Pedal Reverb vs Amp Reverb

[Beo]

I've played through mostly Fender amps, and love their spring reverbs. Never bought or built a reverb pedal. I do have a spring reverb I pulled out of a mixer unit, but never built a case and driver for it as a stand-alone. I also have a microverb that I don't think I ever plugged in.

So my two part question is: who uses pedal vs amp reverb, and if pedal, what do you use?

[vigilante397]

I use pedal reverb because my last amp had awful reverb and my current amp has no reverb. My favorite and the one I currently use is the GGG D-verb. Great sounding reverb, simple to build, simple to use.

But I will admit I use it just like an amp reverb, just subtle enough to give it depth and leave it on all the time.

[samhay]

If you want a spring reverb that doesn't have the hassle of a spring reverb, it is hard to beat something that uses one of the digital Belton/Accutronics BTDR bricks.

[strassercaster]

i am friends with the guy that invented the belton brick reverb. he gave me a few bdtr2 and a few bdtr3. they are ok its like a hall reverb. for brick 2 i built a rubadub 1776.  i didnt care fore that build much found it not box worthy. the madbean moodring build was much better but i still am not in love with it. the rub a dub deluxe for brick three was pretty good as well. i find all three of the builds i did to be decent but not my cup of tea.i still have two threes and one two left. i think ill give the ggg dverb a try. these are fantastic hall reverb . i prefer large plate reverb like on van halen one.i only use reverb on recordings anyway. i love a dry marshall making its own real reverb through power.

[Kipper4]

I like Inductions All Star reverb for pedal. My sold state amp has a tank. Just don't stamp your feet. The only thing is with a pedal reverb they're noisy when switched in.
I guess it depends what you like.

[samhay]

>i prefer large plate reverb

The BTDR chips are designed to replace a spring reverb. No matter how you filter them, they sound like a spring reverb. If you want a plate reverb effect, they are not what I would choose. In this case, you best bet is probably a FV-1.

[Mark Hammer]

Reverb is essentially a post-production effect, which means it is mapped onto the final tone.  As such, it generally needs to be as close to the end of the chain as possible.  Of course, if one happens to be seeking reverb for your own instrument, you're unlikely to have your amp mic'd up and reverb added to an otherwise clean PA sound.

At the amp level, it would be optimal if your signal went through all the internal processing and reverb was added to all that just before the output stage.  Of course, lots of folks depend on both power stage clipping and speaker breakup for their sound, so use of reverb in a true post-production way is largely impossible in an amp, unless the amp is used in the cleanest way possible, as if the amp were your PA and all the effects, including clipping, were imposed before.

Long story short, there are circumstances where a reverb pedal can be fine and others where it is suboptimal and amp reverb is preferred....and still others where amp reverb isn't enough.

[R.G.]

I've no particular position on the question, other than to generally agree with Mark.

What I do have cooking is something that I'm surprised hasn't already been done - a BTDR-2 circuit customized to be a plug-in replacement for the stock accutronics-style tank. It's something that ought to be a "well, duuuuh!" for the folks at Belton/Accutronics, as they actually make the spring types. Maybe they're avoiding cutting into sales for the cash cow.

I'm using a BTDR-2, although the actual circuit used isn't all that important. An FV-1 or PTxxxx could be used too. The only real novelty here is the idea that there are many, many amps that have dead reverb tanks, and that a solid state one might be useful there.

The user model is that the old spring reverb tank is unplugged and removed, the new "tank" put in place and plugged in, no other changes than having to supply it some DC power. So the physical setup is a 1.8x5 inch PCB with the reverb circuit, power supply, and driver/recovery adaptation circuits on it. Fits inside a shortie reverb tank, has RCA phono jacks for in and out, and adds a DC power jack to funnel in DC. Fitting inside a long tank is then super easy.

The tricky parts are then:
* making the amplifier driver circuits think they're still driving an inductive coil based input
* making the output of the reverb circuit be a plausible level for the recovery circuit in the amp
* making the DC practical to get from the amplifier's power supply.

Items 1 and 3 needed some thought to get right. Reverb tank drivers tend to pre-emphasize the drive to the input coil to get a fairly flat response out at the end. The input to this thing needed to both make the driver circuit happy with what it thinks it's driving and unwind the rising treble response that most amps put in. The power supply was an exercise in where to put the waste power.

Item 2 was just lowering the level while not gaining too much excess noise.

[jubal81]

One thing to keep in mind is that the Belton bricks have built-in modulation that can't be defeated. IMHO, it's the absolute worst 'reverb' sound available.

The FV-1 reverbs have dramatically better sound quality and realistic emulation.

If you're looking for a reverb with a lot of options and far-out spacey effects, I'd recommend an FV-1 solution.

If your focus is on basic spring reverb and best sound quality, build a Surfy Bear (analog JFET version of the Fender unit). This sounds better than most modern amp reverbs and after I built one, I'll never go back to digital.

http://surfybear.weebly.com/store.html


Also, RG, I have to ask what would be the point in replacing a tank with a BTDR? It would cost more than buying a new tank and have much lower sound quality.

[R.G.]

One thing to keep in mind is that the Belton bricks have built-in modulation that can't be defeated. IMHO, it's the absolute worst 'reverb' sound available.

The important word there is "IMHO". Other people say it's OK to really good.   Shrug. One man's ceiling is another man's floor.

The FV-1 reverbs have dramatically better sound quality and realistic emulation.
If you're looking for a reverb with a lot of options and far-out spacey effects, I'd recommend an FV-1 solution.

An FV-1 can be used as the reverb chip in the middle. The exact reverb chip(s) isn't critical, as noted.

If your focus is on basic spring reverb and best sound quality, build a Surfy Bear (analog JFET version of the Fender unit). This sounds better than most modern amp reverbs and after I built one, I'll never go back to digital.

Shrug. One man's fish is another man's poisson.

Or it's like girls at a dance: some are quick, some sound good, some look good in the packaging, some have great word of mouth advertising, some have great sound quality, some are great for long term relationships. A very few are most of the above and very, very few are all of the above. 

Also, RG, I have to ask what would be the point in replacing a tank with a BTDR? It would cost more than buying a new tank and have much lower sound quality.

There are a few reasons that might come into play.
(1) Accutronics tanks just before their sale to Belton are not the same as similar tanks before or after. There was a supply issue with the damping material on the springs. Some tanks sound bad, too.
(2) A reverb "tank" done like this could be used by people who hate the boinging of reverb tanks from external vibration.
(3) A reverb "tank" like this could be made into a product usable by people who can't solder.
and the biggie that started me off down this path:
(4) A reverb "tank" like this can be made to replace the piezoceramic phono cartridge design used in UK Vox amplifiers. This style reverb line is simply unavailable.
The adaptation to magnetics based reverb tanks was a trivially simple and obvious extension. 

[lapsteelman]

For me reverb is essential, using a pedal opens up more amp possibilities.  I've been very happy with the Belton modules. The two I use the most have the "short" decay.  I've also used the module with the adjustable decay.