The Best Reverb Pedals

It has a tone that, to the moderately trained ear, has almost no distinct difference from expensive reverb pedals at the top of the market. And at its current price, this pedal is a great bargain.

Frankly, we didn’t expect it to be this good. The price point coupled with its near five star rating and incredible sound make the Donner Yellow Fall Vintage hard to pass up.

When faced with the choice of "Analog vs. Digital" my recommendation would be to go analog every time (if possible). I'll explain why in a short second.

First, let's look at the difference between analog and digital signals real quick (for some background).

Analog signals have an infinite number of possibilities, whereas digital signals are limited to a finite range.  While analog signals (and their respective waves) are very continuous and smooth, digital signals contain a series of "steps".

The illustration above shows what a continuous analog signal looks like. No breaks, no steps. It flows without end to infinity.

Now let's examine a digital signal...

You can see the distinct steps. I like to think of digital signals as "on" or "off", while analog signals can live anywhere in a specific range. 

The thing is, you can make a digital signal look like an analog wave -- the only difference will be its resolution (see image below):

It clearly looks similar to the smooth analog sine wave we saw above. 

The only difference? It's still a series of discrete "steps" rather than one continuous signal. 

As you might imagine, the signals your reverb pedal takes in and pushes out are going to be of a much higher resolution in analog.

A digital pedal is going to emulate the signal the best it can with a "step function" digital output, but it'll be slightly lower quality. 

Sometimes this difference in quality is indistinguishable. But sometimes you can clearly tell.

This is actually the case with record players. Digital record players have that distinct "scratching" noise that you hear.

When you listen to a digital record player with no reference point, you're essentially hearing the music and it sounds great. 

But compare it to an analog record player... and you'll clearly see the difference. Night and day.

So as I mentioned earlier, sticking to analog reverb pedals (or any guitar effects pedal, for that matter) won't hurt you.

You'll be certain that you have the highest resolution you can have, and sound crisper and clearer than ever! 

In order to "shrink" down reverb-generating hardware, there were several methods developed to generate reverb since the late 1930's. 

One of these methods is Spring Reverb.

It works by having springs and plates (typically made of metal) in an air-filled compartment (the base of the pedal).

Once you play a note on your guitar, the signal gets sent into the springs, causing them to vibrate. 

Once the springs start vibrating they begin generating sound waves, which are then picked up by a receiver (i.e. pickup) inside of the pedal compartment and sent out to your amp! 

The result? 

An output signal that sounds as if you were playing in a large, open, airy room -- also known as the reverb effect.

There are plenty of pedals out there today with real springs.

But from our list above, the MXR M300 (Amazon) has an authentic-sounding "spring" setting.

If you don't an excessive "spring-like" tone but something that sounds "just right", the MXR will do the job well!

The bottom line is, a reverb pedal for an electric guitar is going to work just as well (in almost all cases) on a bass guitar. 

Your pedal doesn't really "know" where the sound is coming from, after all. It can't distinguish between sound coming from a bass or an electric.

All it does is take the incoming signal, process it, and send out the result to your amp. 

So, you might be asking yourself, why do bass pedals even exist then?

It's because bass effect pedals are optimized for bass frequencies, giving the lower-end that extra bit of "oomph" and sound quality. 

If you're using a regular electric pedal and don't adjust the treble to suit you (this is how you can make an adjustment for bass), the sound may get "muddied up" and lose its clarity.

In a lot of these bass pedals, all they did was lower the sweep of the potentiometer inside of the pedal.

This means you could literally open the pedal up, adjust the potentiometer position, and "convert" it into a regular pedal (Source - Chris Grimmoire).

All in all, you could use a regular guitar effect pedal for your bass, and it'll work just fine. Or, if you want to go the extra mile, you could get a bass pedal with optimized frequencies.

The choice is yours! 

​Before we dig into the details, I'd recommend using stereo pedals whenever possible for one reason: Increased perception of space. 

Let me explain.

Mono ​Audio Output (monoaural sound) only uses one single channel. No matter how many different speakers or sound outputs there are, it duplicates the same signal across all outputs.

Stereo Audio Output (stereophonic sound) uses more than one channel. Typically when we talk about stereo we're talking about two channels.

Imagine you wanted to record your voice in stereo. How would you do it?

Well, you'd take two microphones and put one on your left and one on your right and record the signal from each microphone into a different channel.

​Now imagine you were wearing headphones and playing back your recording. When you play the sound, you'll distinctly hear the LEFT channel playing in your left ear and the RIGHT channel playing in your right ear.

This is stereo sound.

​The illustration below gives a ​ good high-level view of stereo vs mono.

I'd recommend stereo reverb pedals because they process in stereo, giving you the closest output to original stereo sound that you can get.

​Here are two Stereo Reverb Pedals we highly recommend: 

​1. TC Electronic Hall of Fame 2 (check price on Amazon)

​2. MXR M300 (check price on Amazon)

​Ultimately, the choice is yours, but ​my hope is that you see the benefits of getting a stereo pedal and the type of flexibility it can give you in your setup.