Fender 6G15 Reverb

About a simple as it gets. Three knobs. Mine takes about 5 min. to really warm up.

I bought an original 63 as a companion piece to my 63 Vibrolux. It is set up permanently in my studio so it does not get moved a lot. Very quiet unit. I mainly play my #1 Strat. with just a hint of beautiful sounding reverb. Around 3 or 4 on the dwell. 3 or 4 on the mix. 4 or 5 on the tone. Pure amazing tone. Somtimes I'll push it a little through an RC booster pedal, but it's really not necesary. I like to keep it simple. Guitar, reverb, amp. I use a Reverb pedal by Van Amps when I'm gigging. I would never take the Fender on the road. Too precious at this point. I guess I'll call it my guilty pleasure.

Well it's 45 years old and it's still the standard by which all other are measured.

Fugitaboutit. Get yourself a great amp tech.

Musically all over the dial. Coldplay to Obrison, Blues,Jazz,Pop. No metal. Been at it now for about 10 years. I have an extensive guitar and amp collection. I would without a doubt buy another one if something happened to it.

Late 65 Unit. First things first. On a unit as old as this, it goes to the amp tech first. Plug it in. Output into amp's input and guitar into unit's input. Tone control's reverb's signal. Dwell the amount of reverb signal, Mix controls amount of reverb to dry. Gotta play with it to see what you get at the volume you want.

I use Teles w/Nocaster or TX Tele Specials and a 56 Strat Time Machine. I have a Showman, Dual Showman, Tremolux, Bandmaster and Bassman piggybacks and a 61 Deluxe. Cabs are 2/12, 1X15 and 2X15, (still searching for the 2X10) Set it like I 'splained above and you'll get a sparkly but snarky tone, almost a bark. Really cool for blues.

Haven't broken it yet, nor any of the blackface amps, either. ALWAYS take them to a competent amp tech and have him set it to spec. Use good tubes and flail away!

I think we know where this goes.

Didn't know how cool these units were until I got one. Grab a Fender Piggyback while the demand is soft and enjoy the tone!

I built my own reverb until to the specs of the original using Orange Drop caps, Carbon Comp resistors and a 6K6 instead of the 6V6. The reverb tank is long delay 3 spring. I made two changes to it. 1, I used a 12vdc relay for switching which eliminates the slight drop in volume when you turn it on. 2, I replaced the tone controls with resistors making it permanantly set where I liked it. This doesn't effect the sound beyond not being able to adjust the tone.

"How easy is it to get good sound out of it?" Um...plug this in between your guitar and amp (or in the effects loop). If you still don't have good sound, you need a new guitar or amp!

Ok, so a little tweaking is needed. I run the dwell at max (to get that spring twang) and the mixer at about 1/4. I like this reverb better than the reverb in Fender combos. I bought a long delay reverb tank instead of the medium delay tank used in Fender combo amps. I like it MUCH MUCH more! It's lush and full. For those interested in trying a longer delay reverb tank, check out www.tubesandmore.com and search for reverb tanks. Any tank with a 8-10 ohm input and 2,250 2,575ohm output will work.

I use a MIM Fender Telecaster into Vox wah, into a custom made distortion pre-amp, into this reverb unit, into a Boss DD-3 Delay pedal, into a modded Fender Princeton, into a 2x12 with P12R Jensens.

This is the only effect that almost never goes off. It thickens the tone so much. Leads sound fuller and warmer. Rythym (how the heck do you spell that word?) sounds almost like two guitars, but never muddy. That's the thing is the reverb is thick and warm, but never muddy!

Being that I use the longer delay reverb tank, my delay pedal sometimes gets muddy with the reverb on. It depends on what I'm playing. The only other time I turn it off is for when I want to stop quickly during a rythm part and not have the note ring out. Even then, I sometimes leave it on for the decay.

For comparison, I've tried Boss reverb, Digitech reverb and Fender combo amp reverb. Nothing quite like this. If you want reverb, get this now!

BTW, I tried it in front of my JCM-800 in the high gain and it had a lot of hum. I won't hold this against it because first of all, that's a lot of gain and it's supposed to be after the gain. Second, I built this so I can't count this against the actual fender model. On a clean amp, I have no hum.

I'm gonna rate this N/A since mine was built by me.

Um, there's not a lot to go wrong. The single power tube is not run very hard so I don't imagine it'd fail often. I've had problems with loose sockets, but that's my fault for reusing some old ones. Beyond that, the curcuit is mostly designed for reliability. The cathode cap for the 6K6 is rated at 25v and it has 24v on it by design. A little close for comfort. I used 50v. Not sure what the reissue uses, but this doesn't effect the sound.

I added a standby switch which should prolong the life of the tubes.

Um, I give great customer support to myself!!! :)

Never delt with Fender.

I play in a church band. Most songs fall in the contemporary christian genre but some are rock, some blues and even a bit of funk. I cannot play with out this!!! It is my secret weapon!

I've played guitar for about 7 years, 2 of which are in the church band. I've also got a Marshall JCM-800 and a Harmony H-400 for practice.

If it were lost, stolen or otherwise unavailable, I'd make another one as soon as possible!

If there's anything to hate about it, it's the volume drop of it in the curcuit. Not a big deal, since it never leaves the curcuit!!! It would be nice if it had a slight bit of gain with an adjustment pot, perhaps on the inside so it's set once and forgotten about. Other than that, it's good. It defintatly makes music! (but unlike some effects, it doesn't turn a bad player into a good player). It lets your mistakes ring out. :)

NOTE:
This review is for a COPY of the Fender 6G15 Reverb unit I BUILT MYSELF, based on the ORIGINAL circuit, and NOT a store bought reissue (the reissue uses a 6V6 tube... YUCK!) or original (mine uses the same type of power tube as the original vintage ones, a 6K6).

Three controls. Dwell, Mix, and Tone. Oh, plus the old footswitch ON/OFF jack.

Dwell:
Controls how "wet" the verb is.

Mix:
Controls the balance between your straight, dry guitar signal and the verb's "wet" signal.

Tone:
Controls the brightness of the reverb's effect. For instance, you can have a bright dry guitar and dark verb effects, etc.

The review asks "how the manual is". There is none since I built it myself, but it doesn't need one. If you spend time diddling the knobs you'll learn what they do.

"Has your unit been upgraded?" yeah, I guess so:
1. Put the type of power tube the original used, NOT the 6V6 that comes on todays CRAP reissues. My 6K6 is a NOS (New Old Stock) Sylvania from the '60s. The 12AT7 is a brand new JJ/Tesla, and the 12AX7 is some cheap crap just for testing for now (I'll be replacing with an Electro Harmonix soon).

2. Used brand new PREMIUM parts. ALL Resistors are higher power rated (NOT half watters) AND are the slightly quieter Carbon Film type (except for the 2-3 watt ones), NOT the older, "grittier", vintage style Carbon Comp. Capacitors are all Mallory's. Filter Caps are Sprague Atoms.

3. I used Ted Weber's Transformers and Choke. They look VERY plain, but they seem to work OK, I guess. Not sure if this is an "upgrade" or not yet.

10 here, it's SUPER EASY to use. It's EASY to get GREAT SOUND out of her.

I'm using a variety of different setups with this Unit...

GUITARS:
Ash bodied Telecaster with three brass compensated saddles, Alnico II pickups, and 10 gauge steel strings.

'57 reissue Gibson Les Paul Custom w/ .11 nickel strings.

Gibson ES135 w/ Bigsby, '57 pickups, and .10 steel strings.

Gibson Les Paul Junior w/ Seymour Duncan Custom P90 in the bridge, Gib P90 in neck, and .10 steel strings.

Mexican Standard Telecaster, compensated three brass saddles, some sort of nasty DiMarzio chopped up Strat "hot rail" type bridge pickup, crap Epiphone Alnico neck pickup, .12 nickel strings. Open tuned (G or E) for slide.

Mexican Standard Telecaster w/ replacement Birdseye Maple neck, Seymour Duncan Lil '59 bridge pickup, and compensated three saddle bridge. 0.10 nickel strings.

Jackson RR5 neck through, string through, flying Vee with DiMarzio Super Distortion in the bridge and Seymour Duncan JB in the neck and 0.09 steel strings.

AMPS:
Marshall JCM2000 TSL60 head.

Fender freak COPY of a Tweed '50s Champ, wired to take 6V6, 6L6, or EL34 power tubes. It's a head unit I built myself that has a variable speakerOUT impedance selector for 4, 8, or 16ohms.

A ton of other stuff, mostly home built by myself... tired of typing :)

THE SOUND QUALITY
I had a cold solder problem on the Dwell knob fully off... after I fixed that, there was NO noise.

This is THE BEST Reverb effect unit you can EVER buy. This IS the end-all, be-all to Reverbs. If you don't have tube/spring Reverb built into your amp, drop the pedals and pick this up.

By the way the verb in my Marshall SUCKS, and it ain't the nice giant 3-spring tank either, so tube is best :)

I saw some modifications to add Tremolo/Vibrato/whatever it's called to the Reverb unit... Tremo pedals sound pretty good, so I didn't add that - I don't understand the "tube tremo" thing myself.

Between the Dwell to get her deep, the Mix to tame the beast, and the Tone to brighten or darken the Verb itself, this unit is world class.

THE BEST REVERB YOU CAN BUY (or I guess build), it gets a 10 here, easily.

Just built her so I don't know how road-worthy she'll be...

I know one thing, I built it as durabley as I could, so I'm not worried one tiny bit.

I'd gig without a backup, because it's only Reverb - worst case scenario is I play dry. On the road I bring my tools and bag of resistors/caps... I'm good as long as a transformer don't blow.

For my own unit I'd give it an 8 or 9 for reliability, BUT since this may reflect on Fender's original ACTUAL unit, WHICH I have NO personal experience with (finding an affordable working original is a little hard) I HAVE TO RATE "NO OPINION" HERE to be fair.

Never dealt with Fender. I quit buying their amps. Got rid of a Blues Junior as soon as I could...

