Which reverb pedals?

[Flatline]

A reverb pedal would make a fine edition to my pedal board. No hurry to make a purchase, but interested in what y'all think.

I've been eyeing either a Hall of Fame 2 or an Oceans 11 reverb. Others I should check out? I'm not interested in spending a fortune on something like the Strymon Big Sky. Inexpensive is good, but cheap junk is not.

Thoughts?

[golem]

I picked up a Verb o Trem workstation from riffcityguitar used as a demo for $150 so I'm biased.



I honestly think, for my tastes, it's the best Reverb pedal I've ever tried.

[mozz]

The ultimate reverb but not cheap.
https://reverb.com/item/47905-vintage-f ... -or-studio

[golem]

The ultimate reverb but not cheap.
https://reverb.com/item/47905-vintage-f ... -or-studio

For when you want to get your Dick Dale on. $2k? Sweet baby Jesus.

[mozz]

You can build a clone for 4-$500.
EHX makes a few reverb pedals, I have a older holy Grail.

[RiverDog]

DigiTech Polara is a great and affordable reverb. It has 7 Lexicon reverbs and they all sound great.

[aullucci]

I have the HoF mini. If you need presets for switching tones on stage, get the full size version. The beam from your phone feature is cute and works fine but I can't imagine it would work well on a stage (says the guy who's never been on a stage). But the sounds are fantastic, and there are tons of them in the cloud for free. And I got mine for like $50-60 in mint condition. They're all over Reverb for $75 right now and you can almost certainly do better.

[zisme]

i use an ehx holy grail + (guitar) and holy stain (bass). i like em both for simple set and forget settings. really depends on how many bells and whistles you want. guitar player in my band has tried MANY and always comes back to his old boss rv-5

[PsychoCid]

Dunno what you're going for, lots of good options.

Love my Catalinbread Talisman for that 70s giant plate reverb!

[Partscaster]

surprisingly good and cheap Biyang RV-10 Tri-Reverb chinese made " Effects Pedal 3 Modes Hall Spring Room True Bypass Guitar Mini Multi-effects Pedal Full Metal Shell". On Amazon or Reverb for around 50$.

[ID10t]

surprisingly good and cheap Biyang RV-10 Tri-Reverb chinese made " Effects Pedal 3 Modes Hall Spring Room True Bypass Guitar Mini Multi-effects Pedal Full Metal Shell". On Amazon or Reverb for around 50$.

That peaks my interest, that goes on a list.

Does anyone else see a different "theme" on this thread?

[Morrison]

Anyone tried the Boss RV-500?

I have the Digitech Polara right now and overall like it. Only complaint I have is the print labeling everything blends in to the background too much for aging eyes. It’s hard to read unless I’m right up on it.

[voodoorat]

i have an hof2. no complaints, although i usually use minimal reverb anyway. most of my amps have built-in reverb of varying quality but good enough for me.

[toomanycats]

I was going to post by own thread with a similar topic to [mention]Flatline[/mention]'s, but after reading through one this I realized that my question was close enough that I may as well just bump this one. Those are good suggestions above and I've already looked some of them up.

Some of my amps have reverb built in, though my main amp for live performance does not. Because of this I've been thinking about the need for a reverb pedal for a while, and something recently pushed me of that fence. A couple weeks ago I did a live stream performance where my guitar was captured onstage by a Sennheiser e609 on the grill of the amp, no sound of the room, and no reverb added at the board. The feed from the board is what you hear on the YouTube video. Maybe the sound guy figured that we guitarists knew exactly what we wanted for our tones and that we didn't want him to infringe on that by adding any effects. The result was that my guitar sounded very flat, direct, and unnatural. With a reverb pedal I would have had control over adding a sense of space, depth, naturalness, and warmth.

Here are my specific needs:

It's got to be simple and basic, durable, and moderately priced. I need something for live use that will be put in front of a Marshall type amp that has with no built in reverb. I want to be able to set it and forget it. I don't need the newest thing with all the bells and whistles. I play blues and blues/rock, so I don't need to get crazy with all those options. I just need something for traditional blues and rock reverb tones.

[Gear_Junky]

The result was that my guitar sounded very flat, direct, and unnatural. With a reverb pedal I would have had control over adding a sense of space, depth, naturalness, and warmth.

So true! I hate that sound. That's why I've always avoided amps w/o a reverb. A few thoughts: a subtle delay/echo can serve the same purpose. A pedal like this may sound better in the FX loop, not "in front" of the amp (any of the time-based pedals typically - reverb, delay/echo, tremolo, chorus, phaser, anything "spacey" or ambient).

Having said that, and since the OP also mentioned "cheap is good but junk is not", I'll mention Danelectro "diner" pedals - the little pedals that have names like diner foods, i.e. Corned Beef. This pedal is called "Reverb", but is more like an echo or slapback, check youtube demos to decide. There are also a few others from this series that sound good, like echo, slapback, etc. They usually have good circuits in them and if you don't need to stomp it often, it'll work fine. They had case/pedalboard enclosures for 5 pedals and with power. I have one for the FX loop, and another for "in front of the amp" (overdrives, compressor, autowah, etc.)

