My Dad was late to his very first date with my Mom because he spent too long putting a reverb tank into his '68 Pontiac. She wasn't all that impressed by it, but she liked everything else about him so here I am. 🎶

There's a good number of amp repair channels on youtube. We all know Uncle Doug and his knowledge base. BUT....In this video you captured the Queen Of Amp Repair position. Thank you for explaining reverbs, its inception, possible reverb tank issues and not talking over our heads. So far one of your best videos! And of course being a pretty lady repair person sure does help. Thanks for your work bringing these videos to us!

I began playing guitar in the 1960s LOL! Reverb was an unobtainable dream for such as I, back then. So I attempted to make a poor man's version with a microphone in a steel waste paper basket, that I played my guitar close to - amplified by a really cheap guitar amp. It WORKED!! Horribly. But I didn't give up, and continued my journey into guitar playing. I currently have only one amp, a Harvard Reverb II, and it's OK, but I dream of having a vintage tube amp like I once had. Just for memories. Thanks for the video!

In the early 1980s I had a beat-up, transistorized Peavey Standard power transistor amp in which was an O.C. Electronics reberb tank. There was a foil sticker on it which claimed that it was ""Manufactured By Beautiful Girls in Milton, Wisconsin under controlled atmosphere conditions". Has anyone else had this aural pleasure?

The reverb tank has one preferred orientation in a combo amp -- the INPUT side of the tank should be nearest to the power transformer. The input side of the tank is very low impedance, this helps reduce hum pickup from the power transformer. If you flip the tank around, you will get more hum in the reverb signal as the higher impedance of the OUTPUT side of the tank (which is connected to the grid of the recovery triode) is more susceptible to hum pickup.

My first amp was a 1977 Peavey Classic 212. It was incredible! I had it reprinted after about 20 years. It never sounded the same! I miss those vintage amps!

Back in 1969, I owned a 1965 Chevrolet Impala with a stock Delco AM radio. At that time, a local AM radio station was making a move to the FM band and was selling listeners an FM converter for a very low price. You hooked that up by daisy chaining it between the cars radio antenna and the radio's antenna input. Then you set the radio to a specific AM frequency, then tuned your FM converter to the FM station you wanted to receive. At the same time, I also installed a reverb which I picked up at a local Lafayette Radio. A small amount of reverb went a low way to expand the sound. As I recall the front speaker was left dry and reverb was applied to a rear speaker. This was supposed to produce a "concert hall" effect. At the time I was just 17 and it all just seemed so cool at the time. Thanks Coleen, for the memory.

Always a great video Colleen! 👍

This vid made me think of standing on top of my Super Reverb playing Wipeout and Surfin USA back in da 70s...

Bless you Coleen for sharing your wisdom and all the valuable history with us in every one of your educational videos.

that was an awsome tutorial - thank you! after years of just mic on my acoustics I'm starting to explore electric - glad I found your channel :)

Coleen, it's so therapeutic listening to you. Leaning from you is a true pleasure, thank you so much for sharing, I have learned so much:)

Thanks for this !!! great information !!! Tons of reverb... always a great idea !!!!!!!!

That's very cool. Thanks for sharing your knowledge!

I happen to look this up at a good time , thanks for the useful video ! Others I came across didn’t explain it as well as you did . Bless

This was great. I hope you do more

Lesson and a show. Thank you for posting, Colleen.

awesome explanation!

Fascinating! Keep 'em coming! :)

Good Day. Very Good. I remember Reverb units for car radios, a million years ago. I had forgotten about them. I bought a 65' Reissue Super Reverb a year ago. Always wanted one. Thank You & Best Regards. i just subscribed.

The cardboard strip on the bottom of the reverb tank also prevents the bag from bunching up sufficiently to touch the springs and dampen or impede their vibration. Some reverb tanks have a hand operated lever that will lock the springs in place for transport ---- often seen in Leslie speakers or organ "tone cabinets" eith reverb ---- and to prevent the springs falling off or breaking (the little hooks attaching the springs to the transducers sometimes break from shock); this would be a good idea for all guitar amps with reverb, but unfortunately the locking levers can be impractical when you also want a bag around the tank to dampen speaker vibrations and prevent feedback.

