REVERB

Doyle Weigold · Post by **Doyle Weigold** » 26 Jan 2007 2:16 pm

Don't know why this crossed my mind, but was just thinkin' about the first time I had heard, and had to have a reverb unit, to plug into my amp. I know I had a tweed Fender Bassman that we used for guitars, more so than bass players, that didn't have reverb. That goes up to 1959-1961 with no reverb, for myself, I beleive. Was it early 60's before you could buy an amp with reverb built in? OK, I let you know I'm a senior citizen, did'nt I! Doyle

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 26 Jan 2007 2:30 pm

I used to use a WEM Copycat looped-tape unit. For those who haven't used one it's like a tape recorder with one record head and four replay heads, and a continuous loop of tape. The tape passes over the record head, then plays back what it has recorded on any combination of the playback heads, then is erased before passing over the record head again.

The sound was good but I found the tapes kept breaking. Later I bought an Orbiter unit which worked on the same principle but used a disk with an iron oxide coating on the rim. It didn't break but the disks didn't last long and the Orbiter company was the only source of supply.

Papa Joe Pollick · Post by **Papa Joe Pollick** » 26 Jan 2007 4:58 pm

I started with a VM sound on sound tape machine with continous tape.Another guy set it up and I won it in a 8 ball game.Kept breakin tape.
Then I bought a Fender echo plex that was real nice.
Actualy I like an Echo Plex sound better than my Fender tube reverb.Seems warmer.
Maybe I should repair that Echo Plex and start usin it again.
Oh well, I'll put it on the list of things to do,that never get done.

PJ

Larry Strawn · Post by **Larry Strawn** » 27 Jan 2007 7:13 am

At nearly 59 I quess I'm still just a youngster!

The first good amp [what I thought was a good one at the time] that I had was a Sears Silver Tone with a 2x12 cab. It had a spring reverb unit that if you took a step on the bandstand the folks down the road would run for their storm cellars!!

I've noticed as the technolagy of the equipment advances I don't have it in the repair shop nearly as often!

Larry

Doyle Weigold · Post by **Doyle Weigold** » 27 Jan 2007 8:13 am

The more I remunice on this , as far as having a built in reverb it might have been a Fender twin reverb that I was using, but I don't know what year they were on the market. Did the Echo-plex have the real clear reverb sound or was it mainly repeat echo, like the Les Paul style. I had one way back. I guess we all have spent a fortune on effects and gimmicks. Doyle

Tony Prior · Post by **Tony Prior** » 27 Jan 2007 2:57 pm

maybe '63 or so, at a very tender early teen, I had a Gibson amp with a single 10, no reverb. I had to have it..so I bought a Dan Electro spring reverb unit from a guy in the next town for $25. I put it on top of my little Gibson and man alive, I was King of Rock and Roll !

Wish I had them both back now..

and the age too

not the 54 Chevy though they can keep that

Les Anderson · Post by **Les Anderson** » 27 Jan 2007 3:13 pm

I use a fifty year old Fender Princeton Reverb amp and get better reverb than the modern monster amps on stage today.

The only problem with it is if you blow a tube in those old amps, it's getting tougher and tougher to find replacements.

Richard Sevigny · Post by **Richard Sevigny** » 27 Jan 2007 3:57 pm

Les, check out this place

http://www.mainelectronics.com/

They have all the common ones and can usually find the odd ones within a couple of weeks. The guys are old pros and are easy to talk to and are used to catering to musicians.

Princetons (I used to have one) take 12AX7's and 6V6's don't they?

Ken Lang · Post by **Ken Lang** » 27 Jan 2007 4:19 pm

Back in the late fifties I had a reverb unit that was reverb only. A 4x4x18" box with one input and one output. I worked OK as I recall but when amps were available with built in reverb I bought one of those and never looked back.

I had a Echoplex for awhile bur the tape breakage as noted above was a real problem. It also was a pain to set it up for a given song, meaning if you wanted to keep a smooth set going, setting it up would break the flow.

Ray Minich · Post by **Ray Minich** » 29 Jan 2007 4:24 am

My first reverb, 1965, was this little black tolex box with a 3 inch long spring, white faceplate, input jack, output jack, and depth control. It ran on a nine-volt battery, which was annoying to replace. I still have it in the attic...

