Best Reverb Pedal?

[lolzgreg]

I've always found reverb effects to be tough business. Some of them don't sound convincing, while others sound great and suck your tone. What do you guys think?

 

[Jackie]

HardWire RV-7 sounds very convincing to me. Lexicon 'verbs in there, after all.

Holy Grail from EH sounds good too albeit a bit... less full? Don't know how to elaborate.

That's all I have tried so far. On a side note, I must say that as far as built in reverbs go, Blackstar's are nice, my JVM's is great, and the Vintage Modern's is crud because it's dark and muddy as hell.

 

[haich]

If you are looking for a pretty true Fender reverb the Boss FRV-1 is fantastic. Use it with my Mark IIC+ (no eq or reverb) .

 

[ifailedshapes]

If you don't mind spending more money than deemed sane, the Strymon blueSky is tough to beat. Also, Line 6 actually makes a pretty good reverb pedal called the Verbzilla.

 

[the Dogfather]

+1 for the HardWire RV-7!!

 

[Sacausey]

I just got a Strymon BlueSky a couple of weeks ago. It took a few days to really learn how to get what I wanted out of it, but have been extremely pleased with it since. It has a really wide range of possibilities, and the mod and shimmer sounds are pretty usable with some tweaking. I've owned three reverb pedals (Boss, Holy Grail, and the Strymon) and this one beats the others by a long shot.

 

[MesaENGR412]

EH Holy Grail Cathedral is pretty sweet. I would probably get that one if I was really into the 'verb.

-AJH

 

[58boogie]

I have the Nano version of the EH Holy Grail run thorugh the effects loop of a single rectifier. IT WORKS GREAT! Much better sounding than the not so great reverb on the Rectoverb I used to own. Also it worked better than the Boss reverb pedals I tried.

 

[soundchaser59]

I've had the HW RV-7 for about a month or so now, I'm not convinced. It's really not what I expected, especially after having such a good experience with the HW delay and chorus pedals. It just seems to have some artifacts or something that muddies up my sound, and the mud disappears every time I turn the RV7 off. I don't know if it's signal level or what, but it also seems like it adds some kind of distortion as well, like it cant handle the signal I'm putting into it.

I'm tempted to sell it and look for a TC Hall of Fame instead.

 

[Jackie]

I've had the HW RV-7 for about a month or so now, I'm not convinced. It's really not what I expected, especially after having such a good experience with the HW delay and chorus pedals. It just seems to have some artifacts or something that muddies up my sound, and the mud disappears every time I turn the RV7 off. I don't know if it's signal level or what, but it also seems like it adds some kind of distortion as well, like it cant handle the signal I'm putting into it.

I'm tempted to sell it and look for a TC Hall of Fame instead.

I hope I'm not stating the obvious here, but do you have a good power supply? Them HW pedals are GREEDY bastards... my dad used a cruddy 9V adapter and the thing well... didn't work very well. Went to a proper power supply and viola - works great.

 

[braintheory]

I heard from some people that the T-Rex Roommate is the best reverb pedal, but it's ridiculously overpriced IMO. Also, I heard the Solid Gold FX reverb is really good.

 

[soundchaser59]

I hope I'm not stating the obvious here, but do you have a good power supply? Them HW pedals are GREEDY bastards... my dad used a cruddy 9V adapter and the thing well... didn't work very well. Went to a proper power supply and viola - works great.

I don't know, I've been running on a couple of 1-Spots for quite a while, but I've never been able to tell a difference between that and using all new 9v batteries in every pedal.

I did find that my overdrive stack was not dialed in right, and that did make a difference. The RV7 is sounding a lot better now, so that I can live with it for a while to give it a fair shake. But if I can stop test driving OD pedals then I will still be tempted to try the Hall of Fame. I'm in no hurry because I've never been a real reverb geek, but this RV7 is more versatile than any amp-bound spring reverb I've had. Certainly better than the Boss reverbs I had.

 

[Gtr_Pkr]

I just bought the Boss/Fender joint venture, the Fender FRV-1. It's great. Tons of springy reverb here. It really gets a great tone. I have never played through the tube unit, but with this pedal, it satisified my G.A.S. attack.

http://www.bossus.com/gear/productdetails.php?ProductId=1021

 

[Bozie]

The question of effects and cables on tone is an interesting conversation, and more than a little subjective.
I have a Hardwire and find that it does not change my tone, I run it in the fx loop of my Stiletto with a PP2 and it seems very transparent to me - and I love it in stereo.
I did try an EHX Cathedral reverb for a week and didn't like what it did to my sound, it seemed to be a bunch of thin delays in every setting (which is reverb anyway, it just seemed too 'obvious' to me) and it seemed to do odd things to the gain structure. Pity, really, as I wanted those features but you don't buy a nice amp to have one pedal wreck the sonic qualities for you - thats where the subjective element comes in.
There is no substitute for trying a pedal in your own rig to see if you like how all the elements interact...

 

[Jackie]

That's a breeze for you US folks... AFAIK lots of stores have a 30-day return policy, no such thing where I'm at (Slovenia).

 

[Gtr_Pkr]

That's a breeze for you US folks... AFAIK lots of stores have a 30-day return policy, no such thing where I'm at (Slovenia).

The bigger stores, Guitar Center, Sam Ash, and big independent sellers, will give you the 30 days to return without charge. Other smaller retailers do not offer this plan.

 

[ifailedshapes]

That's a breeze for you US folks... AFAIK lots of stores have a 30-day return policy, no such thing where I'm at (Slovenia).

The bigger stores, Guitar Center, Sam Ash, and big independent sellers, will give you the 30 days to return without charge. Other smaller retailers do not offer this plan.

Yeah, Musician's Friend is perhaps the best-known website for purchasing musical gear online. I don't see why they couldn't ship internationally. Even here in the U.S. most music stores don't have 30-day return policies.

 

[58boogie]

I just hooked up an EH Holy Grail (Nano Version) in my Stilletto effects loop. WORKS AMAZING!

 

[Release]

I really like the Hardwire RV7 but I'm REALLY wanting to pick up a WET.

They just announced a stereo WET today. That's the next pedal for me.

 

[Jackie]

That's a breeze for you US folks... AFAIK lots of stores have a 30-day return policy, no such thing where I'm at (Slovenia).

The bigger stores, Guitar Center, Sam Ash, and big independent sellers, will give you the 30 days to return without charge. Other smaller retailers do not offer this plan.

Yeah, Musician's Friend is perhaps the best-known website for purchasing musical gear online. I don't see why they couldn't ship internationally. Even here in the U.S. most music stores don't have 30-day return policies.

The thing with international shipping is the shipping cost and customs... When I receive something that's worth more than a certain amount I have to pay 20% tax and 5% customs so any money I'd potentially save goes to that, plus if I didn't like it and I wanted to send it back I'd probably pay quite the sum too so I doubt it pays off...

Anyway, back on topic - nice to see the RV7 getting some love. Although I gotta agree that if you want simplicity you can't beat the Nano Grail :mrgreen: