Reverb pedal on top of reverb from amp

[Fl@menc0]

Hi, I've got a really nice sounding deluxe reverb amp and I use the built in reverb all the time. Occaisionally I want to play a solo intro guitar part with more reverb. Is it possible to stack a reverb pedal on top of the amp's reverb. Are there settings on the pedal that help - like cutting lows and mids? What I have in mind is some songs with a drenched intro solo guitar then band kicks in and guitar has to come back into the mix. Just wondering if there is a nice solution to this apart from standing near the amp and ajusting the reverb knob! cheers, redstevo

[Wonks]

It’s certainly possible to put a reverb pedal in front of the amp. It’s really a question of finding the right settings and right type of reverb. Spring on spring might be too ‘boingy’ unless that’s the sort of effect you want. A lot depends on how much reverb you use as normal.

But I’d certainly use a reverb pedal where you can adjust the amount of bass in the reverb itself. Very easy to get it too muddy sounding unless you can reduce the bass on the reverb. With the amp, you get what you get, though it does roll off the bass on the send to the reverb tank IIRC.

I often use a reverb pedal rather than the amp’s reverb (I have a 68 Custom Reverb) and I’ve often found I didn’t turn the amp reverb down and suffered no ill effects to the sound.

One other option you could try is use the pedal reverb all the time, and use the amp’s footswitch to bring in the amp reverb for the intro section.

When I started playing in a band (a long time ago), I had a solid state Marshall combo, and I used my TS808 to give a quieter rhythm sound and turned it off for solos to let the amp rip!

[Fl@menc0]

Thanks, I generally have the amp reverb at 6 - I think thats the setting just before it gets 'too much' for the entire song. I think I'll try a hall setting on my Boss MS3 then to start things off - its fairly neurtral so could work well with the amps spring reverb. Also has a lot of eq options to help it fit on top!

[Sam Spoons]

Clever idea using the Tube screamer 'backwards' (i.e. to reduce the level/distortion), I hadn't thought of that. I did use to use a 'clean boost' pedal that was just a 500kLog pot in a box with a footswitch to bypass it. Similarly I set the gain on the amp for the solos and used the 'pot-in-a-box' to back it off for rhythm.

[amanise]

My old next door neighbor used to dabble a bit in electronics, so I got him to make me a footswitch to cut my guitar during ryhtm sections and let it out full for solos. He measured the guitar out put on 10, and on 6, and set the curcuitry accordingly. Didn't put a light on for me though - so sometimes after a few pints it was a bit hit and miss Gotta love a fully wound up JTM and 4x12 straight in on verse 1 Sound guys used to hate it

[Wonks]

Just sometimes?

[amanise]

Just sometimes?

The most common sight was that of headphones being ripped off the head behind the desk and screams of "What the f**k is that thing you keep jumping on??"

[merlyn]

There's always the underrated and much maligned guitar volume control. I tend to use that, and my hearing is as intact as can be expected.

[Sam Spoons]

Yeah, you're not wrong and there's them that can work wonders with it. I always preferred something on the floor.

[amanise]

Yes. Indeed. This was back when I was a hypermobile Gibson player. The volume pots are much more playable on other guitars such as Strats. You can get some lovely violining done with a Strat with practice - assuming your windmill arm hasn't inadvertently set your volume at zero and got tangled up in your whammy bar.

But, in terms of reverb upon reverb, my personal preference would be for just one or the other. I quite like the sound of reverb applied after the main amp stage, with a very slight delay applied on the way into the preamp stage. But that's just what I prefer. I'm not aware of any hard rules?

[merlyn]

I wasn't meaning anything fancy. To go from quiet(er) to loud(er) there's already a knob on the guitar for that.

Guitarists tend not to use the guitar volume because of a neurotic obsession with tone, which really means high end. If you don't use the volume control, it's possible to wire the pickups straight to the output jack, which gets rid of any pesky resistors sucking tone.

Rather than a Gibson control layout on a two humbucker guitar, I would rather have a master tone and volume, so there's one knob that is always volume. The flexibility of separate controls for each pickup only makes sense with the pickup selector in the middle position.

[Sam Spoons]

It can be useful to have different tone and volume settings to switch between, it's not for nowt the pickup selector on a Les Paul is labeled Rhythm and Treble.

[Wonks]

And of course a simple treble bleed circuit across a volume pot can cure the treble loss situation when turning down the volume.

[merlyn]

I think rhythm/treble is an anachronism. But then, I like the neck pickup.

[Wonks]

It obviously comes from Gibson's mainly jazz guitar origins. The neck pickup was what you mainly stuck with for rhythm and lead playing, but for those brave enough to be different, they could switch to the treble pickup to cut through say a busy big band sound.

[merlyn]

Gibson archtops don't have the rhythm/treble thing. It was probably Les Paul (the person)'s doing, as with the rest of it. Worth checking out Les Paul playing a Les Paul :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkGf1GHAxhE

[Sam Spoons]

Yup, always worth checking out Les Paul

[Wonks]

Yes, they seem to appear on Les Pauls sometime in 1953. The original 1952 versions didn't have them.

I'm not that sure that Les Paul would have instigated it. It's not something that he would need expect it was probably feedback from the non-jazz playing owners (or guitar store owners), who kept asking what switch position did what, whilst the jazzers were either already used to it and just got on without one, or didn't buy it because it wasn't traditionally jazz enough for them.

It also has the benefit that if the finish around the switch hole gets damaged/ cracked when doing up the switch, the damage is hidden and it doesn't need to be repaired before being sent out (though the similarly gold-finished ES-295 didn't have one).