Doyle Weigold · Post by **Doyle Weigold** » 29 Jan 2007 2:44 pm

Tony, I think danolectro was my first unit also, and like you I was on top of the world. Les, I'd hang on to that Fender, it's probably worth a lot of money besides sounding good. Guess after 50 years I don't have to tell you that. A Pickin' Bro. Doyle

Ken Fox · Post by **Ken Fox** » 30 Jan 2007 7:56 am

Fender was not the first to put reverb in amps. They were slow to do so. The first thing was the separate reverb unit. As I recall, I think the Pro Reverb was the first to have reverb.

Here is some amp time line info:

1961

* The Reverb Unit is introduced.

#
1962

* The Harvard is discontinued.

#
1963

* Fender changes to the popular "Black Face" cosmetics.
* Sunn amplifiers is founded by Norm & Con Sundholm.
* The Deluxe Reverb is introduced.
* The 2 x 10" brown Vibroverb is introduced and later replaced by the 1 x 15" black face Vibroverb.
* The 2 x 10" Super is replaced by the 4 x 10" Super Reverb.
* The Twin is replaced by the Twin Reverb.
* The Vibrasonic is discontinued.

Charles Davidson · Post by **Charles Davidson** » 6 Feb 2007 7:51 pm

Do any of you remember the Ecolette unit,This was the first delay-reverb unit I owned,Around 1960,had to get a loan from the bank to buy it,At that time they were 500 dollars,It was made in Germany,was a gold colored oblong unit with a sliding top to replace the tape which was easy to make from reel to reel tape.It was incredible,have owned many other devices over the years,NOTHING could compare with it,The BIG drawback after about 3 years it broke and could find NO ONE that could fix it.Only saw two others than mine.

J Fletcher · Post by **J Fletcher** » 7 Feb 2007 4:50 pm

Well I thought the brown Fender Vibroverb with two tens was the first Fender amp with reverb. Had the older style model number that started with a "6". The Deluxe Reverb and Pro Reverb had "AA763" type model numbers. Plus, as mentioned, it was brown tolex, not black as later amps were...Jerry

basilh · Post by **basilh** » 7 Feb 2007 6:49 pm

http://www.wildguitars.com/fx.htm

Charles Davidson · Post by **Charles Davidson** » 7 Feb 2007 10:46 pm

That's IT.Basilh,been over 40 years since I have seen one.

Jerry Hayes R.I.P. · Post by **Jerry Hayes R.I.P.** » 8 Feb 2007 4:11 am

I'll never forget my first reverb unit. It was a Fender but if I remember right it wasn't black, I think it was sort of "mauve" with a hay colored grill cloth. Anyway, I was working in SoCal with a dude named Fred Maddox formerly of the Maddox Brothers and Rose of 40's & 50's fame. Fred owned the club so he could get his sister Rose to do guest shots pretty cheap which was nice as she was on Capitol Records at the time and doing pretty good. The first time she appeared with us I had an old Fender tube amp which I don't remember the model but it looked like an old Bassman but had a 15" speaker, maybe it was a Pro or something like that. I used to set it on a chair and on the floor under the chair I'd set my portable reverb unit with a cord running down to it and then plug my guitar into the reverb. If you've never seen Rose Maddox, let me tell you she was one dynamic and energetic performer. She hit the stage and went into an up tempo tune called "Sally Let Your Bangs Hang Down". She started stomping her whole right leg to the beat of the music and the band stand started shaking and that reverb unit on the floor went nuts. It sounded like a major thunderstorm with an airline crash along with it coming out of my amp. Rose stopped and turned to me and said "Honey, can you fix that?" Luckily, I was set up right on the edge of the bandstand so I just took the unit and set it on the concrete floor next to us and went on from there. I remember that those old units added a lot to your sound. That was my first guitar effect. The next was a Maestro Fuzz Tone and it's all been downhill from there.........JH in Va.

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 8 Feb 2007 10:24 pm

basilh wrote:

Yep ! That's the one. It was sold by Watkins that later changed their name to WEM (which I think was Watkins Electronic Music). My first one was left in my parents' attick and went rusty. I recently bought a second one on eBay from a company in Glasgow and restored it. Of course, I have to use it with a voltage inverter to bring the 110 volts up to 240 volts. Strangely the tape doesn't break on this one so either my splicing material is better now or the old one had a sharp edge somewhere.

I found that if you slipped a short length of rubber tubing over the drive shaft you could double the tape speed and also introduce a tremolo effect since the drive shaft is then not competely round.

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