EBS DynaVerb

There is a known problem with the early productionline that gives a hiss when it is conected. EBS will change the part making the noice free of charge, i ??ve done that and now i have a very useful reverbpedal, not to say the best i have tried.

This is an update of my previous review. It is some time later, and this pedal still is a staple on my pedalboard, both for amps that don't have reverb, AND even some amps that do, I prefer this pedal to actual spring reverb...in the case of my Hot Rod DeVille, which has a nice reverb but it is not footswitchable, I prefer the control of being able to turn it on and off with my foot.

I'm really updating my review to warn about a potential problem with the pedal and will also contact EBS with this. (see reliability)

I won't ding them for this, the pedal itself it reliable, but there is a design flaw at least in mine. I have been using it a long time with no problems, but the other day when I turned it on, the power supply (an excellent Big John from Martin) the "check" light didn't light indicating a short or open in the power somewher. I traced it down to the Dynaverb. Took off the back cover and saw immidiately that they have the bare wire coming from the footswitch dangerously close to the battery casing when a battery is installed. In fact it was grounding out on the battery.I removed the battery and it works fine still. But it is a real problem and could cause damage.

Couple of solutions...one could wrap electrical tape around the battery casing, or around the wire (though not easy...it is only about 3/8" long wire. Or one could just not put in batteries (I think this eats them pretty fast if I remember right).

If you own one (this may be with other EBS pedals too, I don't know) you really ought to open the cover and take a look and see how close it is, save your pedal before it gets damaged!

Othewise, I rate this WAY over any other reverb pedal I have tried, including Holy Grail.

10

They are so close to a great verb pedal. The concept of verb sound itself is great, BUT- there is a pitched noise, not quite a hiss, but a hummmm. I've had the pedal for about a month and I've been getting complaints from soundguys, and bandmates about the hum- everyone's asking "what's that noise?" So, I'm disappointed because it's so close- I really like the verb. If they could just get rid of the hum this would be a great pedal, but now I have to go out and look for something else because the extra noise is too much for professional use. Sometimes you just can't tell from trying it out in the store how functional something is- you need to use it for a while. So, I'd say save your $200 and let's keep looking. If anyone finds something with as sweet a tone, small, but less noise, let me know.

It's half way great, but half way sucks. Great concept, but you pay a price in noise and your wallet. If it didn't have the noise, I'd be happy spending the $200, otherwise I'd price this at an $80 value

Intuitive & versatile controls

The Dynaverb would actually be a really great reverb pedal if not for the annoyingly intrusive high-frequency hissing noise which DOMINATES the effected sound.

I have also had intermittent problems with power shut-outs during instances when the pedal was connected to a standard One-spot DC supply.

I have since returned my EBS unit for a new replacement, but still encountered the very same problems with a new unit, which is a real disappointment.

EBS Dynaverb has controls for Reverb (mix of wet/dry), Tone (cut the highs), 8 selections for reverb types, hall, room and plate. Also has stereo ins and outs. Very easy to get great sounds.

The reverb sounds that are available sound very natural and warm. I do get a little high end hiss when used thru a tweeter, but the highs can be cut. Not the most versatile reverb unit, it is limited by it's pedal size. I use the pedal to add a little depth and presence to my bass rig.

I own 5 other EBS pedals. You have to be careful with the mini switches.

EBS has excellent customer support

Best reverb in pedal form, if you want more features go rackmount. EBS pedals are pricey.

Very easy to get a great sound with all options on the pedal.

This is as good as it gets with a reverb pedal. I took a chance and bought this one via Musician's Friend. It is incredibly quiet and sounded very natural on all settings.

Seems rugged and well-built. The points on the PCB all look solid. The little switch in the middle that you use to change between reverb type might be problematic, if you are too rough with it.

I play R&R. I needed a great sounding reverb for my non-reverb Marshall head. I tried the Boss RV-5, and the Holy Grail. The Boss sounded okay, but it had strange ghost tones on the tail. The Holy Grail was too noisy. I immediately returned the Boss and HG. I can't imagine a stombox reverb being any better than this. It sounds as good as some rack-mounted verbs that I've played in the past. It's a little pricey, but it's worth it for me.

This pedal is really easy and straight forward.

Fantastic! I have no idea why the guy 2 reviews below me had a problem. Very smooth, but clean. I play an older 80 Jap fender strat and I just love the sound that I get out of this pedal.

