Tech 21 Boost RVB

Takes a while to get used to since it's not like most reverb pedals which have preset modes. The key lies in tweaking the tone, rumble and time to get the reverb tone you want. The examples in the manual give you a good base to start from and once you get aquainted with the nature of each control it's easy enough.

Excellent! To put it into context with more mainstream reverb pedals ala Boss RV-5, Digitech RV-7 etc, this is a step up in terms of sound quality, not by a HUGE stretch, but still audibly better in every way.

The beauty in it's design and tone is that since it's not dependent on 'mode' settings it's very organic. I.e the changes in the reverb's parameters are nuermous, and all smooth and fully controllable. The two tone controls are a little hard to get your head round at first. Tone is fairly self-explanitory; on full it's bright and metallic, used to tune in plate or spring reverb tones, and turning it down allows more natural darker tones suitable for open hall tones. The Rumble control is badly labelled, and implies that it adds bass, but it doesnt. It's difficult to describe! It's more like it controls the low-end 'body' of the reverb. It's full bodied on full and the more you turn it down, the 'lighter' the reverb gets, so using this in conjunction with the Tone control allows for deep and dark or tight and clean tones which you could effectively label "hall" or "plate" and everything inbetween once you start tweaking the Time.

The Boost gives you an extra "punch" if needed. The mix is 100% dry or wet. Overall, an excellent reverb. The only slight downsides to it are that the Rumble is quite subtle, and the Feedback is literally just that. I haven't played with it much but it seems a little superfluous. Otherwise it would have got a 10.

Oh, and it's buffered bypass, but that lends itself to the design, since -according to the manual- true bypass can result in high-end loss, so I guess the Tone control wouldn't be as good as it is if it were true bypass? No tone loss to speak of. Better than Boss bypass as it really maintains and works with the body of my guitar's tone, so if you're picky about true bypass, I wouldn't worry. Nice and smooth transition to, no loud click once activated!

Well built overall. Seem very reliable.

I use ceramic single coils (Eastwood Saturn 63) which I guess are comparable to a fender strat or jazzmaster in terms of tone, and I can get reverb tones from subtly metallic and twangy to dark, and useable hall and ambient tones with the Boost RVB. (On longer time settings and with some tweaking there's an ever so slightly modulated tone available too) I've tried a few reverbs; Boss, Electro Harmonix etc and this is definitely a step up in quality and versatility. I'd definitely reccommend it if reverb is key to your sound.

Tech21, best known for their SansAmp analog amplifier emulation pedals, has create a reverb pedal: the Boost R.V.B. This is cleverly marketed as using "lo-fi analog technology". A close reading of the manual suggests that it's actually the controls which are analog. Color me skeptical, but unless Tech21 has access to Time Lord technology I find it extremely unlikely that the actual implementation of reverb in the Boost R.V.B. is analog. Still, I have no inherent objection to digital audio done well.

The Boost R.V.B. has six controls, two of which have marginal utility. The most important control is the TIME knob. This adjusts the reverb decay time over a continuous range from a small room to a huge cavern. The MIX knob controls the blend of the original "dry" signal with the reverberant "wet" signal. The mix ranges from completely dry to completely wet with a 50/50 mix at the control's rotational midpoint. The 100% wet setting might be useful as a special effect. The tonality of the reverb is controlled via the TONE and RUMBLE knobs. With counterclockwise rotation, TONE attenuates higher frequencies and RUMBLE attentuates lower frequencies.

A LEVEL control sets the output level, ranging from a significant cut (but not fully off) up to a 6 dB boost. Tech21 touts this as being useful for a solo boost; I'm skeptical. I don't know any player who wants to add reverb and a boost for their solos. Regardless, the LEVEL control may come in handy to adjust the perceived level of the reverb.

