10 Extraordinary Reverbs
The first reverb pedals ever came out in 1985. You know, a mere 35 years ago.
Yeah, I’ll give you a second to push past that existential crisis.
Since then, reverb has come a long way. In this article, I'm going to show you my favorite reverb pedals that go above and beyond the call of duty, beyond those standard (but still great) sounds. The Justice League of Reverb, if you will.
First off, I want to lay out the rules. I’m not going to talk about spring reverb, hall reverb, plate reverb, anything like that. Don’t get me wrong here. I love that stuff, but it's not extraordinary. If you go back and watch the video, any sounds you hear me play in this JHS Show episode are going to be truly unique, really unusual effects.
This has to be one of the chiller episodes of the JHS Show we ever filmed. I may have fallen asleep in the middle. I’m honestly not sure. Either that, or I really did show up at school without any pants on. Could have gone either way, honestly.
Walrus Audio Slö Reverb
Let's jump right in. Our first extraordinary reverb is the Walrus Audio Slö Reverb. When we first released this episode of the JHS show, the Walrus Audio Slö had only been on the market for about a week, but I already knew this thing was legen-wait-for-it-dary.
Long story short: it's super, super cool. This is a multi-texture reverb. It has a ton of settings, but the two settings I used were the dark mode and the sync waveform. You can’t beat that. It already sounds like we’re in an episode of Star Trek. This pedal has a great hold-sustain function, and I also love the lower octave thing that goes on underneath the reverb. I had it set really faint, but it still brought any melody I played in it to life.
TLDR, this is a beautiful pedal and you need one.
Old Blood Noise Endeavors Procession Reverb
Next up we have the Old Blood Noise Endeavors Procession Reverb. This has a ton of sounds. It does some really crazy stuff, which is pretty par for the course with anything that Brady and the Old Blood Noise crew make.
To truly appreciate this insane pedal, I want to share some of the actual copy from their website, because I think it's worth reading: “Out of the hazy, sand-blown distance, something comes forth. Moving slowly, moving softly, it is seen and just as quickly lost. It echoes in the open air, a voice on the wind. It’s a Procession. A cavalcade making its way through the deserts of a distant planet. The sounds of another world. Or something along those lines.”
Their website actually says that. These guys are metal.
Also, apart from some of the best copy I’ve ever read, this is also a really cool pedal. I used the tremolo setting in our demo, so you can actually hear the moving trem underneath.
Seymour Duncan Silver Lake Dynamic Reverb
Yeah, that’s a long name, but I just call this pedal the Dynamic Reverb. This was also fairly new when we first aired this JHS Show episode. It has a setting on it that's called swell, which is a mixture of so many things I love. Think of it like the old auto swell from the old Line 6 DL-4, or a BOSS Slow Gear mixed with beautiful ambient reverb. It’s magical.
Also, this pedal is so dang tweakable. It's crazy. I mean, you can add modulation, you've got all these stereo outs, and you've got expression. It's a really impressive piece of gear. Seymour Duncan is killing it. Trust me, you're going to see a lot more of them in these blogs.
Cusack Music Resound Reverb
The Cusack Music Resound Reverb is a true classic. The pedal-maker, my good friend John Cusack, is a genius who’s helped me finish designs like the Muffaletta. He actually builds a lot of the circuit boards for us and other builders. He's just an amazing dude, a true engineer, and a brilliant pedal designer.
The Resound Reverb is one of his newer pedals, and it's super cool. It has eight -- count ‘em, eight --different reverb modes. My personal favorite setting is called glisten, just because it’s really unique. I’d say it’s in the same ballpark as the shimmer effect, but it’s still so different. It has almost the LFO movement of a tremolo. It has this low octave, and then a high octave effect that feels so much like an organ. Literally, like a Hammond organ, depending on where you have the knobs. That's how I set this up. It's really amazing.
Source Audio Ventris Dual Reverb
Next up is the Ventris Dual Reverb by Source Audio. I recently became friends with these guys. I’ve got all their units. I've tried them all and they are, hands down, killing it in the DSP game. Source Audio has made some fantastic digital reverbs and delays.
There is a setting on this pedal called offspring -- has nothing to do with the ’90s band at all -- that is really crazy. I actually argued with myself for 20, 30 minutes alone in my office: is this a delay? Is this a reverb? Am I the delay? Am I the reverb? These are the questions I ask when I have too much time to myself.
For my own peace of mind, I just decided it is a reverb because of how it responds and what it does, but it’s unique. The offspring setting sets off this rhythmic, melodic, crazy thing that ties into the tempo, and I've never heard anything like it. If you really want to hear the demo (and of course you do), then watch the JHS Show Episode this is based on really quick.
Don’t worry. I’ll hang out here until you get back.
The demo was totally sick, right? I knew you’d like it.
Caroline Guitar Lo-Fi Reverb
My good friend Philippe Herndon made this next pedal. I say “my good friend,” although there is actual taped footage of me horribly mispronouncing his name in a previous episode of the JHS Show. All I can say is, I was super tired, bro, and I’m sorry.
Thankfully, this time I get to redeem myself. Let me start off by saying that he created a crazy cool reverb pedal: the Lo-Fi Reverb. It's like a dirty, lo-fi spring reverb from the surface of Mars. Not sure how much more clearly I can put it than that. Then you engage this footswitch, and it goes into feedback and holds it, the distortion grows, and it's spectacular.
