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how do you use your reverb and delay pedals?


mbengs1

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Do you use reverb and delay at the same time or one at a time? I like both but i wonder how u use it since they do the same thing for me, which is give the tone a feeling of spaciousness and air. i only use one delay pedal in mono and i get what i want. but i was thinking of getting a reverb pedal for my clean tone and use the delay with my overdrive tone. please share how u use your reverb and delay pedals...

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I often use both but it depends on the environment.

 

If I'm playing live and the room as natural reverb I use the rooms reverb and avoid using anything artificial because my notes will wind up getting lost in the backwash or reverberation swells. Same thing with echo. If the room is big enough to have natural echo, I don't need a pedal. I just bounce my sound off the back wall of the hall.

 

In small places with allot of sound absorption or when recording I place echo before reverb and dial a smaller percentage of each compared to using either alone. I always want 50% or more of my sound to be dry, otherwise the effects mask the notes I'm playing and the notes are no longer driving the sound effects, the effect winds up driving the notes instead of the other way around.

 

Keep in mind, reverb is echo. Its simply had its delay shortened to the point where you no longer hear individual repeats. The two will mix and be additive when set right but they can also fight each other when set wrong. Better gear often has displays in milliseconds and you can set them up mathematically to work together. On lower end foot pedals its simply a matter of using your ears. When the two are working together and are additive you'll get maximum bass resonance. When they fight each other you either get phase cancellation which make them sound thin.

 

You'll notice this when changing the echo repeats with the reverb running. The reverb pedal will likely have a fixed reverb length so varying the echo before it will shift the timing between the two. Out of phase isn't always bad of course. It will make some notes more resonant than other and can be used to expose harmonics that are otherwise hidden. You can do cool things using both so don't limit yourself to one or the other. It simply takes time learning to get predictable results and knowing how they react with each other so you can dial up what you need when you need it.

 

Think of the reverb being the reflective room you're playing in. It should be last in the chain, or even placed in the effects loop for best results.

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I have a Quadraverb in the FX loop. Verb and delay simultaneously. Some EQ to round it out and a hair of pitch shift to thicken it. I leave it set to that patch as if it were a reverb tank. I dick around with other settings and combinations but the candy stuff doesn't suit this phase of (my) guitar learning.

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I have my Strymon Timeline delay set to a very minimal mellow delay that is midi synced to the Beat Buddy, so the delay is always timed perfectly. I run that into a Strymon Big Sky reverb, that I use three different reverbs on, depending on the room. The smaller the room, the smaller the reverb. The largest reverb I use is used for our outdoor shows. Living in Hawaii and travelling on a genre festival circuit, most of our shows are outdoor shows.

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I use foot pedal reverb for a slight shimmer generally. Spring reverb in the amp is for those large space sounds and used only as a specific effect. I use echo sporadically as needed. I don't make conscious decisions to never use both, or always use both. I use what I think I need at any particular time, other than the shimmer for sparkle which is often on in small rooms.

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I have a Boss DD-7 running into a Caroline reverb, and a Keeley-modified Ibanez analog delay at the end of my chain. The Boss handles long delays and spacey self oscillation, the Caroline does anything from subtle verb to shoegazer panic attack, and the Keeley-Ibanez does ambience and slapback. All three self oscillate exceedingly well, so I get to have lots of fun. If I just need a little space on leads, I usually step on the Keeley-Ibanez.

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