Reverb Pedal

[Charlie Bernstein]

Originally Posted by eyesore

I see a lot of guys here use a Reverb pedal for acoustic guitar on their PA systems. Why? It seems as thought every acoustic amp or PA has built in Reverb. Why would you need a pedal also? Am I missing something here? I LOVE reverb!!

You're not. I wouldn't. Rooms have natural reverb. Reverb is a nice sound effect for electric guitar, but I don't buy expensive toneful acoustics just to hide the tone.

And you're utterly right. PAs already have reverb. So if a misguided soul insists on muddying an acoustic's sound with 'verb, don't buy a pedal. Dime that PA dial!

[PaperMoon]

Originally Posted by Charlie Bernstein

You're not. I wouldn't. Rooms have natural reverb. Reverb is a nice sound effect for electric guitar, but I don't buy expensive toneful acoustics just to hide the tone.

And you're utterly right. PAs already have reverb. So if a misguided soul insists on muddying an acoustic's sound with 'verb, don't buy a pedal. Dime that PA dial!

This is a horses for courses situation; I would contest that a lot of acoustic guitar signals don't sound very much like the instrument they're coming from, and tastefully applied reverb can help split the difference. The body of an acoustic guitar is a reverb chamber, after all, and pedals simply give you stronger options to work with than mixer effects.

But also, it's just fun; horses for courses!

[Eastbound]

I have the Baggs align reverb and use it as an always on pedal. To me, it puts the natural reverb of the guitar back into the pick up signal to the speakers

Ive heard some decent sounding reverbs on acoustic amps. Many of us are using powered speakers which dont have it

[Charlie Bernstein]

PS -

I've used it for all the recording I've done. It makes the music sound for natural, for some reason. But it doesn't do anything for an acoustic instrument or voice that walls, a floor, and a ceiling don't do.

They sell it because people will buy it.

[Eastbound]

Everybody has "their" sound. Lots of guys use a reverb pedal on acoustic. Some very successful guys use chorus, delay, envelope filter, and even synth pedals. Depends on what you're going for

[MarkF_48]

If you're using reverb on the guitar, are you also using it for vocals and if so, do you also try to match the reverb types (room, hall, plate, etc) as well as the decay parameters so they sound like they are in the same environment? I think read somewhere years ago this was important in recording, but not sure if it's as relevant playing live.

[rschultz]

Originally Posted by MarkF_48

If you're using reverb on the guitar, are you also using it for vocals and if so, do you also try to match the reverb types (room, hall, plate, etc) as well as the decay parameters so they sound like they are in the same environment? I think read somewhere years ago this was important in recording, but not sure if it's as relevant playing live.

I don’t think they are related. For church we use a plate on vocals from the sound board, and I use a pedal verb for my guitar. Not a lot, it’s subtle.

[Rumblefish]

When I was playing live, I used reverb fairly often. Many of the rooms I played in sounded awful. I liked using a small to medium sized room reverb to put the guitar in a good space. You don’t need much in a live setting, but just a touch can make an acoustic sound better in a bad sounding room. I’d usually match effect to the size of the room that I was in, which made it sound very natural When I played in a really nice sounding room or nice theater stage, I’d skip the reverb. The Source Audio Ventris, and the Strymon Big Sky give a lot of control over the size of the room you place your guitar in. It’s not as nice as a good plug-in, but in a pedal format, those were my favorites. I haven’t tried them all though.

[6L6]

For reverb and/or delay, I use a BOSS RV-3 Digital Delay/Reverb pedal.

Perfect for my needs.

[Rickenbacker1]

I would like to get an Electro Harmonix B9 give my guitar an organ sound.