Black Corporation announces Expander MK2 Multi-FX Processor
Black Corporation have announced the release of Expander Mk2, a multi-effects processor that builds on the capabilities found in the original Expander to create something much more powerful.
Available as a tabletop or rackmount unit, Expander Mk2 is a multi-effects console that offers delay, reverb, chorus, phaser, ring mod, resonator and overdrive. There’s analogue and digital versions of almost every effect here, and many of the effects are built to emulate vintage gear. The Expander’s interface is comprehensive and contains one knob for almost every function.
The Expander’s digital delay is based on the Lexicon PCM42 and was designed in partnership with Gary Hall, the Lexicon’s original designer, while its digital reverb recreates the sound of the “lush and spacious” Lexicon 224. These are complemented by an analogue BBD delay, with a delay time that goes all the way up to 820ms, and a spring reverb that makes use of two 17″ tanks, along with EQ and digital pre-delay.
The Expander is equipped with a chorus section featuring two distinct BBD chorus lines, a phaser section based around a 12-stage analogue phaser circuit, and a quadrant multiplier ring modulator sitting alongside a vintage-style transformer and diode-based ring mod. That’s not all: there’s overdrive, too, courtesy of KORG’s Nutube analogue vacuum tube technology, which can deliver everything from “subtle texture and warmth” to “screaming distortion”.
External effects can be patched in at any stage in the Expander’s chain using the insert section, while the resonator can be used as a subtle tone-sculpting EQ or pushed into experimental territory with the help of the Expander’s “multitude” of LFOs, which are routable to almost any destination.
Expander’s also kitted out with a matrix mixer, making it easy to design effects pathways and play around with different routing patterns. In terms of I/O, there’s two balanced line ins and outs, stereo send and return, expression and switch pedals, USB and MIDI, along with a Hi-Z guitar input and headphone out on the front panel.
The Expander Mk2 is available for preorder price at $4999, with first orders going out early 2024. Find out more on Black Corporation website.
