some stereo So um thought to myself how do I thicken it up and give it some give it some more and then that kind of led me to the question of well if I only had one space here uh and I needed something to kind of do allin-one delay reverb modulation and um some sampling or whatnot what would I choose would I choose the chi etherealizer or would I choose the technician so that's kind of what got me here Um I've got theqi and the technician all set to true bypass So once they're off they're off Uh what you'll hear tonight is uh my telly my custom shop telly with uh Seth Lover in the neck uh going into what you see in the top right It's a Gnome Electronics I don't even know what it's called but it is a little 12 AX7 true um sorry 128X7 tube preamp um going into the Dr Scientist Bitquest into theQi into the technician So um with only excuse me the gnome on this is what that sounds like Oh and that's going into my SSL12 interface And it's what we got [Music] Cool All right So here's the sound I found on the Bitquest and this is what we got [Music] [Music] I like that little syncopated choppy thing Ryan O'Neal nice job But like I said I wanted some thickness so the cheek came out [Music] So then we'll turn that off And sorry y'all the Bid Quest has to come off too cuz I was realizing this that you know if we keep the BidQest on I would love it But I inevitably get some comments of people not being able to differentiate between what theqi is doing and the technician is doing Fair Fair And I hear you So here we go Um let's quick start then and uh let's get this chi turned to just just the delay And so we can compare delays And the way you do that is watch this So uh I held those buttons down Um oh I also have the cheat going in parallel That's what I want to do Um held those buttons down Chorus is off The grain is off And I had to roll the space down So here is just the delay [Music] to the technician [Music] So I think as mentioned before the chi only has that one delay sound It's just a clean digital It's great but that's all it is Uh the technician has more So if I bounce through the first one is just a classic digital It is a dual mono It is not quite stereo Uh when you start getting into some of the other versions you kind of get that stereo vibe So here's what we got on that Here is uh reverse If I turn it on here's reverse [Music] Mix up a little more [Music] [Music] Now um to granular [Music] Then to resample [Music] Cool [Music] So um tap divisions the technician does one more It does um it does a half note whereas the chi doesn't The chi just does quarter dotted eighth and eighth and the technician adds that that that half note in So let's jump over to the reverb side because again the chi has one reverb and the technician has four So all right Let me get that reverb up [Music] you know cranking that up just kind of gives more of everything right you get more um decay and more just more reverb Just more it's just more It's a more knob Um here is the hall Uh let's see set it to kind of set everything there at noon [Music] Just mess with that clock knob Here's some plate [Music] what they call chasm [Music] and grim which brings octave into it [Music] Cool So plates my favorite It's going to go there now Um this is where it gets interesting cuz on the chi there you what you have on the chi is a dedicated chorus So if we turn the space off you know hold that chorus back on you got chorus a triricorus and a stereo chorus [Music] Okay Okay So the only way to get something like this on the technician is to go into some of the modulators um and either on the reverb or the uh delay So to make this work we're going to bring the delay back in under the chi and um keep it in series Yeah Okay So [Music] All right let's build this on the technician So let's turn the chi off and uh get the technician to I guess to digital mode on the delay Uh there we go Now I need to then I need to I think tap this bad boy Yep Once that puts me in modulators And I know that uh VBR on the delay mode is LED off So we're going to leave that off And let's do the mix and the rate to try and match where we are stereo-wise or sorry to ma match that on the chorus for the G Um do our best [Music] If we switch to parallel does that change it a little bit So difference there So like again on the tree you can get chorus just by itself You can't do that on the technician Now um let's see We'll turn the chorus we'll leave it on leave it as it is Um and now let's talk with the grain cloud or the phrase sampler That's where we kind of have to get a little tricky um on things So let's sorry with the technician So let's get the mix on the uh reverb back up on both and play around So right now let's see where we are with the chi Got some reverb in there Okay technician [Music] All right But what I think we're going to do is to kind of really get creative on the technician We're going to go to the reample mode on the delay Let's see if that VBR is still in play Yes it is Now uh maybe granular is better [Music] And so then I guess in this instance we'll put the uh the chi on graincloud not phrase sample