Boss RV-5

Its relatively easy to use. The knobs are self-explanatory. Just fiddle around a bit with the various types off reverbs this pedal has and you'll probably find the sound you want easily.
The manual you get with it is pretty clear, but a bit summarized, so no great details.

Most reverbs on this pedal are very good, you really get the feeling your in a large stadium. Only the spring reverb is pretty bad because you hear a weird klik when you hit your strings. It sounds a bit like drops off water falling in a pool in a large hall, it echoes. I don't really like that. But it has five other reverb modes, so I don't really mind. I wasn't a big fan off spring reverb anyway.
I use this with my Lakland 55-02 bass, or my fretless bass on an swr amp.
Its dead quiet, no hums or anything.

Its a tank!!!

never dealt with them

I use this pedal when I have solo's or when I'm playing crying ballads (usually with a fretless bass). When I play fretless I use it with a EBS Unichorus and they work great together.
If it were stolen I'd save up the money to buy it again.
What I love abouot it is the quality off the sounds and the reliability.
It sucks up a lot off power, so BUY AN ADAPTER!!!!!
I compared it to a digitech reerb and a line-6 reverb and this one sounded best and looked the most reliable and durable.
I can't imagine some off my songs without this thing anymore.
Again: Buy an adapter, batteries last only for a few hours, six I beleive maybe less. So three practice sessions and you need to repplace it again.

seemed somewhat easy to get the sounds I was looking for. I think the pedal came with instructions and settings but I didnt look to see if thats true or not. Easy enough I didnt need any

For a digital reverb I hink the pedal does just fine. I use the pedal in the effects loop of my boogie rectoverb and it seems to work just fine. I bought the rv5 because believe it or not,even with an amp called rectoVERB, the built in reverb of the amp is a bit weak.
I set out to purchase a reverb pedal but because I dont use it with all my playing I knew I didnt want to spend some ungodly amount of doe on one. I decided to go digital so I knew this pedal would never totally compare to a tube driven unit. For what I use the rv5 for it does very well. There are some nice sounds on it and some weak sounds also. I enjoy using the spring,hall and room reverb. The others like,modulation I cant see why they would even add that to a pedal. I guess someone may want it though? The unit does not create any noise with my setup. Ive enjoyed the pedal since I got it.
If you decide to buy this pedal you must not compare it to anolog/tube reverb. Its a digital,,it even says that on the pedal..compare it to a digitech or something

its a boss

never spoke to them

I play everything from blues to rock to metal. Like I said above,,when buying this I went in knowing that it was digital. I accepted the fact that it will never sound like a $400 unit. Therefore
comparing it to other digital reverbs I think its about the best Ive tried. I cant think of anything I really dislike about it. But it blows the built in reverb of my rectoverb away.

The pedal is easy to use, just play with the various modes and twist the settings so you understand what they do. Place it last in the chain...after your noise surpressor.

The sound is great. The qulaity is great...very adjustable.

I had a Digitech but found the sound to be dull and the adjustment knobs didnt seem to be linear enough...the effect level would jump.

New. No problems.

New. No problems.

Great pedal. I play rock, metal, alternative etc...

My settings are:
E level - 10%
Tone - 50%
Time - 50%
Mode - Hall

This pedal has a lot of great reverb options. Easy to use...

This reverb pedal sounds a lot better than the EH Holy Grail. I had that pedal but returned it because it made my amp REALLY noisy. This Boss pedal has alot of great sounds from the Spring to the Modulated reverb. Surf, shoegaze, chicken pickin'...this pedal covers it all. Some reviews said this pedal sounds thin. I'm running mine through a Fender Blues Jr. and it sounds nice and fat.

It's a Boss pedal...built like a tank.

Had to contact Boss once about a problem with another pedal. A little hassle but in the end they took care of it.

A good value for so many quality reverbs...

Really esay to use. No need to use the manual.

Great sound. I use it with both my bass and guitar.

I would bring this to every gig I go to.

Never dealt with company.

I love this pedal! It has great sound compared to other reverb pedals I've tried.

simple to use,tone knob really helps warm up the decay.

these reviews crack me up! one guy says its ok with the exception of the warp mode!other folks put it before their dod distortion metalizer!still others say it makes there valvestate sound ''fake and digital''.i happen to really like this pedal.i know one long time nashville slide player who's played in town 3x a week for years.he uses a vibro-king onstage that has a built in 3 knob spring reverb but has opted to use this instead.i love the stereo ins and outs!ive got three stereo boss pedals[dd-5,pn-2,rv-5]all bouncing around between two fender musicmaster bass amps and it sounds cool!i will say the spring mode does have a weird boing to it,though.doesnt drastically alter my guitar tone either.i mean unless your eric johnson and can hear the number of wraps in your guitar cord then this will cover your reverb needs.

yup!

been playing 20 years,finally learning that low watt amps and a few good stompers are all you need.keep it simple,save your boutique amp/pedal money for whats important in life:women,cars,kids & beer[not necassarily in that order]
oh,i forgot the rv5 review.
the stereo ins and outs did it for me.had the rv2/rv3 in the past.none drastically different in tone.get a dedicated delay pedal if you want delay!

Couple of knobs and that's it. No rocket science here.

If you realize that this unit has tons of headroom and you're conservative with where the knobs wind up, it sounds awesome.

As sturdy as they come.

I play country, rock, blues, and some jazz. My son-in-law plays metal. We both like this pedal.

Easy to use. I mean does it get any easier? The sounds are good. No problems.

