Reverb: DIY or buy?

[doug deeper]

i bought everything separately,
used a generic enclosure, cut the holes my self.
used perf board.
the transformers arent too expensive as they are just little guys.
there really isnt much in there.
made a cabinet out of home depot pine, covered it in vinyl from walmart.
it was really about $150.
about $70 for the transformers,
enclosure was $10-$15,
sockets are only a couple bucks,
tank was $20
the passives and hardware.
i just went as cheap as i could and did everything myself.
maybe im missing something somewhere, but tube stuff can be built pretty cheaply.

[Paul Marossy]

maybe im missing something somewhere, but tube stuff can be built pretty cheaply.

Depends on how much of a Cadillac you want when you're done. 

[Skruffyhound]

Has anyone tried the Belton digital delay?
http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=243&Itemid=26

Yeah, I built it too, very satisfying, and probably my most used pedal because I have a clean acoustic amp I use for 12 string.

Gaussmarkov also has a project worth looking at, Solderman built it and liked it.
http://gaussmarkov.net/wordpress/circuits/spring-reverb/

[BarnyardBill]

I built a reverb, spring, unit years ago with a coupla 12SN7 tubes and a high impedance input tank from accutronics and found out that lush spring reverb sound is long tanks with lots of springs. Recnly though I picked up a 70's Hammond organ and that thing has a reverb box and a leslie so maybe soon I'll have another go but this time I'll use a Transistor amp driving a line transformer. To my mind digital reverb is more like what real reverberation really is whereas spring and plate reverb are an approximation that actually is a sound all in itself. I suppose, mechanically, the plate and the spring are essentially doing the same thing that sound waves do in a space except that space would be more like a big huge wall or a narrow long space so then the mechanical variations are specialised sound sources and they can't really be grouped with DSP algorhythms that calculate out the dispertion and return of sound waves in a specific space.

So they are both different and you can't have both... unless one is mechanical and the other is digital.

well said