DIY Reverb: collected resources

[Renegadrian]

now what do you suggest for a FENDER ACCUTRONICS REVERB TANK?

[Morocotopo]

Guys, I made the BYOC reverb, that uses the Belton "brick" reverb chip. Nice verb, with tone control (useful, I mostly use it in a dark setting), Mix and Dwell (sort of a decay control, not much variation on this control). Of course it´s an emulation of a spring verb, so boingy and bouncy. not smooth stuff. But fills the intended role nicely. I made a PCB for it, will post it later so that anyone can make it.

[erikb1971]

Did you get anywhere with that pcb? I am very interested!

[Kesh]

Here's my take on the Belton brick. It's pretty standard. I'm indebted to FRW for basically taking his Box of Hall jpg and editing it.



The circuit itself is based very closely on the datasheet and FRW's schematic and came about through fiddling on a breadboard, and some calculations for the final differential amplifier.

Op amps are JRC4558s, simply because I have many of them to use up.

The fairly oversized cap C5 after the regulator is to keep the 5V going while the 9V dies, so you don't get digital power down noises when it's switched off.

Some of the resistors are somewhat arbitrary, I just had them laying around, but the ones determining gain I worked at, as I felt the wet signal wasn't loud enough on full reverb setting. Totally dry is close to unity gain according to the maths and my ears.

The components to play with are the following.

The 78L05 gets a bit warm, but has survived very long on times near a hot radiator. I think there's a bit of variation in how much Belton Bricks draw. Mine was 55mA. You could use a LDO regulator for batteries, but I feel a 9V battery approaching the 78L05's Vin threshold is dead anyway. I managed to get pretty good battery life out of it, by pretty good I mean more than the length of a gig and sound check. C4 is three times what's required. I just needed a 2.5mm pitch cap there, so went for an electrolytic I had.

Input cap C7 is fairly high. You could probably drop it to 47n. I needed 7.5 pitch on my vero and had a 220n green cap that fitted.

I worked at the shelving cap C8 and resistor R7 by ear, not wanting the reverb too boomy, but not without power either. In the end it hardly does anything except maybe prevent very low loud notes from clipping the reverb unit. Maybe, like with C7, it's the bass player in me. Most circuits I've seen have C8 much smaller and R7 higher or not there at all. Ideally R8 should come before C8 and R7, but again vero won over electronics.

C9 was a pain to get right, and I'd like to work more at a tone control. I say tone, but it only controls the wet signal. It's basically shimmer to dark control. I'm making this for a multi instrumentalist whose main instrument is ukulele so it's a bit high, and I think it sounds better with a 150n in there for guitar, and 220n for bass. Either way it's a bit too subtle, but still useful. I tried a few other tone controls but they just sounded bad.

I do think the Belton brick sounds fantastic, particularly with a clean single coil guitar.

[scuzzphut]

I made a Box of Hall Reverb

http://tagboardeffects.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/box-of-hall-reverb-culturejam.html

with the mods suggested by Heavenwithin on that page.

Works a treat - allowed me to sell my Holy Grail nano.

Here it is ->

[deadastronaut]

^ demo?..

[knutolai]

Niceliy done! That thing looks sweet!

[alexradium]

Guys, I made the BYOC reverb, that uses the Belton "brick" reverb chip. Nice verb, with tone control (useful, I mostly use it in a dark setting), Mix and Dwell (sort of a decay control, not much variation on this control). Of course it´s an emulation of a spring verb, so boingy and bouncy. not smooth stuff. But fills the intended role nicely. I made a PCB for it, will post it later so that anyone can make it.

+1 for PCB thanks

[scuzzphut]

^ demo?..

http://soundcloud.com/scuzzphut/berb

Quick one - my new homebrew tele -> ross compressor clone -> box of hall verb ->Blackstar Ht-5 ->emulated out into sound card.

[deadastronaut]

nice one mark: 

sounds great!!!...cheers.

[culturejam]

I'm indebted to FRW for basically taking his Box of Hall jpg and editing it.

You're welcome! 

[deadastronaut]

anyone made a pcb (not vero)  version for the BTDR-2H  brick...1590b size?


i just ordered the BTDR=2H.

which schematic to use too?....the one above?..

ive seen a few,  i wanted a wet/dry mix, level ,and tone too...

hmmmm just read a few mods by 'heaven within''

(Many were complaining this to sound dark. Do the following mods

1)for the 470Pf use 100pf

2)for 4n7 use 1n

3)for 33n of the damp capacitor, use 22n

4)for 33k to the left of 4n7 use 10k)

guess i'll  have to do a 1590b layout...hmmmmm....think i'll have to breadboard it...

edit:

found this schemo....

[scuzzphut]

Rob - the one I made (sound clip above) incorporates all of those mods. They are a great improvement.

[deadastronaut]

cheers mark ^ as above then. (i added the mods, just weren't sure which 33k to 10k..

look ok?..

whats the 'dwell' mod...as in byoc v2 reverb?..armndry (larry) said its for room size?

[armdnrdy]

One of Webster's dictionary definitions of dwell is:

Definition of DWELL 1: to remain for a time

When you walk in a small empty room and clap your hands, you'll get a short tight reverb. When you clap your hands in a larger room you get a larger, deeper, decay. The reverberation hangs around for a while before decaying to an inaudible state.

Hence the use of the word Dwell!

I remember the name dwell being used for reverb controls on some older amps from my youth. In modern times much fancier names are used for the same control.

[deadastronaut]

cheers larry,   so the damp on this the same as a 'tone'...and just has overall reverb 'mix' then..

so the schematic above has no dwell.. as in the byoc v2 schematic...

could that be added to the above schemo?

[armdnrdy]

Hey Rob,

It looks like you can add the same components as in the BYOC version in between IC1D pin 14 and IC1B pin 7.

All this is doing is adding standard "feedback" to the circuit. More feedback, thicker deeper effect!

[deadastronaut]

nice one larry, i just knocked up a 1590b layout for the above, i'll see if i can squeeze that onto it too..



i'll post a pic up of it, if i can get it done....


you mean like this?

[armdnrdy]

so the damp on this the same as a 'tone'

Judging by the name of the control "Damp", and looking at the circuit, I don't think that control act like a tone control. To "dampen" means to deaden. It looks like the pot is a "mix" between output 1 and output 2 of the brick.

I looked around quite a bit and listened to many of the sound samples available before I made my decision on the BYOC version. The tone control is an actual tone stack and provides a very usable variation between bass and treble. (Nothing too bassy or trebly)
The sounds that one can get out of this reverb vary from a pretty realistic reverb to an almost rockabilly slap back with the Dwell and Reverb controls cranked.

[deadastronaut]

 i mean between 7-14. ..