Spring Tank Pedals / Head Units

Ché

From the owner of a Twin Reverb, Roland Space Echo, FIsher Spacexpander, Boss FRV-1, Mesa Boogie Lonestar...

Amp spring tanks are smooth and even at higher levels retain their clarity, creating a wash that blankets the sound of your guitar. They're a great given their placement after the preamp stage of the amp as most pedal verbs will be subject to whatever you're playing into if your amp is without effects loop and the sound will be coloured accordingly by your preamp gain. In my opinion springs sounds best post gain pre modulation. They also fit neatly in your amp and require nothing but an on and off switch should you need to use it.

Fender 6G15 and other similar outboard tanks are a lot more dynamic and can be hit harder given the separate controls for mix and dwell. They can produce a percussive splash when fed transients known to surf aficionados as "drip" which may be something you either love or think sounds distorted and unpleasant. Dub producers utilised this technique on kick drums amongst other things. They can also be dialled back to produce a more natural ambience but require extra cables as well and what is essentially an additional amp head to your set up. 

The stompbox debate takes place mainly in the analog vs. digital domain. Aside from the VanAmps which sounds pleasing but only has a short pan there is very little you can do without going for digital emulations. These vary in tone, ADA conversion, buffered bypass to let your reverbs trail off (not possible with tanks) as well as pedalboard real estate and perceived authenticity of their emulation (be it lush amp (vanamps, supernatural) or splashy surf (Boss FRV-1). I feel these many variables are highly opinionated so it's very hard to say if it's worth it. It comes down to your budget, your playing genre, your playing style and how those different verbs affect your playing and enhance your enjoyment. 

Personally I feel there is no substitute for an electrical signal passing through a spring, it can be emulated, but not replicated without actual springs, it is analog and completely non-linear as a result. Good luck with your quest and remember, always demo units, never go on hype and trust your ears, if it sounds good to you, it's good!

Regards,

Ché

ICBM

Ché said:

buffered bypass to let your reverbs trail off (not possible with tanks)

You can easily have that with tanks, by muting the tank input rather than the output. It's very rarely done, probably because it doesn't let you use the mute to stop noise or feedback. You could modify any spring unit to do it that way if you wanted though.

EdGrip

http://www.tube-tone-engineering.co.uk/Reverbrato.html - they also build an actual 6K6 reverb tank with a bonus vibrato circuit.

There are a few other companies offering hand-built Fender reverb unit clones, though I can't think of the others off the top of my head.

As mentioned above, the digital spring emulations are now really excellent. 

A big part of the sound difference with a Fender reverb unit vs a Fender amp with reverb, is that the outboard reverb comes before the amp's input and preamp circuitry, and is subject to all its gain and EQ characteristics. 

EdGrip

Now that I've seen Catalinbread have made a Fender reverb pedal, that would be my first port of call. Love those guys.

http://www.catalinbread.com/topanga-spring-reverb.html

AxeWieldingBastard

Thanks for all useful infos guys. Especially Che- really detailed post. And Ed G; never heard of tube tone b4, very interesting!

The search continues...

One question i have; What's a rubadub board/circuit please?

musteatbrain

Google 1776 effects and rubadub. They are good kits that use the Accutronics Digilog. A lot of the boutique pedals use this part in their circuit. E.g. The Malekko Spring chicken. I have 2 pedals that use it and they are good, altough as Ché mentioned the dynamics of an actually valve unit are better. The Digilog based devices can struggle for headroom if you use a boost pedal in front of them. I've just been round the houses with reverb pedals and ended up paying for a 2nd hand Fender reissue reverb tank. I have the pedals as backup, but to be honest the reverb tank demolishes them in all areas of tone and dynamics. If you like the splash and drip you get when you dig in I'd recommend one very highly. You can get them 2nd hand on ebay for a bit more than 300 every so often.

ThePrettyDamned

Not sure about belton brick headroom, but I've used a Digitech digiverb and hardwire reverb after a boost and in the loop and both were great. So digital pedals can have plenty of headroom if designed well.

Luckily, I don't like the vintage spring sounds that much - I use the spring reverb on my amp and it's nice enough, but I much prefer big Hall or plate sounds. I suspect, even if only for mojo, if I liked spring, I'd save up for a tank.

nickb_boy

raulduke;219227" said:

The new Catalinbread Topanga looks pretty tasty.

I'd love to try one of these out. From the 2 guys I've spoken to who own one both have given nothing but praise. It's meant to be spot on for vintage spring reverb. It's even got a secret mode if you want something a bit different.

ICBM

ThePrettyDamned said:

Luckily, I don't like the vintage spring sounds that much - I use the spring reverb on my amp and it's nice enough, but I much prefer big Hall or plate sounds. I suspect, even if only for mojo, if I liked spring, I'd save up for a tank.