First off... I can't understand what all the bad reviews are here. I have a ton of effects ranging from Zvex, to Digitech, to Keeley modded stuff.

I think the thing that people do with this pedal is put it in front of your amp. It's sounds cold and harsh and just flat out ugly in front of your amp's distortion. I am thinking that most of the people are probably using their amp's distortion and because of this, can't get a decent sound.

I think alot of effects loops don't do what they are supposed to.

I use all pedal distortion, expect in very light drive situations. I don't think I've heard too many reverbs that were "warm sounding"... I always thought the Fender reverb sounded kinda cold. I guess I don't understand what people expect out of reverb.

My chain is as follows - Digitech Whammy, Zvex Wah Probe, Maxon AF-9 Filter, Hughes & Kettner Rotosphere, Maxon DS-830 Distortion Master, Visual Sound Jekyll & Hyde Ultimate Overdrive, ISP Noise Decimator, Maxon PH-350 Rotary Phase, Keeley Modded Line 6 MM-4, Boss RV-5 Digital Reverb, Boss RV-3 Digital Delay/Reverb, Keeley Modded Line 6 DL-4.

That is the stuff I use on stage, but I have a ton of boutique overdrives, analog delays, synth pedals, and even a tape echo, vintage Fender amps, etc...

This all goes into a Hughes & Kettner Duotone thru a Orange 4x12 cabinet with Celestion Greenbacks.

I like this reverb, yeah, it sounds digital, do you see the word "DIGITAL" right next the word "Reverb"?.

I can get some really long trails, some more subtle verb, and some kinda cool room sounds. It integrates pretty well with my other effects. Sounds FINE with distortion. I get some pretty clear and crisp sounds out of it. I like to consider my rig the best of old and new.

Some of the sounds are kindy cheesey, but for the most part I think it's a winner.

I have never even HEARD of a Boss pedal dying.

Never dealt with them... which is probably a good thing.

I am a young guy... some old heads would say I don't know anything about tone. The truth is... I can afford mostly anything I want, and I choose this pedal in my chain. I own 10's of thousands of dollars worth of stuff, and I think I've got a pretty good ear. I have been playing for about 15 years and I have been thru 100's of pedals. This pedal is really is worth the money, if you get one, make sure you use it right, and you will probably have good results. Keep in mind, it's a digital piece of equipment, and will never sound quite the same as some of the vintage stuff, or a blackface's reverb.

I think Boss did a pretty good job on this one.

it is easy.
the manual gives you a few examples of how to use this pedal.

I use it with electric violin (yamaha ev205), a yamaha strings amplifier and DD-20 gigadelay. and an LRbaggs para di.

the great thing about this pedal is that it can handle the input signal coming out of my violin and preamp.
The Holy Grail reverb pedal could not do that. It resulted in a somewhat distorted tone.

The pedal is very versitale and I am really really happy with it.
Its not true bypass, like the holy grail, but my ears cant tell the difference in this case. Moreover, unlike the holy grail, the tone is not being sucked when the pedal is ON.

I also compared this pedal with a Verbzilla and some other pedals (glx, I had never heard of it). The reverb of the rv-5 is also better then the one on my old roland re800 and the 24 bit reverb on my phonic mixing desk.

Some reviews below are very negative about the rv-5.
Of course I did read them and they almost had made me buy another pedal without even trying the rv-5!
But all I can say is that its a really good product.

I dont expect any problems.

In order to keep a rich tone I try to use as little effects as possible.
I only use the digital delay (I need a few different types of delay in several songs) and a touch of reverb, but only in places without natural reverb.
Most of the time I use a modest amount of hall.

As I said before, I compered it to holy grail and verbzilla.
In my case, Verbzilla is simply not as good as the rv-5 and I get some sort of mandoline orhestra sound when I use the octo mode. I dont want that.
I completely fell in love with the Holy grail, with its excellent Hall and great Flerb effect sound. But it distorted my tone. Something to do with impedance or input volumes I guess.
But I liked the rv-5 also. Very clean reverb, very versatile.

It could have been a 10 but I am sure there will be even better reverb pedals within ten years.

I wonder why Boss does not sell a reverb twin pedal.
It could be a winner.

This is a decent Reverb unit...it's fairly easy to use, level, tone, (amount of reverb), and selection of what reverb type.

I'm sure there is manual , if you purchase it new.

After playing with it , you'll figure it out...

The sound quality is very good. It's not noisy. And , it's nice to have a level and a tone adjustment. I'm primairly using this in the studio and before I go to a direct box to the soundboard. This unit has stereo ins and outs, so you can achieve a nice stereo mix if you're going into a soundboard mixer.

Boss makes fairly reliable stuff, it's a quality product. You can buy this stuff used too, I did and saved a little bit of money.

Well, I've dealt with Roland before and their support is some of the best out there, I'm sure Boss is the same.

Overall, great effect if you need some reverb. The only thing I don't really like is the spring reverb is a little too sensative on the spring side...the tone is good , but you get a little "quack" when you pick hard, I think the dynamic is off somewhat. Every thing is great, hall, room , plate, and the modulation is really neat for that "Eno/Lanois/Edge" sound, it's really cool in stereo. I actually choose this effect becuase I wanted to find that type of processing, well it's nails if you want that. I think it's difficult to replicate any real tube drivin spring reverb, so I'll cut them a brake , but everything else is really , really good and high quality. Stereo ins and outs are a nice feature, I wish more effects had this capabiltiy.