SP2016

The SP2016 Effects Processor/Reverb is something special in the way of studio gear. If you’ve never worked with one before, your ears are in for some very pleasant surprises. What makes the SP2016 so unusual is that (unlike most products in this specialized age) it isn’t just one thing. Not simply a reverb, or a digital delay, or an equalizer…but all of these things, and more. We call it a digital EFFECTS PROCESSOR/REVERB because that’s precisely what it is: a black box with a whopping huge capacity for “number-crunching” built into it.

The SP2016 takes your analog audio signal, converts the signal into digital information, processes it, and finally sends the data back out as a (considerably) enhanced audio signal. As for what that computing does…Well! That’s up to you. We’ve programmed in a wide variety of useful functions — delays, reverbs, digital filtering and EQ, gain control, chorusing, flanging, signal analysis, even self-diagnostic tests, and synthesis — and left plenty of memory space for you to create and store your own variations, for instant recall when needed.

Our goal in designing the SP2016 was to provide you with the most powerful, most flexible, most expandable nineteen inches of audio magic you’ve ever packed into your rack.

Original SP2016 Demo Tape

Three-time Grammy Award winner and fifteen-time nominee Steve Vai had this to say about the SP2016:

“The Eventide SP2016 effects unit came out in 1982. Since that time, it has lived in my guitar rack for many of those earlier tours. It also has had a permanent place in my various recording studios. I discovered the stereo room patch is unlike any other, even by today’s standards. Besides the beautifully airy and spacious quality of the room reverb itself, it has the uncanny ability to organically reflect reverberation of an instrument placed in a particular location in a room. Other reverb units attempt this but, to my ears, nothing I have ever heard captures the dimensional atmosphere of reverberation within the stereo field.“

Worlds First Plug-in

SP2016 featured on the front of the February 1987 edition of Recording Engineer/Producer magazine, the description in the magazine reads:

“ON THE COVER: This month’s cover shows the front panel features and internal circuitry of an Eventide SP2016 digital reverb and special effects processor. Photo by David Emberling”