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Reverb Decision

S

soindieithurts

May 14, 2010
19
0
#1
So I have a decision to make on reverbs and I am coming to TalkBass for some help.

What would you purchase out of these (I am in Australia).

EHX Holy Grail Nano - $185

Earthquaker Ghost Echo - $240

Wampler Fauz Spring Reverb - $300
 
#11
It would really depend on your needs. Are you using light reverb to add some ambience to mellow parts of songs? Are you using heavy reverb for a spacey effect?

If you're only looking for light reverb, I've been quite happy with the EHX Holy Grail Nano on the Spring setting anywhere from 11 o'clock to 1 o'clock. Cheap, small, seems sturdy, true bypass, and screwing around with the Flerb setting in a bedroom setting is fun :p
 
#12
There's more, in my opinion, options available in rack form. Check out lexicon and alesis.

As for, "you use reverb on bass??," i wouldn't touch reverb unless you scoop your mids. Bass mids through reverb is very muddy. If you can use a high-pass filter into your reverb or some other EQing you can pull it off. But why? I use it when slapping, flanging, and filtering, but i cant stress enough that its not for everyone. Its cool for hi-fi tone though, imo.
 
#13
TheMutt said:
It's still hilarious how no matter what, you can post about help with "X" and without fail, someone is always there who will ask, "You use 'X' on bass? Why?".
Click to expand...

Maybe this happens but I use all sorts of effects on bass, but no reverb. To me it muddies stuff right down and you lose the sense of what the bass is doing.

I have never heard a dub mix that put effects on the bass. The rest can be cut up and echoed and 'verbed, but I've never heard reverb put on a bass. However I must now check out Isis as the dude above you gave me a heads up.
 
#14
Reverb on bass is amazing. Beautiful and huge. Up on the neck, it sounds gorgeous. I have the "dreaded" Digitech X Series Digiverb, and love it to death. It has six modes, and though all of them don't sound perfect on bass, it is still my favorite reverb hands down. A close second is the Holy Grail, as I own one also. The reverse reverb sounds majestic, while the hall and (especially) the church settings sound big. The gated reverb setting is fun to play with also, especially with some fuzz. The possibilities are endless. I have come to realize whenever someone tells me "X" effect sounds terrible on bass, I go out and try it, just to see, and reverb was the last effect I was told sounds horrendous on bass. Don't listen.
 
#15
One interesting application for reverb on bass was what a studio engineer did to my bass tracks a few weeks ago.

He splits the bass signal at some crossover point (not sure where) and adds heavy compression and a splash of reverb to the bottom end signal. He then mixed the kick, snare, vocals and bottom end bass up to zero. After that, he added the top end of the bass and the other instrumentation in to taste.

The result was some of the most balanced sounding studio tracks I've ever been on. He said that the combination of compression and reverb on the bottom end of the bass signal gets him that "Mariah Carey kinda bass tone that can fill out a track without getting in the way of everything."
 
#17
Blankmann44 said:
That sounds cool silky. I've been messing with that same idea of splitting the signal and only verbing part of it for my live rig. Any chance of a hearing a snippet of that recording you were talking about?
Click to expand...

I haven't taken any of the studio bounces home yet as we're still in the process of recording (lost our singer 3/4's of the way through the studio process and have our new guy redoing everything). I'll see if I can get a copy.

I'm not sure how well it would work in a live setting, as anything to pump up the lows and sub-lows can often be absolute chaos for soundguys, but it could be a fun experiment all the same.
 
#18
Silky,

Its interesting that the verb was applied to your low end, I'd like to try and keep it off the lows because that's what I perceive as muddy. I'm thinking about using a crossover or a highpass filter to isolate the highs, and verb those freq's.
 
#19
I had the same thought when he was doing. What is this nut job doing? :p

When he was done, the reverb "trails" weren't audible at all, but the low end was present, warm and full without muddying up the mix. My guess is that he was using such high levels of compression on the low end that no amount of reverb (within reason) would muddy up the mix. All I can say is that it was a wonderful sound and I'm glad he did it that way.
 

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