For some reason digital reverb pedals cost more than delays. Hope your search is fruitful

[OMB]

I have quite a few reverb pedals but my favorite (Other than those that come in the amps) is this Keeley

[golem]

I love Keeley. I migh rebuy my favorite Hermida if Sean Michael D surfaces again post-divorce. As it is, I sold all my Hermidas for a premium since he's not building them right now. It's good, but not better than Keeley's stuff per se.

[jtcnj]

surprisingly good and cheap Biyang RV-10 Tri-Reverb chinese made " Effects Pedal 3 Modes Hall Spring Room True Bypass Guitar Mini Multi-effects Pedal Full Metal Shell". On Amazon or Reverb for around 50$.

I have used this one almost daily for the last 3+ years, and it is on most of the time, unless I am using delay.
I only play at home, blues/blues rock / classic 70's rock mostly.
I have both pots at about 9:00 specifically to just add a little depth / ambiance to avoid that flat feeling as TMC describes.
It is all metal and seems pretty sturdy, but I couldnt say how it / the footswitch would hold up for gigging.

I do play a few surf tunes and it does that well enough too but it is also the only reverb I have ever used.

[andrewsrea]

I have my eye on an Ocean's 11 for the sound, versatility and value.

I once questioned Owen Matthews in the 90's (he was my New Sensor rep - his dad owns the company) that if their legacy is analog, why were they hiring software engineers and investing so heavily in digital. Obviously the answer is in the quality performance of their digital pedals of the last 10 years.

So given the majority of reverb pedals use the Accutronics' chipset or Spin FV-1 IC, the difference is in the algorithms programmed by the software engineers.

Eventide has been at this the longest and has been considered pinnacle and I think Strymon is cut from the same cloth, but you are going to pay an additional $200 or more for features and quality that the Oceans 11 comes very close to (in IMHO).

[toomanycats]

I've been reading up on the subject and there seems to be a general consensus that putting a reverb pedal in front of an overdriven Marshall is a bad idea. The result is mud city. If you're using a 100 watt Plexi head driving a couple 4x12 bottoms then you're most likely in a big enough room to create natural reverb.

As [mention]Gear_Junky[/mention] mentioned above, a subtle delay can accomplish the same thing as a reverb by providing a sense of space.

[Gear_Junky]

I've been reading up on the subject and there seems to be a general consensus that putting a reverb pedal in front of an overdriven Marshall is a bad idea. The result is mud city. If you're using a 100 watt Plexi head driving a couple 4x12 bottoms then you're most likely in a big enough room to create natural reverb.

As @Gear_Junky mentioned above, a subtle delay can accomplish the same thing as a reverb by providing a sense of space.

Yep. But even if not (I doubt anyone is playing stadiums in this crowd), a pleasantly sounding delay/echo can even be better than reverb. Good reverb sounds great, bad reverb is annoying. All the ear (well, brain, really) needs is a sense of relief - without some ambiance it sounds like blasting directly into the ear canal. And delays may give you controlled # of reflections (far cheaper than a digital reverb with lots of controls), which helps on mud. I would still guess that FX loop is better than "in front of" the amp. But there's a myriad possibilities.

Surf is probably the one genre where good drippy fendery reverb is a must.

[pratteman]

I have the Digitech RV-7 Reverb. it was discountined a while ago, but still sounds fantastic.

[pratteman]

I have the Digitech RV-7 Reverb. it was discountined a while ago, but still sounds fantastic.

[Chocol8]

I've been reading up on the subject and there seems to be a general consensus that putting a reverb pedal in front of an overdriven Marshall is a bad idea. The result is mud city. If you're using a 100 watt Plexi head driving a couple 4x12 bottoms then you're most likely in a big enough room to create natural reverb.

As @Gear_Junky mentioned above, a subtle delay can accomplish the same thing as a reverb by providing a sense of space.

The delay in front of an overdriven amp (or dirt pedal) can get muddy as well. That’s pretty much why effects loops were invented. Since I doubt you want to bastardize your 65 amps head to add a loop, I think you are better off relying on the board, or going down the path of something much more expensive with a reactive load that will pass a direct signal to the board sans microphone. The Two Notes Captor X has some built in Reverb to add the room/space effect for around $600 and I think your options go up in price from there. Obviously there are other benefits which justify the price tags...if you are going to use them, but it’s a real pricey way just to add post amp effects.

I don’t know the market well at all, but maybe get a small mixer with reverb capability to put between your microphone and the FOH? That may be much cheaper.

[Sinster]

I have the DEAD BEATS The Void picked it up on Amazon back in 2017 and it's a good pedal. Not sure what they are going for now as I picked mine up for around 40.00.. Josh at JHS thinks it's a good pedal