Boss RV-5

Very easy to use. Input and output and turn some knobs.

I see a lot bad reviews on this product and I have to feel that some of these are negative because of where the reverb is in the pedal chain. Just like an amp with built in reverb it should be at the end of the chain. The guy at GC that sold me the unit tried to tell me it should be up front. I don't think you want to use reverb before your distortion. Some of the review say that clean sounds great but distortion is God awful,I wonder why.

Built like a rock.

None at this time.

All styles for many years.

Sooner or later you will stop tweeking the knobs and realise it is futile to try any more to get a good sound out of this.

I concur with others that have rubbished this pedal. I have learned the hard way NOT to believe a word I read on Harmony Central.However in this case I wish I had. There are a number of bad reviews on this pedal and they are spot on, unless there are good and bad batches of the RV-5.I got rid of an RV-3 that was just bearable and got an RV-5 because at the time I needed stereo inputs. Well what a piece of crap the RV-5 that I got was. I had the tone knob all the way off ie. fully counter c/wise but the thing still was too tinny, I found that the only thing to do with this pedal was to inflict it upon some other poor unsuspecting chumpa like myself. Well I had to try and recover my money didn't I. Stay away from this joke. Shame on Boss.

I'm sure it would go on sounding terrible for the rest of time.

Well they won't give you you're hard earned back will they. Spread the word on this ripp off pedal. Boss should discontinue this now and make a reverb pedal that is usable. The RV-3 that I got rid of was usable, but really, I think it was only just OK for reverb.And the reverb and delay together settings were horrible as the reverb was far too loud and you could not adjust the levels for reverb or delay. How makes these stinking things.

Absolute trash. A product like this deserves to be taken off the market. As a matter of fact.The whole pedal industry needs to have a damn good look at itself really. Stop giving them your money and maybe they will all start making guitar amps that work without having to turn them up to 11.Did you ever get a pedal that made you sound like a Marshall opeded up, of course not.It's not possible.
I think guitar players are like golfers,there are far too many of them and most of em can't play to save their lives and this is why the pedal industry has thrived and will continue to thrive. Please don't take offense, I ain't that good either.
I have had a total gut full of thinking I can get my sound using noisy expensive pain in the ass pedals. I used to just plug straight into my amp and use the volume knob on the guitar for dynamics, hell, that's what it's there for, but I got caught up in the pedal debacle for a couple of years and right now I'm realising the error of my ways. So what now? Spend another huge fortune on different amps? Maybe I should go back to golf.

Easy to understand, but not easy to get that "just right" setting.

Very disappointing! For the price I should get something much more concincing. The effect does not melt into your playing - it follows it, or adds to it, but is definately not smooth and lush like, say, a Lexicon rackmount unit. Of course you will say that a MPX-1 or G1 is four times the price - well, you get ten times the flexibility, endless preset tweakability, and five other pro-quality effects on board. So for 1/4 of the price, Boss should at least give us a single comparable reverb algorithm, which does not exist on this unit. It's not like Boss/Roland can't out with anything better; give me a break! This pedal is a ripoff.

You can never question this aspect of Boss.

If you MUST have reverb in a pedal, go ahead. It will satisfy you immediate need for reverb. Otherwise, get TC Electronic or Lexicon (MPX-1 or go cheap with LXP series and be very surprised).

Easy to use. No problem there.

Ugh... sounds beautiful on clean tones, but on distortion/overdrive. My god. It's audible vomit. Absolute crap in my opinion. The only thing keeping from bringing this sucker back is that I recieved it as a gift.

COMPLETELY !@#%$ up my tone. It's ridiculous how badly it screws it up.

It's built like a rock, but I sure wouldn't rely on it to sound good.

Didn't have to.

I play alot of rock. It's an awful match.
I've been playing for a while.
If it was stolen, I'd be delighted.
What I hate about it: Everything.
One thing I wish it had: something good about it.
It definitely gets in the way.
It just sucks. Please do not buy this. More suitable for an ashtray than anything else.

Relatively easy to use, it will take you some time sitting on the floor with it to dial in the sweet spots. The manual is easy to read, but I didn't need it.

Use reverb pedals last in your effects chain to get the best sound. This peadal does not make any noise at all! it's silent on and off. I use this in front of a Marshall JCM-800 with a 4 speaker cabinet, and I got the reverb sound I wanted, anywhere from surf, blues to metal. This peadal does not ruin any other of your effects, it has a nice clean sound

Its a Boss, it's built like a tank. If it were lost or stolen I would get another one.

