Reverb-X tips etc

[D-Rainger]

Though it's actually a pretty simple pedal, the Reverb-X has some new aspects about it, so I thought it might be useful to post this thread about it in detail. Feel free to add anything to it!

HOW DID THIS STRANGE PEDAL COME ABOUT?
I've always loved the exciting sounds you get from mistakes, and using equipment.... wrongly! I noticed that about an hour and a half went by, playing through an overdrive pedal after a reverb - and thought that'd be a great starting point for a pedal. I was totally lost in it!
Then I saw a tiny videoclip of Nick Reinhart playing through an Earthquaker reverb, switching it on and off whenever he played a phrase - it had a really cool 'sample' kind of sound. I thought 'that should be possible to do automatically...' - that would be neat.
Also, an overdrive after a reverb can get kind of noisy - when you stop playing, the cable hum alone could be as loud as the notes! So a noise gate might be a good idea.

When the Reverb-X came together on the breadboard, I just could not believe how great it sounded. All the tweaking was a joy to do - because it meant having to test it out for a while. The thing passed the '30 minute' playing test with flying colours!

Then graphics ace Rich DiMaio did his stuff with the design, and this cute little pedal emerged - that I still cannot stop playing through....

DID YOU KNOW....?
The noise gate is actually always on. With the 'gate' button out it's actually before the reverb and distortion, gently cutting down on background noise when you're not playing; you hardly notice it as there's always reverb covering the sound. Push the button in, and the gate changes to after reverb and distortion; here of course it's dramatically noticeable.

Because with the noise gate it can really remind me of an 'edited guitar sample', at one point I was considering labelling the 'DISTN' knob as 'DECADE'; 7am (fully anti-clockwise, clean) is 2000s, 11am (a bit of grit) is 1980s (with over-enthusiastic use of the digital reverb novelty!), 2pm is early 1970s (getting well crunchy), and 5pm is 1950s - early live recording distorted through the mists of time.

The overdrive circuit is lifted directly from the El Distorto/Air Traffic Controller, based on an opposing-direction pair of diodes. The overdrive is of course post-reverb, so all the clipping and any trebly artifacts are all dry; the result is quite a 3D effect - the distortion is close, and the reverb sound is far away.

[Jero]

Love the idea! Hopefully I can try one out soon.

[Confuzzled]

You should also follow Rich DiMaio on instagram @richdimaio because his teenage daughters mock him endlessly for having more followers than he does because they're pretty and young and he has a face for radio.