i have a new itch to build reverb/tank pedal!

[nightingale]

hello~
hope everone's xmass went as planned...
anyway, i friend asked mr to help him build some kind of working reverb for his traynor head... he has an old fender type tank with the RCA connections on it... i told him we would figure something out, so i have been looking at the stage center reverb at GGG...

the next thing i new i was trying to go to sleep while the obsession of "delaying" a super "wet" signal...(ala jimmy page) would really be a cool addition to the out-tro of a new song i am working on... plus my old bassman head does not have reverb...  i like to take the edge off of delay slapbacks with reverb BTW...

so my two choices are buying a premade spring reverb tank... or building my own...(DIY syndrome again!!!) i have loads, and loads of thrift store type enclosures... and a have two vintage metal 1st aid kit enclosures that look like they might hold springs really nicely... is it worth a shot building my own? or should i buy one... the catch is that i sort of want it to fit on my board... and our other guitar player works his EH holy grail pretty hard... i want something quite different...
any thoughts? trying to stay DIY here tho...
i have a feeling the Hammer, and ansil might have some ideas for this 1...

[Xlrator]

I have a spring reverb and just the slightest touch will set off the loudest crash, splatter, and noise when bumped.

You might want to build it into a rackmount-style case with remote footswitch like my Furman RV-1.

[Ansil]

i have a feeling the Hammer, and ansil might have some ideas for this 1...

lol..  well you know i can't turn down being called out by name    :wink:


so heres my take on it.  they have some really snazzy springs at the ace hardware. which is my local hardware store.. now there are some bigger ones than others so you may have to hit two or more. to find the right ones.  the hardest thign about doign it yourself too me is making the case and mounting the springs in the case.  i have done this once with good luck  i salvaged an old hard drive case the size of the hammond DD

anyway i canablized a fewbits and pieces of the mounting aparatus of a non working spring reverb.  and mounted two of these in one box. drove it with a lm386 and used a 386 to bring up the signal after the reverb.  lush wet and not too noisy.  you can mount little strips of styrofoam in between the springs.  so they don't hit the sides of the box or each other.   it just kinds of kills the reveb effect when they hit the styrofoam.

i put it in an old amplifer. that i had canibilized and made it a three channel by removing the original rverb unit from it. and making it a separate channel capable of feedback or using it as an fx loop for clean sounds. running a pedal in the clean side and straight in to the disortion side.

ps i also changed the size of the springs. i used some about 30% smaller and the total cost of them was about 5$ from ace.

[Chris R]

I always thought that somebody should market a reverb tank in the bottom of a pedal board.

just an idea

C

[Mark Hammer]

Reverb pans vary in both input and output impedance.  Go to the Accutronics website and you'll see a chart that depicts the range of values the input and output of the pan can take on.  Where the input impedance of the pan is low, you'll need to drive it with a circuit that is designed to drive speaker loads.  Op-amps like the NE5532 or LM833 can do this (and they are often used for direct amplification of headphone signals) or one can use low-power power amps like the LM386 or any of the other headphone/Walkman-oriented power-amp chips.  Discrete transistor circuits will also obviously do the trick but are a slightly more involved build and standard op-amps are generally easier to find than the transistors in question.

The stage centre reverb pretty much anticipates a reverb pan with a somewhat higher input impedance, which is why Anderton doesn't use any of the stuff mentioned above.  If your pan meets the specs for the SCR, go for it.  If it doesn't, there are all sorts of other circuits out there, and even when there aren't, there is always the option of using a matching transformer so that the driver circuit *thinks* it is driving a 2kohm load.  The Accutronics site has a bunch of driver circuits suited to higher and lower loads. Forest Cook also has a couple of circuits suited to lower impedance pans and having built one of them, I can confirm they do a nice job.

At some point, I'll complete the hardware-store reverb I've been working on too (like Ansil) and post it, hopefully with pictures and soundclips.

[javacody]

I've heard a couple of clips of hardware store reverbs (seen projects on the net) and they are way out there sounding as far as reverbs go. They sound cool, but don't expect an amps onboard reverb sound, as far as I can tell. Of course, the one that I heard used a metal slinky for this spring.  :twisted:   Which might have something to do with the way it sounded. LOL

[jimmy]

hi all

this sounds interesting!!! ok i follow the springs in the box. check. i follow you need a little amp to make the springs wobble, eeeerr vibrate. check. i know you need a reverb reciever to pick up the wobbles on the other end of the springs. not check. how the hell does that work? are there any links i could go to?

cheers
Jim

P.S. sorry for hijacking your thread