The Steel Guitar Forum

In my younger days of playing I had an original Fender spring reverb unit. It was the best sounding reverb I ever used.
I looked on line and they're way too pricey for my budget.
Is there a stomp box that would duplicate or almost duplicate that sound?
Any suggestions are welcome.

Joe

Edit: From Ry Cooder NL website (is that a fan’s website?). discussing the Neunaber Wet Reverb:

Here it is. The best reverb pedal I've tried, ever.
This is part of my standard equipment. It has it all, from the most subtle ambient sound to the an everlasting reverb.
Brian didn't make another spring reverb attempt. This is far beyond spring reverb. Find one of these great pedals and give it a try, or order one from Brian. You won't be disappointed!

It features True bypass switching, it has no volume loss when engaged and:

Very high input impedance: no "tone suck"
Simple two-knob adjustment results in a surprisingly wide range of sounds
Analog dry mix for very low noise and zero latency
Battery life is twice as long as nearly all other reverb pedals
Compatible with standard center-negative 9V power supply (power supply not included)
Small footprint

Not a stomp box but the best alternative to the original Fender Tank would be a Surfy Bear.

They have different sizes depending on need.
I have the larger one, it sounds identical in many ways to my ‘65 original Fender tank (which now stays home).

https://www.surfyindustries.com/


For a stomp box the Source Audio True Spring Reverb is about as close as you’ll get to the original Tank.

https://www.sourceaudio.net/true_spring.html

I’ve bought and then sold off quite a few pedals and tanks looking for the same sound you’re asking about and these are what I settled on.

Boss used to make the FRV-1 which emulated a '63 Fender Reverb unit. They're sort of pricey on the used market (over $200).
https://reverb.com/p/boss-frv-1-63-fender-reverb

I have a Holy Grail reverb that I use with a '65 Fender Princeton. It sounds very authentic to me, but it doesn't have the Dwell and Tone controls of the real thing. It simply makes my Princeton sound like a Princeton Reverb amp. Mine is the original version - I can't vouch for the current one.
https://reverb.com/p/electro-harmonix-holy-grail-v1

There are many good sounding stomp box reverbs but for me nothing beats the sound of the tube unit.Since tone and what sounds good is totally subjective you may very well find a stomp box that does it for you. I just looked at some on Reverb and cant believe the prices.I built one for myself and one for each of my 2 sons many years ago and have built 6 more for different clients since, havent made one in about 3 or 4 years and I know parts prices, like everything else have gone up but I'm pretty sure I could put one together for less than I'm seeing now on Reverb.

These things come very close, since Tim Van Tassel basically reverse engineered the Fender 6G15 substituting solid-state components for vacuum tubes:

Tim closed his doors and retired a few years back, so they're no longer in production. Van Amps made lots of 'em, but used ones are difficult to come by, and are quite spendy nowadays, because satisfied owners rarely wanna give 'em up.

Since you're talking about trying to replicate a Fender outboard 6G15 Reverb unit, I'm gonna stick to spring reverb types of pedals. There are lots of different types of stompbox reverb pedals out there, but many of them aren't specifically geared to spring reverb.

I play surf guitar quite a lot, and if I don't feel like dragging out my actual '64 6G15 Fender Reverb unit, I use my Catalinbread Topanga. I have tried a big pile of stompbox reverb units, and the Topanga wins by a mile, to my tastes. I actually think it is better than most of the reverbs on my old Fender amps, and its small profile fits with all the other pedals on my boards.

The Surfybear Metal and the Van Amps Sole Mate are actual outboard spring reverbs, and good ones at that. They both replace the tube circuitry of the 6G15 with solid-state circuitry, but they sound very good. Since I would just use my 6G15, I haven't bought one of these. Of these, I particularly like the Surfybear Metal because of the FET circuitry and the fact that it has useful modern features like true bypass and a clean boost to prevent volume drop, as happens on the 6G15. I may get one at some point, but I haven't because it's yet another piece of gear I'd have to drag to a gig. https://www.surfyindustries.com/surfybearmetal

I've had a couple of the FRV-1 pedals, and traded them quite some time ago. They are just too metallic sounding to me, especially in comparison to the Topanga. The spring reverb emulation on the Oceans 11 is quite good, and that is what's on my pedal steel board.

If you wanna go down a deeper rabbit hole on spring reverb units, I suggest looking at the surfguitar101 forum. I'm on there, and the people over there live, eat, and breath spring reverb. I suggest starting here - https://surfguitar101.com/forums/topic/25376/ - but a search for "spring reverb" will mine a lot of information.

Forum member Tim Marcus makes the Milkman amps. He also makes a reverb+tremolo pedal called F-Stop. I haven't heard much about it.

https://milkmansound.com/collections/ac ... cts/f-stop

The Quiet Theory Prelude is a pretty cool pedal. I got it thinking it would be a good grab and go rev/delay for steel but now have it on my guitar pedalboard. It reacts to your pick attack in the same way an on board Fender reverb circuit does. It's a very familiar feel if you're used to amp reverb.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDP9iFREOfU

Thanks to everyone who replied.
I'm leaning towards the catalinbread topanga, but I'm still
researching.
I have to sell off an SIB Echodrive which will more than fund the purchase of whatever I end up with.
This forum is a great source of information and thanks again to all for the help.

Joe

What about a Strymon Flint? Does 3 types of reverb and trem.

Joe,

I have been in the same surf band for 34 years, and have used my trusty 1964 Fender reverb in front of a Showman for hundreds and hundreds of gigs. I know what an outboard reverb should sound like. I used to carry my reverb with me on flights to gigs until 9/11 made that totally impractical. Since that date, I have played dozens of pedals trying to replicate my outboard reverb. Here are the two pedals I currently own and use:

Surfybear Compact- To my ears, it is indistinguishable from a Fender. Really.

Topanga- Almost indistinguishable, with the added bonus of being less bulky and less expensive than the Surfybear. I have a few flydates coming up, and I will take the Topanga as it fits in my gig bag.

The hunt for a pedal is over for me. If you want authentic, don’t bother with any other pedal emulations. They all sound digital to my ears. Hope this helps.

even tho i have a 65 fender reverb unit that is great, i like using the strymon flint that has different versions of reverb as well as tremolo. great pedal.

play music!

Wampler Faux Spring Reverb pedal work well.