SPRINGS vs BRICKS - choosing a spring reverb pedal

slowpilgrim

Hi guys,

just acquired an old silverface champ and looking to get a nice warm-sounding spring reverb pedal for it. I’d prefer to DIY a pedal, so looking at belton brick options like the EQD ghost echo clone from FuzzDog.

I then saw that BJFE do a DIY ‘spring in a pedal’ reverb, which obviously appeals to the purist in me. I’ve tried mini spring tanks before like the one in the Koma FX kit, and found it was a bit 1 dimensional and too metallic.

It’s got me wondering - for ‘authentic’ spring reverb sounds, is there a reason manufacturers have focused on the belton brick or DSP modelling rather than making little spring tank pedals? Are these smaller tanks just a gimmick, with bricks being a closer approximation of the large tanks found in these classic amps?

Which do you prefer?

slowpilgrim

I’m also considering the Flint or gurus sinusoid.

alalalkasar

What about going large, like a surfybear. They do a DIY kit.

Winny_Pooh

I have a ghost echo (& SF champ), great effect but not what I'd call true to a spring tone. Get a used Marshall reflector for cheap, even if its not a pure emulation you can cut back the time & splashiness for a warmer tone.

If you have £££ then get an Anasounds Elements w medium or large tank.

slowpilgrim

Thanks guys, I ended up going with the Gurus as found one on eBay for £160. Can easily shift it if it doesn't work out.

springhead

alalalkasar said:

What about going large, like a surfybear. They do a DIY kit.

It would be good, however I don't think they do kits anymore.  I'm very happy with the Trem kit I bought a couple of years ago, sadly also no longer in their store.

De_Batz

I'd be interested to know how the Gurus sounds. I've currently got an outboard valve unit (the Valvetrain one), a Strymon Flint and a Henretta Tremble Tank (which uses the brick, AFAIK). Of the three, the Flint is the most 'sensible' sounding, with all the sounds staying this side of weird; the Tremble has a range of great weirdo sounds but is (to its great discredit) noisy, particularly in front of the amp, and the Valvetrain is spectacular but not the most convenient, shall we say...

The outboard unit is a bit hummy, which can be managed down with buffers and an iso tranny (in some circumstances the iso is pretty key), although for some amps it is far and away best in the loop. But for sheer glory of swampy, crashy reverb sounds, it's comfortably in front. 

De_Batz

slowpilgrim said:

Thanks guys, I ended up going with the Gurus as found one on eBay for £160. Can easily shift it if it doesn't work out.

I think I had a look at that one. Thoughts?

slowpilgrim

I really like it, the spring verb actually sounds pretty great and suits the champ, as I don't think a deep tank would suit the 8" speaker. The trem is actually my favourite part, sounds very natural and throbby rather than choppy like some pedal trems can be. Having played with it for a while though, I'm now realising that maybe the more traditional reverb sound of something like the EQD ghost echo is more up my street as the spring sound is a bit one dimensional. I think I'll order the DIY kit and A/B them.

solar

I love the Ghost Echo but I wouldn’t call it a “traditional” reverb sound. To me it’s very weird and imparts masses of character on the sound - which is why I love it!

JayGee

It’s unfashionable, it’s extremely unboutique, it’s huge, and the power supply is a PITA but I really like my Blackstar HT Reverb. Between that, the spring lines in my Mesa 5:25 and Fender Superchamp, the “Brick” based reverb in my Juan Solo multipedal I’ve actually got all three bases covered and to be honest they all work pretty well for me but the versatility of the Blackstar (decent sounding plate and room effects) is very appealing

slowpilgrim

I can believe that, the HT boost pedals are also hidden gems for music production work.

slowpilgrim

Built the EQD, very fond of it but I"m hearing these demos of bigger tanks and GASing hard. I'd like to get a Sole Mate or similar, something where I can mount the tank inside the cab, but there's none around for a good price at the moment. I came across this:

https://moodysounds.com/en/produkt/universal-reverb-kit/

which looks mint, and can then get the biggest tank that will fit in the champ. Hence the next question - these reverb drivers, I see there are tube-driven boutique ones, FET drives, etc. How much of a difference does it really make? The BJF is 100gbp which is pretty cheap compared to the competition. Have no qualms about DIYing.

soma1975

Source Audio True Spring is incredible. Plus you get great trem too.

Keefy

The Belton Brick is based around three PT2399 lo-fi digital delay chips. Many of the available spring reverb emulation pedals use either the Brick or a similar circuit topology - I opened up my Mosky Spring Reverb and sure enough, there were three tiny SMD PT2399 chips. The Mosky does a pretty good job of taking the dryness out of a guitar sound, but it is better at shorter trashy sounds and doesn't really convince for longer lush sounds. It was cheap as (delay) chips.