Dad worked for Accutronics, their main product in the 70's was reverbs. I worked shipping and receiving one summer and packed up and shipped a LOT of tank reverbs. Good memories!

Great video!

I was recommending one of Gerald Weber's books today when I heard he just passed away. There are just so few people that can pass the torch down to eager learners. There are a couple books that can help me out but I can see that the training wheels must come off and I just need to put in the time. It not a job, but it's to breathe new life into old small amps. thanks for the videos.

Love your videos thanks for sharing.

Really interesting, great video!

This is the first time I’ve noticed your Peavey tattoo!! Amazing!

Great video. Learned a lot. I have to say that you have the most soothing voice. You could narrate meditation videos.

Thanks for that! I repair electronics, make pedals, etc. and went to school for electronics but never delved into reverb tanks (except to troubleshoot and it was always the cables…usually dirt making bad connections) and always meant to because it seemed odd that springs would make reverb. But your clear explanation made it all make sense to me now. My first real amp, in the 70’s was an Ampeg VT-40 and it had a little lever on the reverb tank for transport. I think it just tensioned, or else dampened, the springs so they didn’t rattle. Anyway, thanks, I’m glad I saw this video!

Interesting video. I had a Princeton Reverb 2 (around 81-82 era) and it had a tank. Crank it just until breakup and roll the reverb to 3 and it sounded awesome.

Awesome vid!!

Excellent video.... Very informative.

I love a nice subtle reverb. The reverb in the Silvertone 1484 was really crazy... still loveable in certain situations but anything but subtle. My friends and I described it as a garbage can reverb. I loved that amp haha. Thanks for a fun video, learned a few new things!

Yessss. A memory from my Fender Twin Reverb☺

Love the '65 Silvertone 1482! Have one myself and it's my #1

Great informative video! I must have missed your video on "how the heck does a vacuum tube work", ...oh well. RIP Dick Dale🔊🎸

Had a spring detach at one end & was able to reattach it (forget if I soldered it or what) and it worked fine, still working.

Good job!

Thanks, that was really interesting

Great video.

The output side of the reverb tank should typically be oriented as far away from the power transformer as possible otherwise it may pick up hum that gets amplified and fed to the speaker.

The input transducer is kind of like a speaker which vibrates the springs in accordance with the music, and the output transducer is more like a guitar pick up which senses the vibrations of these strings and generates a corresponding electrical signal

I worked on only one car that had a reverb on AM radio. It was on a 1967 Pontiac Gran Prix convertible...with a 4 speed! That car had a 428 V-8 with these rare 8 lug wheels. It was the only year for the Gran Prix to offer a rag top, let alone a 4 speed. One of like less than 500 of the 1500 sold that year.

In the 1970 I found a used blond Fender reverb head/unit $60. Pure reverb and you could tap on it for springy effects. Now regarding plate reverb, I've only found it in digital recording units. One is worldly. The other is heavenly. Cheers! ----------- Edit: But I've seen huge plate units in my research, but they're room sized things of beauty with the price of a decent car lol

You should check out the reverb setup on hammond tone cabinets. They started out as big necklaces that were not even enclosed.

My 1965 Fender Deluxe Reverb amp has a tube reverb ---- Where does the " tone " of an amp come from . ? Thank You .

I changed the reverb tank in my Marshall Valvestate AVT50. I went with one that had a deeper and longer sound.

Good one 👊😎

I have a Fender Blues Junior that I use quite a bit in my work as a guitarist in the orchestra pit for Broadway musicals and the reverb died on it. Since I depend on the reverb so much I had to switch it out with my Marshall amp which is a bit heavier. I had already tried by replacing the tubes….the reverb tank is next. Thanks for the info.

i love spring. municiple auditorium ( louisiana hayride) had a giant plate with magnetic transducers you could change the time by distance placement

Cool video. I have a 1970s Yamaha Hundred 410 and the reverb sounds great. The amp has a very clean sound, but the overdrive is muddy. Such is solid state.

