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I'm looking to get a stereo reverb, but I'm having trouble finding the right unit, and thought maybe I could get some insight here. My budget is only about $300, but I'd prefer to keep it lower. The rest of my board is analog, so I'd like to avoid an unnecessary A/D/A conversion in the chain, and find an analog reverb as well. If budget restrictions force me to go digital, I'd like a unit that can mix the unconverted input signal with the effected one, so the pure signal is still present. I don't want to have another splitter+mixer on the board taking up space to do that. Rack or pedal is fine, since it will sit mostly untouched at the end of the chain. "Lush" and "rich" come to mind, but I guess that's desired in every reverb. Any suggestions? Am I just being an irrational corksniffer for wanting all-analog? Thanks a ton.

Does it have to be a pedal? Could it be a tank? There's a reverb tank up for sale here: viewtopic.php?f=44&t=17995 - you'd have to do some electronics work (or have someone do it for you), but it would certainly be analog...

IIRC, almost all reverb pedals are digital. In fact, I can't actually think of any that aren't.

A spring reverb is the only thing I can think of...
Spring Kings and Little Lanileis can be had for under $100. As can a lot of old rack units.

Chumley wrote:IIRC, almost all reverb pedals are digital. In fact, I can't actually think of any that aren't.

Van Amps spring reverb pedals. Also this which I found searching for stereo spring reverb (most compact way of doing it so you don't see many plate/other stuff reverbs about): http://zerotronics.com/index.html They look pretty nice but expensive.

Fender style reverb tank would also work, but for price, features, compactness and variety of sounds I think a digital pedal/rack thing would be a better choice. Any good pedal will sound pretty good and not destroy your signal.

Boss reverbs are pretty decent, the newest digitech one looks good, alesis rack units are nice and do loads of stuff.

There is no such thing as an analog reverb pedal unless you are talking about a spring tank in a box, like the Reverbamate, the Spring King or the Little Lanilei. Everything else is digital. Frankly, I don't get why so many guitarists get this digital-phobia. Digital does not equal crap, at least not anymore.

kaeth wrote:I'm looking to get a stereo reverb, but I'm having trouble finding the right unit, and thought maybe I could get some insight here. My budget is only about $300, but I'd prefer to keep it lower. The rest of my board is analog, so I'd like to avoid an unnecessary A/D/A conversion in the chain, and find an analog reverb as well. If budget restrictions force me to go digital, I'd like a unit that can mix the unconverted input signal with the effected one, so the pure signal is still present. I don't want to have another splitter+mixer on the board taking up space to do that. Rack or pedal is fine, since it will sit mostly untouched at the end of the chain. "Lush" and "rich" come to mind, but I guess that's desired in every reverb. Any suggestions?

Think about what you're asking for. There is no reason to be such an "analog purist". Analog =/= better. In the case of reverb, the only true analog way to get it is to record and play exclusively in large rooms with reflective surfaces and no furniture. Like bigchiefbc said, guitarists need to get out of the '80s mentality of "digital is bad" and grow up. Just so you know, this isn't all aimed at you as criticism, just a general statement.

Also,

Am I just being an irrational corksniffer for wanting all-analog? Thanks a ton.

Yes. Yes you are.

I never said digital was bad. I have digital pedals as well that I keep together on a separate board for some really bizarre spacey stuff. I can start to hear the aliasing on that board when several of the pedals are engaged. If I have a phobia, it's more towards cheap digital gear; not all digital gear.

Yes, spring tank in a box is kinda what I was expecting, but I didn't want to limit it to that in case there were other options. I have a Spring King, but it's not stereo, and putting 2 of those on a board would take up a lot of space. Most of the stereo spring reverbs I see are quite expensive too.

Are the lower end current-production Alesis or Lexicon rack units worth their weight in salt? It seems the higher end models are more rich with unnecessary features, rather than better sound quality.

Thanks for the responses!

Could you not just run the Spring King into an LS-2 or similar splitter for stereo goodness?

have you investigated old analog rack stuff? i believe there used to be an Ibanez unit that had reverb as part of its arsenal of delay/phase/etc.

Can you get more more analog than treeverb?! http://www.treeverb.net/

It's more than you want to pay, but the Ekdahl Moisturizer looks pretty cool: http://www.knasmusic.com/products/moisturizer/moisturizer.php

CBGB wrote:It's more than you want to pay, but the Ekdahl Moisturizer looks pretty cool: http://www.knasmusic.com/products/moisturizer/moisturizer.php

Unfortunately for the OP, the Moisturizer is a mono unit. But it does sound amazing. I've wanted one for evuh.

The hardwire reverb is super cheap, stereo, and uses the lexicon algorithims. Great buy, especially just to see if you like the digital reverb sound.

its not analog, but EHX Holiest Grail is stereo and has an analog clean level slider. always wanted one of those suckaz

Fuk. Want knas mosturizer now so hard...