A popular effect pedal a guitarist has on his pedal board is a reverb pedal, and the reverb effect is very common in today’s music. All around the world, you will find a reverb pedal on every pedal board, but most people still do not understand what a reverb pedal does for every guitarist. What does a reverb pedal do? If you are on this page looking for answers, you have nothing to worry about because this review has got you covered.
The first question you might have on your mind is “what is a reverb pedal”. Come with us as we would explain to you what a reverb pedal is and what it has to offer. This review will also tell you what a reverb pedal sounds like. Welcome to this detailed guide on reverb pedals.
Reverb pedals, or audio effects will recreate a natural acoustic reverberation effect in an audio signal, and there are different means a guitarist can achieve from a reverb pedal. The means used in achieving from a reverb pedal includes analog BBD circuits, plates, springs, use of playback, and digital circuits. Mixing the reverb effect signal with the dry signal provides the overall signal with a sense of space, and you can trust that reverb pedals sounds great on every source. It sounds great on every source because it has root in the natural world. When discussing digital signal processing, understanding reverb effect might be a bit complicating, and understanding reverberation as a natural occurrence in the world is difficult to understand.
Reverb pedals or effect have four unique sections such as, early reflections, source, reverb tail, and reverb body. Let us take a look at what each of these unique sections means.
Early Reflections
Early reflections explains the starting of the reverb pedal that gets delayed for about one to fifty milliseconds right after the source signal.
Source
Source refers to the sound affected by the reverb pedal. In pedals, the source refers to the instrument/guitar signal.
Reverb Tail
The end of a reverb immediately an effect drops 60dB below a source signal level explains what a reverb tail means.
Reverb Body
Delayed signals and reflections that interact with each other to create a reverb effect explains what a reverb body means. The reverb effect starts from twenty five and it lasts for as long as the decay time permits.
Emulating an acoustic effect in audio is what a reverb effect means, and just like delay, reverb can be described as a time based acoustic reaction fused into the realm of effects. Furthermore, you can manipulate a reverb effect much more than the natural acoustic reflection, and let us introduce you to four essential parameters used in manipulating and dialing in effect.
Effect Level
The effect level explains the relative amplitude of a wet signal produced by a reverb effect, and it is in relation to the input and dry signal.
Decay Time
The decay time explains the amount of time it will take a reverb signal to hit zero amplitude. The decay time is relative to the start time, and it mimics the material and size of the real world.
Damping
Damping talks about the rate it takes higher frequencies to decay in relation to the actual decay time.
Pre-Delay
Pre-delay talks about the amount of time between a reverb effect signal and initial signal. It mimics the a real world’s environment’s initial reflection.
What Does A Reverb Pedal Do?
Reverb effects is used in recreating space in a real world, and it will produce cool sounds for other experimental and worldly effects that exceeds what a real world should sound like.
What makes a reverb effect widely used is its echoing ability which is very important in modern day music, and despite generating spacious sounds, the term reverb speaks volumes, which explains why there are so many reverb effect pedals on the market. Thanks to digital advancement in recent years, replicating different sounds can be achieved just by flicking a switch. It doesn’t matter if reverb occurs naturally, it can be replicated digitally or mechanically. There are several reverb pedals that will come across your path and let us tell you about them.
Spring Reverb
This is the oldest type of reverb, and its metallic sound recreates a vintage atmosphere. You can mimic spring reverb digitally, but mechanical means have been adopted to mimic spring reverb.
Plate Reverb
The plate reverb is similar to the spring reverb, but the only difference is the springs are replaced using plates. The signal it produces mixes with the initial input, offering users a great control of the amount of reverb that has been added.
Hall/Chamber Reverb
The hall and chamber reverb makes use of utilizes a natural ambient space, and this explains why you obtain an atmospheric and spacey sound when you play guitars in cathedral halls.
Digital Reverb
The digital reverb is very common in recording effects and pedals, and it recreates echos meant to be heard in natural reverberations. Using the digital reverb allows guitarist to tweak parameters like room size, decay, attack, and more.
Reverb pedals helps in attaining various effects, and it doesn’t matter what effect you are trying to capture, trust a reverb pedal to provide you with lots of options. Just like every other effect pedal, reverb pedals sits at the end of a signal chain, which ensures that users makes complete use of all of its potentials. Adding reverb before effects will cause sounds to be cut short or altered, but it is okay for you to want your sound to be altered or gritty. There are so many reasons why you should have a reverb pedal. A reverb pedal provides a guitarist with ambience, abstract texture, and also makes mix smooth.
As a guitarist, you will feel the urge to sound more expressive, and a reverb pedal is a great tool to achieve that. It is also considered as a guitarist’s best friend because of its ability to fill in spaces between notes to create thick sounds, or make everyone in the room feel comfortable with the sounds. Reverb pedals also simulates a large space, and your guitar will produce ambient effects. It will be great if you have it in mind that no matter how you use a reverb pedal, complementing your playing skill and song is its ultimate goal.
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My name is Johnson Lewis and I am a music coach, producer and Blogger. I enjoy writing about music, instruments, music equipments and I love helping people become better singers.