The real puzzler, though, is the FEEDBACK control. According to the manual this feeds the pedal's output back to its input. At about the halfway point the pedal begins to self-oscillate. Higher settings just emphasize the feedback. I haven't found a way to make the oscillation be musically useful. It sounds like a howling microphone. By setting the FEEDBACK control just below the point where the pedal goes into runaway oscillation I was able to create a "peaky" response. Tech21 claims that this gives you a "spring reverb" sound; don't believe everything you read. As with the LEVEL control, the FEEDBACK control isn't a total loss. It give you access to a another sound which may or may not be useful.

Tech21 has a whole series of stompboxes with this six-knob format. Perhaps they get some economies of scale by desinging all of their pedals to have six controls. The extras are relatively harmless in this case, and may actually be of some use to someone.

I play Koll DL Thinline guitars. These are thinline guitars having a carved top and back and solid bent sides. A pair of rails, rather than a center block, leaves the back and most of the top free to vibrate. One guitar has P-90s and a Bigsby tailpiece; the other has humbuckers and a hardtail.

I play through a variety of full-range amplifiers or straight to board via a DI.

I've tried a lot of reverb pedals; the Boost R.V.B. is closer to the top of the list of good pedals than the bottom. I like longer decay times. The Boost R.V.B. has plenty of time on tap. That said, there are some frequencies which are emphasized more than others. This is not necessarily bad. You will need to consider whether the tonality works with your music.

There's one other unusual artifact that I can't quite nail down. Sometimes I think I hear the slightest movement of pitch in a decaying note. This sounds a tiny bit like a modulated reverb, except that the pitch change does not reverse direction. I've only noticed this with the decay set quite long (at about the 3:00 position). Frankly I don't know whether I'm imagining this based upon the combinations of notes in close-voiced lines and chords or whether there's actually something in the hardware that's causing this effect. It's not at all unpleasant - just a bit surprising.

I've had this for a month. No idea about long-term reliability.

I've deal with the company's online support staff to request electronic copies of manuals. They have responded promptly.

I play improvisational fingerstyle guitar, drawing elements and motifs from classical, jazz, folk and rock. I first picked up a guitar in 1967, played for about 15 years and then took a break. I started playing "seriously" in 1999.

As I frequently play either straight to board (through a DI) or through a full-range amplifier without effects, and as reverb is one effect I rarely go without, I'll keep at least one reverb pedal on hand. At present I have the Boost R.V.B., a Digitech DigiVerb and a Boss RE-20. They all have their own distinctive sounds.

Battery life is a potential win for the Boost R.V.B. Tech21 claims ten hours of operation on a 9V alkaline battery. Many other digital reverb pedals operate for four hours or less on a 9V battery.

If you're looking for a good reverb pedal and you can't get a good sound out of this, you either have it in the wrong place in your FX chain or there's something wrong with you. It's a matter of twisting a few knobs until your ears tell you to stop twisting and play. It's that easy! The manual is your typical minimalist yet informative Tech 21 deal; it's almost so simple that you want to read it more to try and find any hidden info in between the lines that you may have missed.

