Reverb pedal thru front end=bad tone?

SoCalSteve

New member
A couple of amps I'm looking at have no effects loop. It's my understanding that reverb and delay should run through the loop. Correct? Would something like the Holy Grail sound bad thru the front end?
 
Re: Reverb pedal thru front end=bad tone?

Reverb can sound good through the frontend, but some people swear by it in the FX Loop. From what I've gathered, the EBS Dynaverb is supposed to be a great pedal (some people like it more than the Holy Grail and it's supposed to be a lot more reliable).
 
Re: Reverb pedal thru front end=bad tone?

the_Chris said:
Reverb can sound good through the frontend, but some people swear by it in the FX Loop. From what I've gathered, the EBS Dynaverb is supposed to be a great pedal (some people like it more than the Holy Grail and it's supposed to be a lot more reliable).

Was it you that had a Fargen? I'm looking at a couple of those (mini-plex, dual custom) but am a little disappointed they don't have an FX loop or even built-in reverb.
 
Re: Reverb pedal thru front end=bad tone?

SoCalSteve said:
Was it you that had a Fargen? I'm looking at a couple of those (mini-plex, dual custom) but am a little disappointed they don't have an FX loop or even built-in reverb.

From what I've gathered, Ben can do it, but that's where you get into custom addition pricing (Ben is a lot more reasonable than most boutique custom amp makers though). He's a great guy to deal with, give him a call and tell him "Epic 30 DC" Chris sent you.

FWIW, Ben had a pretty killer 2-spring long style Accutronics reverb tank built into the Epic 30 DC I used to own. I've heard of other guys ordering FX Loops with theirs, so I'm sure he can do them both for you no problem.
 
Re: Reverb pedal thru front end=bad tone?

Thanks for the input but actually I'm staying in the used market so I won't be able to customize anything.
 
Re: Reverb pedal thru front end=bad tone?

SoCalSteve said:
Thanks for the input but actually I'm staying in the used market so I won't be able to customize anything.

Well, the nice thing for you is that Fargen's resale value is nill. You could probably pick up a used "_" and call him up and see if he could mod it for a small fee (he's always been extremely reasonable in his pricing).
 
Re: Reverb pedal thru front end=bad tone?

the_Chris said:
Well, the nice thing for you is that Fargen's resale value is nill. You could probably pick up a used "_" and call him up and see if he could mod it for a small fee (he's always been extremely reasonable in his pricing).

Hmm. Not a bad idea!
 
Re: Reverb pedal thru front end=bad tone?

The stand alone Fender tube reverb unit eats up some of your guitar pickup's signal and weakens the tone a little...it's designed to go before your amp. Some folks don't notice the degradation of tone but I've never been able to accept it. Lew
 
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Re: Reverb pedal thru front end=bad tone?

For cleans it doesn't matter much I think!
For distortion reverb is better in the loop but imo distortion + reverb sucks anyway
 
Re: Reverb pedal thru front end=bad tone?

Marcel said:
For cleans it doesn't matter much I think!
For distortion reverb is better in the loop but imo distortion + reverb sucks anyway

But I like it with medium distortion ala early VH.
 
Re: Reverb pedal thru front end=bad tone?

Reverb sounds much better after distortion and since many of us use the amp's pre-amp to get distortion, putting reverb out front would not sound pleasant. What is happening is you're adding the reverb to the clean signal, then clipping it, affect and all. Not good. With it in the loop, or after a distortion box out front with the amp set clean, the signal is getting clipped and then the reverb affect is added so the reverb is not getting clipped at all, it's just being added to an already clipped signal. The same goes for delay.
 
Re: Reverb pedal thru front end=bad tone?

Lewguitar said:
The stand alone Fender tube reverb unit eats up some of your guitar pickup's signal and weakens the tone a little...it's designed to go before your amp. Some folks don't notice the degradation of tone but I've never been able to accept it. Lew

when i ran it with my bassman i used it between the two channels so the normal channel volume acted as a blend and the bright channel is dry. also i used two high gain 12ax7 tubes instead of one ax and one at which seemd to help. there must be some way to fix the circut right?

as far as the pedals, ive used a holier grail thru the front end and gotten some really nice reverb
 
Re: Reverb pedal thru front end=bad tone?

The stand alone Fender tube reverb unit eats up some of your guitar pickup's signal and weakens the tone a little...

The trick is to use another pedal before the Fender reverb unit with a better buffer. Since the reverb is the last unit in my effects chain I have no problems with the sound at all. And sure I use it before the input of my amp because a Bassman has no loop.
 
Re: Reverb pedal thru front end=bad tone?

seems to have worked just fine for Jr Watson, Kid Ramos, Rick Holstrum, Hollywood Fats, etc etc...
 
Re: Reverb pedal thru front end=bad tone?

ES350 said:
seems to have worked just fine for Jr Watson, Kid Ramos, Rick Holstrum, Hollywood Fats, etc etc...

Duke Robillard was getting some great sounds with a Holy Grail into the botique amps he was using when I went to see him a few years ago.

Sounded good on my Trace Elliot Velocette as well.
 
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