I build OLD circuit Fenders, so no need to buy new PC board Fenders they sound nice and all (especially the reissues, which do NOT really sound like the originals), but I can spend half of the money and build one myself.

I really dig their guitars (except for Strats, I hate them to death) and have had NO problems with those, especially their Telecasters :)

Like everbody else I play a ton of styles, but for the band's music it's hard ROCK.

For ANY style of music this thing rocks. From a dab of verb FOR blues, rock, metal, or anything else, TO what it really shines at - Rockabilly, Surf Guitar, and ambient trippy stuff... THIS IS THE ONLY REVERB TO **EVER** GET.

With tone NOTHING is ever a 10. Amps, guitars, everything has it's compromises (try getting that chicken fried Telecaster Country sound on a Les Paul or into a Marshall)...

THIS IS THE ONLY PIECE OF GEAR THAT HAS NO TRADE-OFFS. It does what it does best - better than any other piece of Reverb gear you can find... unless you want a crappy digital reverb sound, then this does NOT do that at all.

easy to use-but you have to experiment

first class-why wouldl you monkey with a vintage unit-well, i cant explain it but i use this with a 66 bandmaster piggy back rig-the rig is a bit lacjlustre without this and sparkles with it-and im not talking simply the verb aspect-it seems the signal is brighter

the tone pot allows you to make the verb vrey in your face -present-or softer and more of an ambient feel-same with mix and dwell-simply put the latter two are rarely used above 5-this has a sound that digital units dont-and i like it a lot

no problems-

na

great for blues, pop everything-its not a delay but obviously a reverb-it seems to be one of the best effects for low voume playing in a dead room-can add just enough bounce that you cant identify it but clearly imporves the overall sound-too much and well...

this is unique as far as verbs go-IMHO-it is lush and 'orangic' sounding-probably not worth the vintage price versus a tweaked reissue-but its a verb unto itself-definitely identifiable as the surf verb-but really allows for more-and as noted they are a pain in the a*& regarding stage noise or other vibrations-a thick soft foam pad under the unit takes care of just about all vibrations-really makes the non-verb fenders and other amps come alive-compared with my holy grail its far lusher, and quieter-but not as convenient

Plug your guitar into the input jack, then patch your amp into the output jack, and it's ready to go. I set the dwell to about 5, the mixer to 3.5, and the tone at 4, and it's perfect.

I use this with a '61 Deluxe, '54 Deluxe, and a '62 Super, either with an old Strat or a tele. Mine takes a minute to warm up, makes a litte tube noise, then quiets down. Adds depth and warmth to otherwise slightly brittle non-reverb tone. The extra knobs allow for more contol over the reverb.

I found this one year after my '61 Deluxe (1980), paid $150 for it, and have been using it ever since. I've never looked at the elctronics or replaced a tube or cap. Still has the two pronged cord. As long as it continues to provide that wonderful, magic tone, I'll leave it alone. Can't afford another, so would have to drag along a Deluxe Reverb for backup (a nice blackface DR can be had for just a few dollars more than this unit).

I play blues, and have been for 25 years (kinda bummed out some of the time I guess). If you like that Fender brown tone, you gotta have one of these. There's just no way around it, if you like reverb. A blackface or silverface DR or Vibrolux will do the job for a lot less money though. Maybe I just like brown tolex...

Very easy to use. One input, one output and three knobs (DWELL - MIX - and TONE) Very basic (Neolithic)features. Must remember to "unlock" the L bracket holding the rev. spring tank before use. The basic on/off foot switch is better left unplugged. (Switch has a neg. impact on tone.)

I was using this original 6G15 Fender External Reverb Unit (circa 1964) with a fully restored Bassman AB-165 head, and a Kendrick 2 X 12 speaker cabinet loaded with JBL-E 120s. I payed dearly for this device, hauled it to a band job and it started to howl and "detonate" as only a spring reverb unit can. (Normal stage vibrations would wreak havoc on this thing.) *Note: Caught Dick Dale in New Orleans at The Howlin Wolf Club. Dick used this device(of course) but hung it from a rafter by a thick rope! (Stage vibration makes this thing go nutz!!!!) Talk about your sonic "Wipe Out!"

After selling my soul to purchase an original unit, it was unusable without serious modifications!!! (My amp tech. slipped the reverb tank into a Tolex bag, replaced the caps in the cap can, and retubed it.) Only after doing this was this a practical- useful device. (I did not want to go the Dick Dale route... I believe effects should not be hung without a fair trial.) Unit came to life with new 6K6 GT tube, and when the 12AT7 position was filled with a 12AX7/ECC 83 by Ei.

Well, I view this as a live and learn kind of experience. I learned that the price of "cool" is often a bit too high. ($ $ $ $ $) I used this thing in the studio, at The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, House of Blues and every other major venue in Louisiana. I would not have been able to do these shows without my tech. "bagging" that rev. tank. (It was either that, or sell it... No other way.) I saved all the springs, and just rehung the tank right before I sold the unit. (I no longer own this unit, sold it for a tidy sum $ $ $ $.)