Tube Reverb Pedal?

[vigilante397]

Hey everyone, I'm pretty new to this, but I'm an electrical engineering student and have started building pedals as projects for my classes. My goal is to make only tube powered pedals (I'm currently working on my own rendition of the Matsumin Valve Caster ^_^).

So I'm considering my project for next semester and was wondering if anyone knows of schematics for a valve-driven reverb pedal? I've seen them from T-Rex and Blackstar, but I'm really starting to dig DIY pedals and was hoping to do it myself. Thoughts?

[mth5044]

Are you looking for a spring reverb or digital reverb?

There is a fender tube reverb unit - not sure if you are looking for something mains powered or 9v.

If you are down for digital, you could place some tube buffers around an belton reverb brick, or build one of the many pt2399 reverbs from this forum, replacing some components with tubes.

Finally, if you are looking for a 9V tube spring reverb unit - I'm not sure I've ever seen one. It wouldn't be too hard, you'd need one stage to prep the signal for the reverb pan then a second for recovering post reverb pan. Check out the Stage Center reverb and modify from there.

[vigilante397]

Thanks, I checked out the fender tube reverb unit, but it seems like that's more of an amp(?) than just an effect.

Does anyone know anything about the Blackstar HT-Reverb?

http://www.blackstaramps.com/products/ht-reverb/

It seems to me like it's a digital reverb that uses a tube for a preamp circuit, which I think is more the direction I'm looking to head in.

[vigilante397]

I was digging through some other posts and found the following:

Well, I think if you take anything away from this, it should be that the whole thing about "effect+tubes=better effect" is not something you can count on. It makes for good hype when you want to sell pedals, but that's often all there is to it. I'm not saying that's necessarily the case with the Effectrode, but don't assume that tubes make everything better.

I feel like an idiot, and I'll probably look through the PT2399 reverbs on the forum. Thanks ^_^

[mth5044]

The fender reverb unit isn't an amp, unless you define amp very loosely. It doesn't have a speaker - it won't drive a speaker. It has tubes and signals do get bigger (and smaller), so maybe that makes it an amp? It is a standalone reverb unit. Only a spring reverb in a box, just an effect.

The quote you posted, whether or not an effect is better or not with a tube, is completely subjective. I don't think tube overdrive sounds very good at 9v, but seeing as the valvecaster thread is a thousand pages long, there are many that do. A lot of Frequency Central's mini tube designs did sound great and could be adapted for a reverb unit powered at 9v. Don't let someone else opinion influence what you want to build. Way back when in high school I built a solar still for my final project. Did I need clean water? No, but it was still awesome.

As for the blackstar - it's all digital reverb. That tube is probably either in there just to look neat as a selling point or doing something that a different component could do more efficiently.

But, if you do come up with a mini-tube project with spring reverb, I'd definitely be down to build it.

[vigilante397]

Thanks for the feedback. Even after I posted that quote I found more and more people that have built digital reverb pedals with a tube preamp circuit and the soundclips are amazing, so I don't think I'm deterred from the idea yet.

I looked into the Fender tube reverb unit more and it is basically the kind of thing I want, but I want it in stompbox form. I've read enough threads on here and other forums to realize trying to cram a spring reverb chamber into a pedal housing won't work well, so I'm thinking PT2399 modded with a 12AU7 or something of the like.

I'd say updates to follow, but I haven't finished my modded valve caster for this semester yet, so I guess updates to follow in a few months 

[anchovie]

I found more and more people that have built digital reverb pedals with a tube preamp circuit and the soundclips are amazing

There's a pretty good chance they would have sounded amazing with solid-state circuitry surrounding the digital part, too! With all buffers and the like built correctly, surely the most important part of the sound of a reverb is the reverb-y bit.