If you want to go the DIY route, I am very happy with my build of Craig Anderton's 'Stage Center' spring reverb. I built mine into a 1U rack shell, but it is intended to be a pedal with outboard connections to the tank. I found a MOD medium-decay tank gives plenty of length and depth to the reverb, whereas the long-decay tank was just too much. I also found that the controls are mis-labelled in the schematic - see this post.

The Stage Center directly drives an 800 ohm transducer form a TL072 chip, which is the approach taken in a lot of modern production valve amps e.g. the Blues Junior. I don't think they lack anything, unless you're a valve purist when it comes to amps! Vintage valve amps tend to drive an 8 ohm transducer via a small transformer. I am currently working on a build of such a circuit, so I'll try to comment on the differences when I'm done, although other factors such as tank length may skew the outcome.

slowpilgrim

Keefy said:

The Belton Brick is based around three PT2399 lo-fi digital delay chips. Many of the available spring reverb emulation pedals use either the Brick or a similar circuit topology - I opened up my Mosky Spring Reverb and sure enough, there were three tiny SMD PT2399 chips. The Mosky does a pretty good job of taking the dryness out of a guitar sound, but it is better at shorter trashy sounds and doesn't really convince for longer lush sounds. It was cheap as (delay) chips.

If you want to go the DIY route, I am very happy with my build of Craig Anderton's 'Stage Center' spring reverb. I built mine into a 1U rack shell, but it is intended to be a pedal with outboard connections to the tank. I found a MOD medium-decay tank gives plenty of length and depth to the reverb, whereas the long-decay tank was just too much. I also found that the controls are mis-labelled in the schematic - see this post.

The Stage Center directly drives an 800 ohm transducer form a TL072 chip, which is the approach taken in a lot of modern production valve amps e.g. the Blues Junior. I don't think they lack anything, unless you're a valve purist when it comes to amps! Vintage valve amps tend to drive an 8 ohm transducer via a small transformer. I am currently working on a build of such a circuit, so I'll try to comment on the differences when I'm done, although other factors such as tank length may skew the outcome.

This looks bloody great. I'm hesitant to use stripboard, do you know if there are any pcbs available for the circuit?

beed84

I'm running an Anasounds Elements + Le Bon tank through my Silverface Champ with gratifying results. However, as an experiment, I borrowed my mate's Digitech digital reverb to see if there was much difference. There wasn't a great deal in it  – mostly because I use Reverb as a subtle effect – but the Anasounds sounded more natural and a bit more responsive as you would expect. If you're a purist, then a spring unit all the way.

Keefy

slowpilgrim said:

Keefy said:

The Belton Brick is based around three PT2399 lo-fi digital delay chips. Many of the available spring reverb emulation pedals use either the Brick or a similar circuit topology - I opened up my Mosky Spring Reverb and sure enough, there were three tiny SMD PT2399 chips. The Mosky does a pretty good job of taking the dryness out of a guitar sound, but it is better at shorter trashy sounds and doesn't really convince for longer lush sounds. It was cheap as (delay) chips.

If you want to go the DIY route, I am very happy with my build of Craig Anderton's 'Stage Center' spring reverb. I built mine into a 1U rack shell, but it is intended to be a pedal with outboard connections to the tank. I found a MOD medium-decay tank gives plenty of length and depth to the reverb, whereas the long-decay tank was just too much. I also found that the controls are mis-labelled in the schematic - see this post.

The Stage Center directly drives an 800 ohm transducer form a TL072 chip, which is the approach taken in a lot of modern production valve amps e.g. the Blues Junior. I don't think they lack anything, unless you're a valve purist when it comes to amps! Vintage valve amps tend to drive an 8 ohm transducer via a small transformer. I am currently working on a build of such a circuit, so I'll try to comment on the differences when I'm done, although other factors such as tank length may skew the outcome.

This looks bloody great. I'm hesitant to use stripboard, do you know if there are any pcbs available for the circuit?

There’s a link to a printable PCB design on the Stage Center page but I don’t think there’s a ready-made PCB available.

andy1839

I've just ended up with a screaminFX Uverbia in a trade.

I already had the Fender Boss FRV-1 63 which is a superb digital spring in a box.
But the Uverbia is probably the best real spring reverb I've heard. 

I've had to buy a bigger pedalboard because it's huge, but worth it just for it's verby goodness.

slowpilgrim

That looks bonkers. I'm going to keep looking, my ideal is an external tank I can velro to the inside of the cab with a standard pedal-sized footswitch out front. Will keep my eye out for a reasonably-priced VanAmps JR or similar, but edging towards the BJF DIY kit. It's just a shame it's so bloody expensive considering it doesn't even come with a tank.