Boss has been making pedals forever, I've never had one break! Never had to call them.

I play blues to metal ,this does all of them well. I only use two settings on it, spring and hall, they're my favorite. I compared this with Digitech Digiverb, E-H holy Grail, and a Danelectro pedal, I don't remember which one it was .

From The outside this pedal is complete of every knob you need. As simple as any other Boss effects but...

...using it with a Strato, Jagstang or Gibson SG and both Fender Deville/Marshall Valvestate Amps I've found some problems... The big one is that if you raise the time or E-level over the half the sound comes distorted then try to follow the Boss examples on the booklet is utopia.

I play rock. With a lot of delays and reverbs. Boss delay DD-3 sounds good, you can raise the whole knobs to the top and the sound is always perfect but RV-5 is a complete FAILURE. Too much money for a bad sound reverb.

All the expected controls for a reverb unit.

I've used it with old tube amp setups, high volume, low volume, as an outboard device for software etc.

It generally sounds very tinny, lacking any warmth. It sucks much of the lows and low mids out of you signal. It can be viable for certain uses, such as giant cascades of spatial wailing (big post rock hyperbole); but even then it sucks so much life from your tone that it leaves you kind of depressed. The only useful reverb types are the hall and the modulate settings (the modulate oscillitates the tuning the decayed signal slighly, creating depth). The spring sounds ridiculous. The gate effect is novel for ten seconds.

Mine was a little finnicky on occasion. It would sometimes create harsh clicking noises when activated. This might have been a power issue. Also, it eats batteries. You'll need an adapter.

I couldn't use this thing. It's such a tonal sacrifice that I would end up just leaving reverb out of what i was doing, rather than using the one or two palatable sounds this thing could produce.

I tried a "Holy Grail" (Electro Harmonix), and it sounds much nicer, but is obviously much more limited in terms of adjustment. Maybe the "Holier Grail" or the "Holiest Grail" are worth checking out if you have the money. Another option is to use a subtle analog delay to add some space; Maxon's AD series pedals are nice for this.

The list price for this pedal is absurd. You should buy it used if you really want one. Don't pay more than 60 dollars american for an RV-5.

Immediately easy to get a good sound, the only thing I would like to add is a pre-reverb delay, maybe they could use one of those knob within a knob knobs (like the metals zone or super shifter) to do this?

I was looking for an alesis quadraverb in a pedal, you'd think after 20 years they could pull it off, right? The Digitech Digiverb could not for me, colored the original sound (acoustic guitar) too much, too digital. This one does it for me, at least in a performance arena, haven't tried recoding with it yet, but I have built-in or software effects for that. I suspect the BOSS keeps the original analog signal analog while other digitize the whole thing, but that's just what my ears tell me.

Should be fine. I did have a DD-3 die on me a dozen or so years ago, one pedal in a dozen years is ok.

no opinion

Pricey, but the convenience of knobs for performance make it worth it. The sound quality is excellent.

Easy to use, everything is self-explanatory. Wish the knobs were bigger, but that's minor.

Sounds good to me. I run it in the stereo loop of my Engl e580 preamp with chorus and echo. It plays well with the other pedals, and I don't notice any noise.

I gig it without a backup. I have my pedals on a board and none of them give me trouble. Just take care of them, and they'll take care of you.

Never used...

This was about the only choice as I needed stereo ins and outs, but it delivers the verb without noise, so I'm very happy with it. I would buy it again if it were stolen. There's a lot of picky, hair-splitting reviews out there, maybe I'm just easier to please. I think it sounds fine, just as advertised.

Pretty darn easy, choose from presets, Plate, Hall, Spring, Modulate and a way you go. The only thing I wish is if there was an expression pedal for it, that would be cool.

I am using with Boss DD-5, Line 6 MM4, Line 6 DM4 into a Fender Deluxe. Generally I find the reverb fairly thin and trebly, if you are looking for a warm reverb, this aint it. The only reason I got it was, a) it was a pedal and not a rack mount, b) it had stereo ins and outs and c) for the modulate setting which is quite nice, adds a slight wobble to your sound. If you crank this thing and start playing hard it will get that harsh digital ice-pick sound. But then again, aren't all digital pedals like that?

It's Boss, they last and last, no worries there.

Apparently the Dynaverb is better than this thing but I didn't know about that until after buying this. If you are looking for a warm reverb, go for a rack mount I guess.