Fender reverb unit

[Patsyn]

Has anyone owned one of these. How does it compare to the reverb on a twin reverb for example. Tks

[GuitarBilly]

Which one?

The old ones sound great but honestly if you have an amp with great reverb like a Twin or even a Deluxe Reverb, you're good to go. These units were more meant to add reverb to the non-reverb amps like the early Tweed amps etc.

Unless you're playing surf music, Rockabilly or something similar, where you really need that particular reverb sound. Even then, a Twin will do just fine for the most part.
But they do sound great. Just unnecessary these days IMHO. Even the top tier Reverb pedals are good at emulating these sounds.

Same with the Echoplex or Leslie etc... they're awesome but there are much easier ways to get those sounds today and they're definitely close enough. Buying them is more of a collector's/purist perspective.

[greatmutah]

They’re interesting units for sure. Originals use the same tank as the amps themselves. No difference there. The difference comes in controls. On your amp you have the reverb level or mix control. The unit has Mix, Dwell (the depth of the effect which can get super surfy) and a tone control to contour the highs of the effect. It also has a mechanism to lock springs. Doing this and using it can get you a pseudo slap back type thing. A buddy of mine owns one of these.

Aside from what’s mentioned above, the placement of these is generally different than what the amps do. If you’re using these with NMV Fenders, you’re going to placing them in front of the amp as older Fenders don’t have a loop. In an amp like a Twin Reverb/Deluxe Reverb/Vibrolux Reverb etc the reverb comes after the preamp section and before the power amp section. Which can have an impact on sound but it’s not necessarily huge. The other thing the stand alone unit has going for it is that it’s not as susceptible to vibrations from your amps speakers as a unit in a combo.

I have a Vibrolux Reverb I love and the Reverb is wonderful. Seriously great. I also have an older BYOC Reverb that sounds extremely close to the Fender units that I don’t really feel the need to own one, save for collection sake. It’s based around the Belton reverb brick. Most of your good pedals that do the surfy spring reverb are based around the belton brick.

[Dave]

I owned an original 63 blonde reverb unit.

It was great but not much different than my Pro Reverb. It had the tone, mix and dwell controls but honestly I just tried to dial it in to sound like the combo amp reverb.

Sold it, along with the matching bandmaster bc I prefer the all in one fender combos.

[greatmutah]

But that Bandmaster was the sex

[TurboPablo]

I was walkimg through the local music store the early 1990s'. I saw one of the Fender reverb units in the big wooden box with the smash button on it. They were retailing for $99. I was young and broke.

That price tag still haunts me.

[BroSlinger]

My old school mate had a local rockabilly band. Saw em play in a gym. He had a setzer sig gretsch, a blackface bandmaster, and a vintage fender reverb. Sounded epic.

[Bonano]

In the '90s I saw a Ska band that ran a Farfisa through a reverb unit. For a song, the keyboard player kicked the unit for that "krang" sound for effect.