So, Philippe, I commend you on this and all of your pedals. And to guitarists who are reading this, take a quick break and go to Philippe’s website and check this stuff out. Just for the branding alone, it's amazing.
Chase Bliss Dark World Dual Channel Reverb
The Dark World Dual Channel Reverb by Chase Bliss is kind of like if Disneyland was a pedal. I’m being serious here, though. If you know anything about Joel and his company, Chase Bliss, you know that every pedal is packed with so many features, it's almost unbelievable. He's a wizard. That's just how we refer to Joel, and honestly we're all kinda jealous. There can only be one Gandalf of guitar pedals, and he’s got the job.
Okay, I'm going to quit talking about Joel and talk about his reverb.
So, this pedal has a crap ton of settings, including mod, shim, and black mode. The black mode is frankly incredible. It's like some type of ducking reverb. So that means as I play, it goes down in the mix. But then as soon as I stop playing, it comes back up. It's literally reading the input of my guitar, almost like this infinite hold setting. It’s super cool.
EarthQuaker Devices Afterneath Reverb
I’ve gone on record saying that a lot of pedals are clones of circuits that were made 20, 30 years ago, and that’s mostly true. That’s what makes it so satisfying when a company like EarthQuaker makes an effect that is truly original. The EarthQuaker Devices Afterneath has been out for several years, but I can honestly say that I had never heard these sounds in a pedal before when it was released. Funnily enough, I now see these effects in a lot of other pedals, which is just the way the pedal industry works.
I have to read their copy for this pedal. It's just too good. “The Afterneath sounds a lot like it looks – a wizard bursting forth from ethereal cave and ready for the ambient battle. You are the wizard – or sorceress, if you prefer – and the cave is your instrument’s signal, vast, expansive, and magical. Do you go inside? Roll a D20 to proceed!”
Yes, this thing's amazing. In the demo, I used it as this big massive pad, and yet I could tweak my clean signal in a way where it still stayed super upfront? That’s real magic.
Matthews Effects The Astronomer Celestial Reverb
One pedal I’m particularly proud of in my collection is the Astronomer Celestial Reverb by Matthews Effects. I actually have the early version of V2 with onboard toggles. Rick, who's a good friend, just rebranded his whole line and reworked some of his pedals. You can snag the new version, which is seriously a work of art. With the new release, you have the switches on the side, and it looks so cool. Even the packaging is beautiful.
I love the way he thinks about pedals, and I think they sound great. The Astronomer is marketed as a reverb pedal that harnesses the power of celestial bodies. No big deal. The resulting sound is very otherworldly. In the demo, I used a setting on here that's basically this really great shimmer sound, so it has octaves. It's just a beautiful reverb sound.
And this has multiple functions. You can actually have two sounds with the two different switches. Basically, you’re getting two pedals for the price of one, plus it’s great for live or studio use.
GFI System Specular Tempus Reverb
Last but definitely not least is the GFI System Specular Tempus Reverb. I have a good friend, a session player here in Kansas City who is just a phenomenal musician, and he has two of these on his board. I'd never seen them. I walked up, he gave a little demonstration, and I immediately had to have them.
Fortunately, I met these guys at NAMM and got hold of this pedal soon after. Long story short: this thing is really, really powerful. I'm using a setting called vortex, which is basically a really tweakable, big ol’ ambient reverb that has this chorus/flange dynamic going on. It’s fantastic. You hit a chord or you hit a note, and then modulation is swirling in the decay as it reverberates.
And I love it. I love everything about it. It's super, super cool.
Honorable Mentions
So, I've used reverb for about 20 years, so I'm very attached to certain things. If you have a point of reference of my insane pedal collection, you can guess that a pretty solid number of those pedals are reverb. I'm going to throw in some honorable mentions here that are very, very worthy because they do some extraordinary reverbs.
First up, the RV-500 by BOSS needs a mention. There's a setting on here called fast decay. Now, this pedal does a lot of the sounds that you’ll have already heard in this episode’s demos, but that fast decay setting is super, super cool.
Second, the Eventide H9. This pedal has actually been on my board for almost five years. At one point I ran two H9s. There's some reverb settings on this, one in particular called black hole. This setting is amazing to swell into, with a volume pedal to use in a very dynamic way as a pad. When I get into situations where I don't have synth players or keyboard players, but I need to hold and have a very ambient texture of the band mix going on, I can pretty much fake a second musician underneath my guitar with this black hole effect. Basically, this is the multi-effect pedal to rule them all. It does pretty much every effect known to man.
Third, we’ve got the DeadBeat Reverberation Station. It features a lot of the classic settings, but the reverse reverb on this is really, really spectacular.
This last one definitely deserves a mention: the Fender Marine Layer Reverb. It has a switch here, and if you go to the special settings, it has some nice big shimmer/otherworldly sounds as well. This whole line is great, and I love where Fender is taking their effects.
It’s been roughly 35 years since reverb hit the scene, and I think we can all agree that was a good day for rock’n’roll history.
We have a ton of options for reverb pedals these days. Don’t be intimidated by the range of choices. Just do what I do: hit up your local Guitar Center, try some of these pedals, and if you have the wherewithal, buy one. Trust me: you’ll never regret investing in quality gear.