Thanks!

Thanks, explained

Gracias por esta información, es muy difícil encontrarla en algún otro lado. Se agradece mucho que compartas con nosotros tus conocimientos. Thank You !!!

I have a Hammond B3 and Leslie 900 cabinet that were given to me a few years back by some folks who had left them both on their back porch for about 10 years. Almost miraculously, they are both almost fully operational...now. The B3 is incredibly over-engineered, so I credit Lorenz Hammond for the resurrection. The only thing that isn't working is the reverb tank. The organ was a touring instrument and somewhere down the road, the reverb half-moon switch was removed. I poked around the Amp in the Leslie and found that the little lights in the photoresistors were broken. I replaced them and tried a few things (including switching out the tank with one from another Ha.mond), but still no reverb. I've been looking for the actual switch, but it's a real unicorn. Anyway, that's my story and I'm stuck with it. Thanks for the primer on reverb tanks.

Thanks 👍

i miss my old Traynor pa mixer with a reverb tank. you could hit and shake for that awesome thunderous effect. 🍻

Thanks for this video. I'm wondering about the tension running thru such a reverb tank ?

Tanks for that, Colleen :B

very cool

In the 1930s, The Hammond Organ Company adapted a spring reverb device originally created by Bell Labs and started including them in their speaker cabinets around 1939. These were the large, complicated "oil-tube" reverb units. The driver was basically an 8 Ohm speaker with no cone. The pickup was a piezoelectric crystal. A complex system of springs damped in oil was required to tune the response and make it sound more like natural reverb. (Many no longer work because the crystal pickups fail.) They worked, but people who remember them say they still weren't that great. A man named John Hanert was the real electronics genius at Hammond and helped develop the necklace spring reverb that replaced the older oil-tube system in 1959. Some consider this system the best-sounding spring reverb, but it was easy to "crash" and was still too large for guitar amps. About a year later, Hammond introduced the now-standard spring reverb tank. I've heard that the first guitar amp with spring reverb was an Ampeg Reverberocket, not a Fender amp. Hammond eventually spun spring reverb tank production off as Gibbs, which later became Accutronics. This is why no guitar amps had reverb in the 1950s. Spring reverb existed, but it was impractical to use a 3-4 foot tall unit filled with oil in a guitar amp.

I just worked on a 74 fender twin reverb where the combined tremolo/reverb wire had a bad connection. Since these wires carry signal before multiple amplification stages, any wear on them can cause huge noise issues like super loud pops and crackles! Just thought I'd share!

Hammond borrowed the tech from Bell Labs who used it for simulation of long distance calls in their labs. A missed opportunity for Bell Labs, and shows the genius of Hammond.

I had a Danelectro DM-25 with the funky little reverb tank. It was a box which measured one inch by one inch by about nine inches and had the most bizarre sounds.

My step dad bought a new `63 Bonneville convertible and it had a reverb. Sometimes it woulf echo from going over a bump in the road.

There's nothing like a good, big, real spring reverb tank.

Back in the 1960’s, Motorola marketed an aftermarket kit… a rear speaker and a reverb unit, along with under-dash control box for cars with a single front speaker monaural radio. It was called a Vibrasonic… I had one in my ‘66 Ford Fairlane. (Another car I should never have sold!)

Great videos and perfect timing….my deluxe reverb ish amp seems to have intermittent reverb issues where the reverb becomes very weak. I’d replaced the driver with a solid Philips JAN tube and even swapped out the return tube which all helped last time but isn’t this time . Did the cables once too. Any ideas?? Maybe needs to visit the tech 😢

Ha ha ha...i did ride and a friend's car ...and he had the reverb on the radio...it did sound cool...back in the 70's!

Cool video! You enumerated several things that could be bad in the reverb tank and the associated circuitry. How do you discriminate and decide which one is actually defective?

