Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by petey twofinger on March 31, 2013 at 9:01pm

you need a circuit two amplify the signal at the input and output of the spring tank , usually these are running off of more than 9 volts . this one is popular , but i am also pretty sure you may get results with a less complicated design , but ...

http://www.google.com/imgres?um=1&hl=en&client=opera&hs...

Permalink Reply by Michael Recchione on April 1, 2013 at 10:08am

Don't know if you've seen this site.  They also don't recommend battery operation, but say you can run it on 2 9V batteries if you like, to give +/- 9V.  I think it prefers =/-15V. 

From what I understand, even digital reverbs are real battery-eaters.  Getting the tank saves you between $20 and $30 or so on the project.  The rest of the stuff, if you don't have any of it, really nickels and dimes the cost up - even though the individual components are dirt cheap.  I was going down the road of building a reverb unit around the Belton Digilog chip, and by the time I got done - even shopping at Jameco, the cost got up to about $60.  This is because you have to buy things in quantities larger than you really need, if this is the only project you're planning.

Permalink Reply by eric gittins on April 1, 2013 at 1:24pm

my experience is with valve reverbs so take this with a grain of salt, but,

the input transducer in the tank is basically a speaker without the cone - could you not use the whole 9v amp to drive it? connect the input of the tank where the speaker was, and then run the output into another amp (reverb tanks are lossy).

fender in their amps with reverb use a 12AT7 paralleled (thats less than 1 W) to drive the reverb, but their stand alone reverb unit used a 6K6 to drive the tank with about 3.5W.   looks to me like a small amp that will drive a speaker will drive a reverb tank.  will the frequency response be flat?  likely not, but it might sound alright.

sounds like an easy thing to try if you have two little amps?

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Permalink Reply by petey twofinger on April 1, 2013 at 2:40pm

i thought the same thing , when i looked into it and asked around the typical answer i got was the transducers need a lot of power so bipolar 12 or better yet 15 is best ... i kinda got sidetracked with other projects but , i do want to try it . one thing i have read is that is you do not reduce the low end it doesnt sound good ... the reverb will be boomy . if you look around i think recently someone put up a 9 volt schemo that is supposed to work well with all tanks ... its on tagboard effects , i think .