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So I'm looking to get into the wonderful world of reverb. I don't really have any experience with reverb pedals, having only used reverb in some production stuff with my DAW. I've got the opportunity to get a used EHX Cathedral at a decent price, or I can get a Digiverb and a Boss RV-5 together for about the same price as the Cathedral. My question to you is which is the better option? The only thing I know I want is reverse reverb, which both options would have covered. Otherwise I'm completely at a loss for my needs until I get more experience. Anybody have any insight?

I love the Cathedral as there are so many sweet things you can do with it, but I personally don't find the reverse setting that nice. It has a tendency to sound "delay-ish" rather quickly (which could be a positive for you) and it has a decent volume boost when using it full wet (which also could be a positive). But it still reverses, and it has presets, and the other modes rock, too. The controls on the Cathedral (i.e. learning how the reverb time, delay time, and feed back knobs work together) does have a bit of learning curve, but you can make some very, very awesome sounds with it.

The reverse on the RV-5 is full wet all the time, no dry signal, don't know about the Digiverb. I know the RV-5 doesn't have super long trails but does sound incredibly nice, I think the Digiverb has deeper settings.

I was thinking the RV-5 was the Hardwire pedal, not the Boss one. My mistake, haven't played either of those. But with two different pedals you could put reverb at the beginning AND end of your chain, which is always awesome.


So I don't know if that was a helpful post, but hopefully some insight for you.

I really like the Digiverb. I love the Gate setting for a shoegazey sound. The guy in Serena Maneesh uses it pretty much the same way.

The Digiverb's reverse reverb is decent. But, if you really want the extreme MBV reverse sound, the Digiverb doesn't really have a long enough time span to get it. I saw a demo a guy did on here witht the Hardwire Reverb's reverse (not the Supernatural), and its time span was much better for that sort of thing. Also, be forewarned that the Digiverb can be a little odd with high gain/fuzz pedals. There's something about where it can make things extra grainy. That said, I really like the gate mode for MBV and other woozy type sounds.

I just got an RV5 and I like it alot. I got it for the modulate mode which I've always liked and never diappoints. The other, more regular reverbs sound pretty decent too. No reverse though.

I haven't played a Cathedral, but from the demos it never really impressed me.

Are you going to want to use two reverbs at once? Or alternated between two settings?
Yes? Get the Digiverb and RV5
No? Get the Cathedral because you have more control over teh t0anz. The predelay, repeats and tone knobies are pretty versatile. Plus, INFINIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITE

That Hardwire RV7 isn't a bad option instead of the digiverb. The plate setting is exceptional. And the guy who did the MBV demo with one worked that reverse.

Thanks, guys. You've given me some stuff to think about. I think I might just get the Cathedral for now and look into another reverb for stacking in a month or two. At least if I hate the Cathedral I know I won't lose much money on it.

EvilCatBucky wrote:Thanks, guys. You've given me some stuff to think about. I think I might just get the Cathedral for now and look into another reverb for stacking in a month or two. At least if I hate the Cathedral I know I won't lose much money on it.

Good choice. Make sure to read the manual from EHX's site on what the knobs do in each mode, because it's a little different for each. There's a lot of tweaking but spend a lot of time with it, it's a very rewarding pedal when you find an awesome sound.

I've got the Digiverb and it's pretty good but I think the Cathedral would be a better choice.

I bought a Cathedral recently and I really really like it - I had a Holy Grail before which got flipped, and the Cathedral just sounds awesome all the time. I really only want it for ambient shimmery stuff so I can't vouch for the spring settings or anything like that, but it was well worth the price I paid for it on CL ($125).

You're missing out not using the spring!
It can get all weird metallic robot and go go p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-plink

The Cathedral is awesome, I bought one when I'm on a journy in Doublin, stupidly I sold my only irish souvenir for a blue sky, the same day my beloved and old dog died, I hated the bluesky frome the first day, sold it for another Cathedral.
This thing is beyond reverb, is an ambient workstation. Reverse reverb is a bit complicated to control, but when you have leardend how it works, you'll join in another sonic world!!!
Grail sping doesn't sound like a spring reverb, but more like an angelic shimmering (not octave shimmer) reverb, accuspring is more like a fender reverb.
Room is pretty, but useless because Hall is gorgeous, plate is magnificent, flerb is horrible but if you tweak it a lot, you should find a decent modverb setting, but it's horrible compared with any modulated reverb.
Echo works well, somethimes sound better than hazarai echo...
But, like i said above, this shit is beyond reverb, you can deal strange feedbacking and self oscillating reverb sounds, long reverberating delay, flanger (it's horrible...), unnatural reverbs, infinite drones, put this box before dirt box and the world will be yours.

BUY A CATHEDRAL!!!

PS: A cool way to lose friends and bandmates is put infinite reverse reverb into a fuzz, after this, you can shit raibows

The RV-5 has that ever lovely Modulated Reverb and the Cathedral will break at the worst possible time because EHX.

Dramatis Persona wrote:But, like i said above, this shit is beyond reverb, you can deal strange feedbacking and self oscillating reverb sounds, long reverberating delay, flanger (it's horrible...), unnatural reverbs, infinite drones, put this box before dirt box and the world will be yours.

I'm glad to hear this. I want to get familiar with traditional reverb, but honestly I've always got that itch to just see what weird crap I can coax out of my equipment. I've seen plenty of the demos with all the blooz lix to know it can do prettypretty (which is fun too) but I'm sure it's the weirdness that will keep me occupied for hours.

GardenoftheDead wrote:The RV-5 has that ever lovely Modulated Reverb and the Cathedral will break at the worst possible time because EHX.

I'd read about the modulation on the RV-5 but hadn't looked into until this morning. After a couple of youtube vids I'm sold. I may look for one in a month or so, unless my reverb education leads me to something else.

RV5 modulated is one of my favorite pre-dirt verbs ever

I had a cathedral and got rid of it for two reasons
1. The footprint did not justify it's usefulness compared to an RV-2 or 3
2. No trails

Dramatis Persona wrote:flerb is horrible but if you tweak it a lot, you should find a decent modverb setting, but it's horrible compared with any modulated reverb

Well, it certianly won't sound like most other modulated reverb because it's flanging rather than chorusing; but for real, the filter matrix on flerb mode is where it's at. Frequency resonant reverb is baller.

So far I am LOVING this Cathedral. A Dano Fab Tone with the reverse reverb is killer instant shoegaze. I'm still feeling out the settings but I've stumbled across lots to love. Still searching for that perfect Raveonettes simulation out of it.