Spring reverbs in guitar amps

mick · Post by **mick** » Mon Feb 25, 2002 11:38 am

Is there any way to use the spring reverbs found in guitar amps separetely?? one of my old guitar amps kicked the bucket and it has a fully functional twin coil spring reverb in it. there is 1 input and 1 output (both the same type as phono/rca leads ) which plugged into the amp. does anyone have any experience turning these into stand-alone fx units??

Post by **interruptor** » Mon Feb 25, 2002 12:41 pm

so far i don't have experience with this but Dubcreator suggested to connect the spring tank directly to the aux send/returns of the mixing desk in this <A HREF="http://www.interruptor.ch/cgi-bin/discu ... message</A>. so this may be worth a try. normally spring reverb units have dedicated amplifiers at the input and output of the reverb tank. (here is the <A HREF="http://www.triodeel.com/k10.gif">schematic</A> of a Fisher K-10 "Spacexpander") the transducers used to convert your aux send into the vibration of the spring work with the same principle as a speaker so i think it should be ok to drive it with a normal audio amplifier - however make sure you check the input impedance of your spring tank; if it is lower than the usual 4 to 8 Ohm that speakers have you are likely to fry your amplifier.. please keep us updated on your achievments since i'm likely to come into your situation soon as well. good luck! Daniel aka The Interruptor

interruptor/dubcreator · Post by **interruptor/dubcreator** » Mon Feb 25, 2002 2:38 pm

I just received this note from Dubcreator regarding his experience when connecting the reverb tank directly to the aux send/returns: "Greetings Daniel, bout the spring reverb.... yes i tried it myself and in my case it works. But it depends on the headroom, max gain and also how high the aux output is. I have a Mackie desk with enormous headroom. It also depends on the sensivity of the transducers in the spring box. But a single spring unit has a very low output, always. But a small preamp is easy to build. Just a couple of capacitors, resistors and an opamp(if you´re handy with a solderingiron). What i also have tried is a riaa preamp used for turntables, also works well. What i also can say is that connecting 2 spring in series or parallel..... doesn´t work :-( " peace The Interruptor

HM · Post by HM » Mon Feb 25, 2002 8:17 pm

some american company makes a 19" unit spring with pro S/N specs, even based upon standard accutronic tanks, so I guess its not the classic thank that makes shit-sound but the lousy electronics that is found in guitar-amps, and curcuitry, My guess is if the tank is feeded with a good buffer with what so ever output- impedance needed, and the output from thank is feed to a decent Mixer-channel then there is a nice and clear spring-sound without unrelated noise, well maybe some pre/post emphasis is neded like in RIAA-amps, I don´t know, but with low noise op amps and good skills it´s should be possible to make a decent unit, I am not impressed by the spring-sound in my RE-201, if anyone can tell me a EU-store preferably web-based selling difrent kinda quality spring-tanks please tell me I would like to make a 19" unit with difrent lenght tanks in HM