So far I have had no problems with this pedal. I can certainly depend on it.

Overall... this pedal is great. When I first picked it up I noticed that I felt like a brick. Great sound.. easy to use.. what else can I say about it other than go buy one.

Very easy o get a good sound out of. Features are already covered here. Has a few extra tricks up its' sleeves, you can go into the unit and change settings to a 2 switch dip switch and make it completley wet for using direct or direct to another amp. Don't think I'd use that though.

It's very easy and has just the right amount of parameters to adjust.

Mainly bought this to use in the effects-loop of my Fender Prosonic head, that is reverbless. Using mainly a strat, also other effects in line in front of the input and using this in the loop along with a Visual Sound H2O.

When I bought the prosonic I was expecting to "just" buy a reverb pedal and be done with it. After researching here, and on some other forums asking folks, I came to find out there were "no good reverb pedals out there". Found out for myself that is just not true.

My research led me to think about buying a Electro-Harmonix Holy Grail. I knew I would have to try out the exact pedal I was going to buy because there are reported noise issues with it. When I tried it (the Holy Grail) in the store I spent a good deal of time with it. At first I thought "great...I oughta just buy this, sounds great" but with pedals and especially like verbs, you gotta spend time with them. I was playing a strat into a Fender Hot Rod DeVille (great amp) and I went back and forth between the amps' verb and the HG.
After a relatively short time I realized the extra long and non-adjustable reverb tail was annoying. Maybe it could be buried in the mix live, but alone I began to hear it way too long after a note.

I went back down, asked what else they had, and got the EBS and tried it. Perfect! Did the same drill and this was just excellent, exactly what I wanted, easy to dial in good sounds. NOT too many knobs, just exactly what is needed.

It runs on normal DC 9v (the HG draws like 500mA, and has a special plug for supply..) and I got it home, tried it in my MTS3212's effects loop, AND my Prosonics' effects loop and it is DEAD quiet! Don't know what the review below me meant, but I have absolutely NO issues with tone sucking, or with hiss or any other noise.

And the Prosonics' effects loop is +4db!! This pedal handles it just beautifully. Another thing, I didn't know this, but in researching verbs, lotsa folk mention that some of the better ones sound great on clean, but suck on distorted sounds. I noticed that on the HG, but not at all on this one. In fact, I liked this a LOT better than the built-in verb on the DeVille. I like also that I can adjust the mix AND the tone of it, and each of the three settings, has A, B, and C variations (except one of them does the same on C as on B).

I tried to be critical as hell, but this thing just pleases the hell out of me. It is exactly what I hoped it would be. I'd give it a 10, but I have a recent policy that NO unit is a 10 unless it can wash my car, pay my bills, and make me sound like jimi. I mean EXACTLY and not just tone, but notes as well.

Cant judge that. This category, in my opinion, ought to be limited to folk that have owned it longer than "just bought it" or even a few months. Can look like and feel like a brick outhouse, but still not be rugged, can look and feel flimsy and hold up forever.

That said, it DOES have some good heft to it. Footswitch feels rock solid. Compact unit, and looks good.

It's too expensive a unit for me to justify backing it up.

No idea.

This HELPS me make music. It is a set-and-forget (will have to remember I CAN tweak it if I want different sounds) kinda unit.

It does exactly what I want a verb to do, and does it just like I want it to sound.

I've been playing for more than 30 years. Play mostly blues. If I lost this, or even if it broke after two years (norwegian law says they HAVE to gaurantee electronic products like this for 2 years! YEAH!) I would buy another. This is a definite keeper.

High quality reverb in stomp box format, real easy to use. Limited options but that comes with compact design of course. Two knobs, thwo nice little switches, nice design.

The unit contains nine preset sounds with really well made and highly usable algorithms - incredible quality in such a small design (that can run on batteries). BUT: EBS effects are not true bypass and they use a really bad buffer amp that continuously covers your signal with an clearly noticeable amout of hiss - even when the effect itself it turned off. For my personal taste this noise level is so high that I have to run my DynaVerb in parallel through a line mixer - which corrupts the compactness/portability factor that was my main buying point. All EBS units are rather noisy, more so than any Boss box I tried, but the Dynaverb especially. MAybe in a real loud rock'n'roll environment this doesn't matter, but that's spring reverb territory anyway, right?

Looks solid, maybe the pot shafts are a little weak.

