Building an Outboard Reverb Kit? Bring it On!

[eugenedunn]

Hey Everyone,

There's been some great threads recently about the nature and value of reverb as an effect. And also some discussions about outboard reverb units..... That being said, does anybody have good experiences (or bad experiences) building any reverb kits? I've seen that Ted Weber VST's website has 2 different reverb units.... both of them incorporate a tube tremelo section... very nice!

Any other comments on other makes? MojoTone or Kendrick?

Thanks. I feel like I wanna build one, but which one. My inclination is to go for the Weber kit, since I have had nothing but great experiences with his products and customer service.... Anybody?

Thanks everyone..... as usual, great responses seem to come out of this forum! Please post pictures if you have'em!

[milocj]

I just finished up building a Weber Revibe Unit a few weeks ago. My tag board doesn't look quite like his as I started the project when it was in it's late prototype stage and I used a different power supply set-up that was basically like an original Fender (with a doghouse under the chassis). I ended up shelving it for awhile and just recently bought all new components and a new Weber tag board (I cut off the last few inches that had the eyelets for the rectifier and supply caps and used my original wiring for that section).

This would probably be easier with the Mallory style caps that Ted sells but there were a lot of tight fits and fancy lead routing with the Orange Drops that I used. It was not an extremely easy build as it required some tight soldering and a lot of thought as to how best to mount some of the components. There are also a lot of under the board connections where I just bent the leads up into other eyelets which would have meant having to cut a component out after the board was wired and mounted.

That being said, I'm very happy with the results. It's quiet and it sounds pretty much like my original Fender with the cool tube vibrato added in,

Here is a soundclip with various combinations of reverb and reverb with vibrato.
http://soundclick.com/share?songid=6465945

Here is a link to photos of build at various stages.
http://s78.photobucket.com/albums/j1...t=DSC01917.jpg

[eugenedunn]

Thanks Milocj! I see what you mean about tight fit with the Orange Drop caps. I'll keep that in mind.... I guess the Mallory's are slightly smaller possibly?

[TeeBird]

I've read some stuff that claims spring old tanks are better. I would tend to believe it because before I got my reissue I borrowed a vintage one for a while and it sounded incredible...warmer high end.

I wonder if there is somebody who knows spring tank mojo like stretching the springs or something like that.

[milocj]

I'm not positive about the Mallory style, but judging by the pics on the Weber site it looks like there isn't quite as much variance in physical size between the cap values and that they seem to take up less room. The reverb side of the board is pretty simple, it was the vibrato side that got a little crazy and confusing.

I've got a newish Accutronics three-spring tank and it sounds about the same as my 1960s Fender OEM two-spring tanks. A tech friend of mine says the new Ruby brand tanks are much better and he's sending me one each of their two and three spring versions to try out in my Revibe build and in my original 1964 Fender Reverb Unit. I think I should have them tomorrow to give a thorough comparison to new and old Accutronics tanks.

[JohnnyCrash]

I had hassles with a reverb repro chassis, but others seem to do well with Weber.

Otherwise, I built the rest from scratch using Mallory caps etc.

As far as spring tanks, you will likely find they all sound the same... if comparing 3 spring to 3, 2 to 2.

My homemade pine cab is pretty rough looking, but the thing sounds incredible... freaking incredible. NOS 6K6 tubes are easy to find and are pretty cheap:

[eugenedunn]

Thanks for the photo, Johnny... Lookin' good.

So there are long-spring, and medium spring, 3 spring and 2 spring..... You'd think that Long, 3 springs would give the most lush and long-tailed reverb, but it doesn't always work that way does it?

[JohnnyCrash]

Originally Posted by eugenedunn

Thanks for the photo, Johnny... Lookin' good.

So there are long-spring, and medium spring, 3 spring and 2 spring..... You'd think that Long, 3 springs would give the most lush and long-tailed reverb, but it doesn't always work that way does it?

I've been getting friendly with cheap Scotch all day, so I may be remembering things a bit fuzzily...

The outboard tanks use 3 springed long pans and the Deluxe/Princetons/Twins/Pro Reverbs used 2 spring type-four units. Stick with the 3 spring for an outboard.

That said, going 3 spring on a combo amp would be overkill... you'd likely want to mod a Dwell control since the amp's Mix control might not be enough :)