the spring reverb tube in a guitar amp

[digital eagle audio]

Can it be overdriven or is the tube driving the spring not part of the signal chain? i guess what i'm asking is whether that particular tube colors the signal, and would other tubes result in different sounds?

thanks

[dfuruta]

That tube will of course color the sound going to the reverb, but it probably won't (shouldn't?) affect the dry tone.

[spaceantelope]

i can only really speak on behalf of my fender deluxe reverb. the reverb driver tube in that amp only goes to the reverb circuit so you can actually pull the tube if you dont use the reverb in the amp (which would be a sin). therefore it has no affect on the tone of the amp when it's not being used.

changing a tube here will definitely have an affect on the sound of the reverb though. my amp came stock with a 12AX7 tube here. The reverb was practically useless once I turned the reverb dial above 3 so I substituted a nos 12AY7 in its place. I now have more of a sweet spot to dial through due to the lower gain output of the 12AY7. But different tubes, even if they are the same types, will affect the reverbs tone nonetheless. better tubes will most likely sound better and last longer. I prefer nos jan Phillips or GE.

on another note the reverb return tube in a fender deluxe will affect the overall tone of the amp. the reason is while one part (triode) of the tube functions as the return the other half (triode) is the 3rd gain stage for that channel. both the wet and dry signal pass through here.

[The Real MC]

If you overdrive the reverb drive tube then you risk damaging the coils in the reverb tanks. Beware.

[themagicmanmdt]

the reverb driver tube is almost like your power amp tubes... it's just a small ax7/at7 driving a much smaller output transformer... since a reverb pan doesn't need a lot of juice to get going like speakers do...

so, you 'can' design (and i mean *redesign*) a typical reverb driver stage to send a distorted signal to the reverb pan - which i've heard, and results in a total frothy buzz chaos reverberation - which will be great if you're going for that 13th floor elevators sound...

one thing to do is to 'choke down' the bias voltage to cutoff on the reverb driver tube if you want distortion... otherwise, it'll take a redesign to not simultaneously fry the reverb pan/transducer/driver transformer (as previously mentioned) due to the increased current and RMS power of a distorted signal.


ta da

[digital eagle audio]

you guys rule