Reverb Preferences

BuddytheReow

BuddytheReow

Moderator
I wanna get a sense of what people like for reverb out there. As a bedroom/basement player it one of my "always on" effects, though I do tweak the knobs depending on what I'm playing.

I would like to explore more DIY options out there for some winter projects for myself. My reverb is Belton Brick based and am wondering if this is good enough. I've been kinda eyeing this up as a baby step into making a DIY amp.

The Wave | Mod Electronics

The Wave is a stand-alone, tube-driven analog spring reverb that can be used in front of your guitar amp or as a line-level analog reverb effect for the recording studio.
www.modelectronics.com www.modelectronics.com

The Spatialist seems like a good option to try out different options, but it seems more utilitarian. Then again, it's just reverb.

What do you all like or recommend?
 
Ive never loved any of the diy reverbs. Though i havent tried the spatialist, the fv-1 ones are meh to me. And the belton as well. I do have two amps with true tube spring though and thats what i’m comparing that to. I have a boss rv-200 for the other stuff, and in my experience digital reverbs are better not diy. By the time you build an fv-1 reverb you’re nearly at the cost of used rv-6.

That said i do like the spirit box and hydra, as options if you’re going for some “different” reverb options
 
Like @Locrian99 Im a bit of a snob when it comes to DIY reverbs. I have a Meris Mercury X that feels like peak pedal board based reverb. I default to a tight “room” reverb that just helps the Ox Box cab sims with some subtle space. I like plate style reverbs quite a bit too.

As far as DIY I want to clone the Soldano Surf Box and Space Box some time (soonish).
 
I really like my Red Panda Cotext² (grated toward 80s digital racks) and LOVE the Neunaber Illumine. It does everything.
Rev500s have dropped to ~$200 if you want to menu dive.
 
I use my El Capistan as a Reverb.

I have a few faux reverb settings for spring, room and plate style but I also use it for faux studio effects like ADT and mimicking distance mic.

I usually stick those things on the favorite switch.
 
The best reverb I ever used for a recording was a 50’ barn. Not my barn though.

I have a DL-4 mk II on my board. It’s fine 🤷‍♂️
It works for me because I can have a preset for each patch, and I use around 45 of them. I thought about replacing it with a DD-500.

The ghost echo and deflector are fun to mess around with, but I don’t use it as part of my sound.

I tend to approach it how GotA described, using delay to add depth.
 
Im curently using PPCB Gravitation, Belton brick based, which is three PT2399 packed into one small part, if i understood correctly.
Gravitation does its job, i like to cut some highs and aim for some dark reverb tones and the Gravitation controls allows that.
But im not sure im fully pleased with it, it's effective, no obvious issues, but it's probably not the most suited tool for my tastes.

Before that i was using EHX Ocean11 for years, it's quite impressive for a digital reverb. Much better and more convincing than all the FV-1 based reverb i ever tried.
I still use it for both the versatility and the sound quality. Spring and Plate reverb are really interesting on this circuit.
I have a guitar amp with a real spring reverb and the Ocean 11 is amazingly close to that sound. No artificial flavor like all the other spring emulations i ever tried.
It's designed to be very compact, so the downside for me is the complexity of the controls, each pot can do like 3 different things thanks to a mode switch, and it can be hard to remember everything without the user manual.
Really great tool, it automaticaly records all the various control settings for all the 11 reverbs, no need to dial the controls again when we switch to another reverb.
The footswitch can do all kind of things like infinite feedback when we keep pressing it, or emulating a kick in a spring tank, tap tempo, etc...
I tried various instruments with it, drum machines, synths, voices, always with good results.

I also like musikding 3verb, also belton brick based. It's a shimmer reverb, which is supposed to add some octaves to the reverb, but unlike other shimmer reverbs i heard, this one is very subtle and refined, the octave layers aren't very noticeable. It's quite singular, easy to use as an everyday tool. It can do the dreamy ambient atmosphere with all controls fully CW, but without extreme settings it's just a very pleasing reverb sound.
Doesn't work very well on drums though.

There are also dark sounding delays that are very interesting to use as reverb, like the MXR M-118. It can be built with Aion's Star Chamber pcb.
 
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I use a Big Sky MX. The best DIY one I've played is the Gravitation (EQD Levitation), the Spirit Box (EQD Ghost Echo) is also nice but it's a bit of a one trick pony
 
Honestly, im a little shocked. I thought there’d be more DIY ones from you guys. I guess the gold standard is the spring tame in many of our amps, huh? Silver standard being a nice factory pedal.
 
BuddytheReow said:
Honestly, im a little shocked. I thought there’d be more DIY ones from you guys. I guess the gold standard is the spring tame in many of our amps, huh? Silver standard being a nice factory pedal.
Click to expand...
I guess for the average diy builder, it's near impossible to use really good audio chips like the one we can find in factory stompboxes.
From what i have seen so far, the usual digital path is FV-1, and it's very limited compared to what some other ICs can do.
FV-1 is affordable, simple to use in a diy build, it's based on some clever ideas from what i understand, but it's far from optimal in terms of sound quality.

Ocean 11 cost me like 100 euros... i guess it would have been at least 3 times that price and a much bigger enclosure if i had to build it myself.

Maybe it's a bit like building a diy recording loop station like Boss RC-3, it doesn't make much sense because the industry can do these circuits for far less money and in a much more compact enclosure than any diy project ?
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Here is a similar thread from another forum that might interest you. Electric Druid talks about FV-1 limits in post #21.

I was disapointed by the Spatialist. First few reverbs felt like it was the same patch with some variations in the controls action. The other reverb patches were fun but with very few practical use.
It felt really artificial to my ears, like the reverb tail decay is always exactly the same, very mechanical, it's lacking some natural interactions with the instrument, in my opinion.
Sold it to a synth player, i thought it would be more suited for other instruments than guitars or bass.
I recently went to visit him, we tried it on voices with a microphone and it was fun, especialy the pitch verb.
 
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I'm not big on reverb, I mainly use the spring tank in my amp. I've had both DIY and commercial reverb pedals, and I usually supplement whatever the pedal is with my amp's reverb.

I've built the Spirit Box and the Deflector, both of which are okay. I built a Sproing and it's a let down, like the original. I have a Gravitation PCB built and waiting for an enclosure. I'm excited about that one since I like the Spirit Box, but wish it did more.

Reverb and Delay are often associated with each other and I'd like to build a pedal that's both in one. I just ordered a DMD-2 and I'm excited to put that together, because the only other delay I've built is a Magnetron

I would like to try the Unison Double Tracker on here, and the D3lay with a custom eeprom chip that has 3 reverbs that all use similar controls. I can't stand pedals where you have to remember what the knobs do
 
I use the behringer clone of the boss reverb for plate reverb - plate is really the only reverb I like in all contexts and I don’t like spring at all. The DIY ones are fun as hell but when the amount of reverb I typically want is “barely any,” the rv-6 just works.
 
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