EBS's importer here in Germany was very helpful (thanks, Gottfried!) but of course could not do much about my complaints. I went through two more units that they sent me but both had the same noise PLUS other problems in operation. EBS has a major qc issue with their pedals. The EBS guys up in Sweden were slow to respond and indifferent on the topic. After months had passed they issued a paper to all distributors recommending the change of two components on the circuit board which supposedly solves the problems with popping noises that some units had but didn't takle the overall noise problem at all.

Great effect sound - cheap quality. This stuff is not Scandinavian boutique quality in the t.c. or Carl Martin tradition. They greedily outsourced the production to China or somewhere and now the customers have to get by with inferior layout and corner cutting in the production process. I am a pro player that depends on his tools and would have easily spent more on the Dynaverb to get a slave-labour-free product.

I bought it new about 10 moths ago and I have been very happy with it. It sounds awesome with all my basses. I have a pretty basic setup, and this pedal makes it sound really good. It can give a shimmering sound, a thickened sound, a subtle twinkling, or about a million other sounds. You can literally spend hours just playing with the knobs and finding new sounds. There are 2 knobs, reverb and tone and a switch for reverb types to shape the sound anyway you need it.

Digital hell, NO WAY!!! This is the coolest digital bass reverb ever built. This is a great pedal.

It is very well built; all metal box with a noiceless FET switch. It takes a 9-volt battery, and there is an AC adapter input. It goes through batteries FAST, so an AC adapter would be a good idea. Other than the battery problem, this is a great pedal.

Thanks to their wide technical knowledge and experience, EBS is capable of satisfying the highest demands regarding both performance and safety.

I did about 100 jobs last year with this pedal, from smaller bars to large festivals. It is all the reverb I need for what I do. It is light, very compact and sounds great. I would recommend it to anyone seeking those qualities along with a clean, articulate tone.

Very easy to get a useful reverb. Three modes of reverb (hall, room, and plate) is selected by a three way toggle switch. The reverb times are also preset using a 3 way toggle switch. The two knobs control the amount of the reverb in the mix along with a tone/high frequency attenuator. The manual is always sparse but adequate. The little blue on light is cool.

I play bass, but imagine it would be fine for guitar. I use other ebs pedals, and this is one of the quieter ones. It's not absolutely dead silent, on the contrary, if you use a horn loaded cabinet like swr or aguilar, there will be a noticeable hiss. It gets really annoying at high volumes. But, I cut down on the super high treble and back off on my horn attenuator, and it's acceptable. The quality and control of the reverb is not going to be like a higher end lexicon, but it is excellent for a pedal. It is certainly just as good as my rack mount Yamaha spx 900. But, unlike the 10 lbs and extra rack space that the spx requires, this little pedal is all the reverb I would need in a live situation, and probably for home recording as well. I run it at the end of my pedal board chain which includes a fodera outboard preamp, ebs multidrive, ebs compressor, EH bass synthesizer and chorus. Since it's a pedal I'll give it some slack, but as far as reverbs overall, it's nowhere near the best rackmount reverbs. One very important point is that it maintains the low end of my bass really well, and it doesn't change my tone. It also doesn't seem to mess with the phase which I notice with other pedals from Boss, dod and the like. This is why I think it is worth the 200+ price tag.

Built like a tank. You can take this one into battle, just don't pour beer on it!

The tech. support is historically excellent, but the one email I sent didn't get answered for 3 weeks!

Overall, don't expect a high end studio quality reverb, but do expect a relatively quiet, versatile reverb pedal that will faithfully maintain your original tone in a small sturdy stomp box. The only way this thing is gonna get better is if lexicon comes out with a pcm91 in a stomp box. For a pedal it's very high quality.

It doesn't get easier, two knobs and two three way switches

I've been waiting for this kind of pedal for years, I gave up and was gonna buy a lexicon lxp-1 and put it in the rack. One night when I couldn't sleep I accidently found this on the web!!!!!! So I wrote my musicshop a letter, they said that they would have it sometime before christmas, the next day I pass the shop, go in and they have it, it had arrived that day, so I tried it, I was sure I was gonna be dissapointed, I always am, I've tried really expensive rackgear, none of them are ok to me. But this little pedal! It is outstanding. It would be a crime to not own one.

Built like a tank

EBS is swedish, I'm swedish, they have to be good

This is a winner, pick one up today forgett about rackcrap, holy grail, everything. This is it! Your wait is over, surrender to the force of the swedish reverb pedal or the vikings will haunt you forever.