Spring reverb circuitry

Started by WholeLottaDimitri, February 01, 2015, 04:17:03 PM

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WholeLottaDimitri

I took the spring reverb tank from an old amp.
What I want to do is put it in a nice wooden enclosure and be able to use it with guitar on any amp and also use it for a mic and studio purposes.
What I need is the appropriate circuitry to drive the spring and amplify the output.
I don't want any complicated schematics because I'm not too comfortable with them. I'd rather something simple and easy to solder.
Have any of you guys found and good reverb drivers? Any help would be great!
Here are some pics:





PRR

> use it with guitar on any amp and also use it for a mic and studio purposes.
>  don't want any complicated schematics


An all-purpose reverb is not so simple. To come up from guitar it needs a preamp. Then you need a small power-amp to shake the springs. The output is quite small so you need a recovery preamp. Then you usually want to mix the dry and the wet. Then to go back into a guitar-chain you may need to drop the level. So conceptually four stages. All of these stages will want tweaking for gain and frequency response to suit your tank and what you plug into. With some clever design and compromise you might combine a couple functions, but overall much more complicated than, say, a LPB.

In any case, you *want* to know the tank's Input impedance. Some are nominal 8 Ohms, and some are nominal 1K. Makes a real difference in what type of power-amp you need, and that has a lot to do with the kind of power supply you need. The audio impedance is NOT the DC resistance shown on an Ohm Meter. However if you measure the DC resistance and multiply by about 10, it is close enough.
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psychedelicfish

Have a read of this article which has plenty of good information on spring reverb tanks. The same guy has schematics on his website for a guitar spring reverb unit.
If at first you don't succeed... use bigger transistors!