I have an original 1964 princton blackface reverb and all I've ever had to do is clean the contacts on the back of the amp where the reverb wires go in. They must of got some oxidation on them because all of a sudden my reverb stoped and the reverb pot acted like a boost or master volume between 1 and 4 on the knob. Actually, it may be a 66 or 68. It was my fathers and I cant remember what year it was the last time I looked it up. I think it's a 64 and his Guild solid bidy s-50 is the 62. Original power and rectifier tubes along with I think 2 original pre amp tubes. He had the reverb and tremelo tubes switched to 12ax as many do so you get better adjustment instead of the level just jumping around.

You should make more videos like this

Aeee! Diggin ya 👍

Having been here well over 3/4 of a century now, I well remember adding reverb to radios...Obviously, long before there was stereo. I digress...My question is, is there a preference between the tanks being held in by Velcro or screwed in? I noticed the insulation around the tank, and that, to me, seems like it might be a positive. I totally understand everything with the concept of keeping everything as original as possible when you are working on old amplifiers. My question about "preferred" method of attachment is more "if" there is no consideration for keeping things original (I'm a firm believer in keeping things as original as possible, but I know there are those that aren't that concerned about keeping everything original), or, even more applicable, in new construction. I'm really asking so those that have forgotten more than I'll ever hope to know can give me some insight. Great Video, Colleen...I can't believe I just now saw this tonight.

We got it

How can I check if the reverb transformer has died? I have tried new tubes and cables as well as a different tank on my Super Six

Goddam, i'm in love

Thanx for another good video! How could one make an effects loop out of a send/return for spring reverb? What would you have to do with the resistance and the voltage to make it work?

This girl😍

Rigs of Doom!!!!! Nice!!

I need a fazio amp 😊

I have been wondering about the different spring circuits out there. How does the reverb in a twin compare to what's in a two rock or rumble with the independent send and return controls for the reverb?

Would absolutely love to have that last spot, but I live in Norway, so… 🥴

80's Peavey tatoo... wowwww :)

I have a accutronics. when I put it on 5 and above I start to get some hum in the amp. would another tank fix this?

I assume the the tank is in parallel with the dry signal? Great vid. Cheers!

I had a 1969 Ford Torino GT and it had a Reverb unit in the trunk

I've got a VHT D-50, no on board reverb. How much of an undertaking would it be have a tech make it so I could plug a spring reverb in and control the volume of it?

I have some random fender sunn o))) sr-30c amp and I opened, cleaned and check everything thru. I took the reverb box out replaced old cardboard bottom with softer rubbery/foamy piece and now I can’t go beyond 3/10 with the reverb knob. Starts feeding back really easily. guess something to do with the more cushiony bottomplate? Never had that problem with cardboard. How about plywood or basic sheetmetal?

Handsome young lady rockin it!

Great tutorial, I just have one more question: When you turn the reverb knob to have more or less reverb, what does it actually do in the reverb tank itself? It sends more or less of the dry signal into the transducer? Or it has action on the springs? Or the receiving transducer? Basically, how is this thing made to not be a "on/off" device 😅

I recognize that case I the back ground. 😀

I've always wondered if a reverb circuit could be repurposed, as say a boost or an EQ. I've had a JCM900 since the 90's 👍 but never liked the reverb, a Bigsky gets the job done these days. Seems like I have 2 wasted circuit opportunities. I'd like to be able to voice the 2 channels differently at the amp.

I still have an original Hammond-Gibbs tank laying around. The first iteration as far as I know.

What do you think of the monoprice tube amps? Any good

Hammond reverb is good enough to make you learn how to play organ, it’s wonderful.

My crate gt1200h only makes reverb when i bang the tank. I checked the tank with a multimeter and its good. No clue what i need to do.

Super helpful, thanks!

in your opinion is it worth "upgrading" reverb tanks in combo amps?

Is it possible to fix a spring that broke off at the connection near the transducer? I've got an original Gibbs tank from a blackface Deluxe Reverb that I'd really love to get fixed so it's original with the amp.