I used to think that, but unless it's a vintage Fender in a studio I probably wouldn't bother. There are so many problems with spring reverbs now - including the new Fender ones, even if I said I hadn't come across 'quality issues'. In fact, all current Accutronics spring units are less reliable than older ones due to a design change that was made about 10-15 years ago. They also pick up noise quite badly, which is becoming more of an issue with the rising numbers of switch-mode power supplies in the environment - they produce broad-frequency, rough noise which is difficult to filter out, unlike traditional transformers which produce a simple sine wave at 50/60Hz and can be rolled off easily. As well as the usual mechanical noise they always did - although that's probably part of the 'mojo'.

The digital emulations are getting so good that you really can't easily tell the difference in a mix unless you're a real reverb fanatic, and have none of those problems.

I also have to say that, good though it is, the Fender reissue is massively overpriced even second hand. It's about as complex and expensive to build as a typical 5W amp that's not one of the most basic one-knob models.

fretmeister

http://www.jag-stang.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/boss_fender_reverb_pedal.jpg

It really is very good indeed.

CloudNine

Update to what I said earlier in the thread. Just picked up a 2nd hand Demeter Reverbulator this morning. First impressions are, it is absolutely great. Not really explored it fully yet, and I only like reasonably subtle verb, so not really that interested how it sounds maxed out. Using it with a Victoria 5112 and they seem like very happy companions. Will have a proper play around later.

AxeWieldingBastard

Sweet! Really interested in this one. Let us know how it works out.

JDE

Aye, update further when you can. You can actually plug a turnip into a Victoria and have it sound amazing, though

EricTheWeary

EdGrip said:

Now that I've seen Catalinbread have made a Fender reverb pedal, that would be my first port of call. Love those guys.

http://www.catalinbread.com/topanga-spring-reverb.html

Massive thread about this on the surf guitar forum ( although there is pretty much about every reverb pedal ever made on there TBH)and some mixed views about it ( the early youtube demos being badly done apparently) although generally regarded by the few who have used one as probably the best digital version of a tank reverb.

CloudNine

Quick update on the Demeter Reverbulator mentioned above. For the levels I use it at, I reckon it sounds as good as any amp reverb I have had in the past. Very addictive to play through, compared with regular verb pedals I have had over the last few years.

It has a Long and Short spring inside. It would only really be worth buying a pedal like this (at this price) for the 'Long' spring setting imo, as I reckon the 'Short' setting would be very easily replicated with much cheaper pedal. And the 'Both' spring setting sounds almost exactly like the 'Short' to my ears, so fairly pointless.

Not quite convinced about the higher settings as it seems the guitar tone gets completely lost and almost quiet amidst the splashy mayhem, but I never use levels like that so not really much of a worry. I was in fact wondering whether there was something wrong with it when I turned it fully up, but maybe it is meant to sound like that.. Will play about with that a bit more later.

One other thing I noticed is that there's a gain knob that you are supposed to set at a point where you get occasional flickers of an 'overload' light, and that doing this gets the best out of the pedal. Well I was just using it with my strat and it was not possible to get it to overload at all, possibly due to low output of the pickups. Haven't got anything with HB's to compare. But not too worried, as it is hard to imagine it sounding any better for the tones I am looking for.

All in all, it's a fabulous thing and real springs do sound noticeably nicer. Although I opened it up to have a quick nosey around, and there aint much in there... Makes the cost to buy one in the UK pretty astonishing.  :-O

AxeWieldingBastard

Thanks for getting back. No one has a bad word to say about the Reverbulator it seems.

I'd get one if i saw one going used, but it's not a common item unfortunately.

Where did u find this one btw?

CloudNine

It popped up on ebay the other day, and I noticed the guy was living in Glasgow where I stay. I put it on watch then noticed it had ended, so I emailed him anyway to see if it had been sold, and he replied to say he had changed his mind about selling and pulled the auction. But I made an offer, we struck a deal, and I collected it next morning. 

 

 

Wazmeister

Bumping an old thread...

I really LOVE reverb. Had some GAS lately, and fancy trying one of the giant Carl Martin Headroom verbs....

my old Van Amps was stunning; even the mighty Big Sky or FX8 could match thiose analogue warm sounds.

The recent 'That Pedal Show' verb demo is very good, and the Headroom sounds gorgeous;

Laurie

This would be my choice over the Fender Reverb.

http://www.valvetrainamps.com/?page_id=275

pmg

The Carl Martin Headroom is really good but takes up at lot of space and is pricey -you done often see them secondhand because (a) they're pricey to buy initially and (b) people keep them.  I would also add to that list a Wampler Faux Spring Reverb and there was one going in the emporium last week.