I confess: I'm a full throttle Tech 21 junkie. Not because of the brand per se, but because their stuff is easy to use right out of the box and just plain works for what I do. It started with buying the Trademark 60 6 years ago and went downhill from there. Currently I'm using a Gretsch hollowbody -> Tech 21 TRI-AC/Boss GT8 -> 2 Tech 21 Power Engine cabs. I'm tired of lugging the GT8 around and am looking to replace it with real pedals that fit in the back of my cabs, and my first line of business was to go reverb shopping. I've always craved a believable spring reverb sound and never found a pedal that can mimic it until I found this little gem. If you're like me you've tried dialing in a good spring sound on your digital doo-hickies and probably heard an intermittent annoying watery "poing" sound that sticks out like a sore thumb while you're playing (the GT8 spring verb is horrible in that regard). Not the case with this pedal. I tried a few of the other popular models before settling on the Tech 21; none compared. After having it for a while now, last night I did an A/B of the Boost RVB to ALL of my GT8's reverbs (plate, room, hall, etc.) and none even come close to sounding as good as what this pedal can do, not to mention I don't have to scroll through menus or hook it up to my PC to tweak it. Less is more! There's something about the decay and warmth of it that makes it more believable than other reverb pedals. I even prefer this over the real spring verb in my Trademark 60 and any other amps I've used (mainly Marshall/Fender). The reverb sounds I go for are that of Dick Dale, Larry Lalonde, & Todd Huth - this pedal is all that and a giant bag of delicious reverby chips. Once again, Tech 21 has done their homework and put it all into a no nonsense easy to use package. The feedback/tone/time/rumble knobs have an incredible amount of range which makes them very sensitive to subtle tweaks, making this pedal way more flexible than your average pedal. Don't let the lack of cosmetic features fool you. The Feedback knob is a little useless past the 1 o'clock spot where it starts oscillating and feeding back, but maybe that's just my rig. For $150 new, I triple dog dare you to find something that comes even close in sound quality and reliability. I give it a 9 ONLY because we all know there ain't nothing like the real analog thing. But I don't have the time nor money to put into the authentic analog reverb route, nor do I want to... so I guess this should really be a 10 on a technicality.

I've used Tech 21 gear for nearly 10 years now at numerous gigs, and most of it has been dropped or fallen off of something. Zero problems. Remember the old Samsonite luggage commercials with the gorilla beating the daylights out of the luggage to show its durability? The same can be said for this pedal. Although unlike the luggage, the gorilla could prolly put this in his mouth and swallow it because it's so portable.

The few times I've contacted them for general questions or to buy accessories, I've talked to their Product Manager Lloyd Schwartz who is always extremely helpful. They tend to get stuff mailed out the same day you talk to them. It's nice in this day and age to call a place and get a human on the phone - and it's usually Lloyd who answers. Try getting THAT kind of service out of your big name effects manufacturers.

I've been playing for 25 years and am heavily influenced by Zappa, surf music, King Crimson, KISS, Primus, etc. I am from the digital/multi effects generation (bought a Digitech GSP5 and ART SGX2000 when they first came out a long ways back) and the older I get, the more simplicity I'm trying to incorporate into my rig. This pedal fits right in poifectly and instantly became a staple in my rig. Rather than wasting time trying to dial in THE SOUND, I plug it in and go. If it were stolen, I would cry, then become incredibly irate and cuss like mad, put a search team together, give them all crowbars and baseball bats, and tell them to find the guilty party and make sure that he or she will no longer be capable of twisting knobs on the pedal as or press the footswitch. My next line of business is a delay pedal, and I just ordered the BOOST D.L.A. without even test driving it because I have a feeling it will be exactly what I'm looking for. I hope someday that Tech 21 crams all of these fun things into one programmable box (i.e. the TRI-AC) to make on the fly effects changes more easily, but I can definitely deal with doing the ol' effects pedal tapdance in the interim. I also hope they come out with some sort of modulation pedal.. that would make me the happiest guitarist ever.

It takes a little time to figure out the influence of TONE and RUMBLE. But once you get it you realize how it opens up the wide range of reverb types of this pedal.

The setting samples presented in the manual are just excellent as a starting base for your own sound.

You can define any kind of reverb, plate, spring, room, hall, bug hall, etc. The controls allow you any kind of reverb type.

Honnestly the sound is IMPRESSIVE. It sounds everything but not digital, and I would not use the word analog (ie. fashion word these days) but I would use just the word NATURAL. Yes, it sounds sweet, warm and natural.

If you use a strat like guitar I suggest you start by setting the SPRING reverb of the manual and change MIX to 9 o'clock. You will not believe your ears :-) Just try it out in a store, and you'll just leave the store with this pedal.

I own it for a few week so I can't tell. But it really feels robust and well built.

I aksed one question and I had a clear and sharp answer very quickly.

I just love it for its ability to define any kind of reverb like plate, spring, room, bug room, hall, bug hall, etc.

And I love it particularely for the natural and warm aspects of the sound. Nothing else than just natural and warm. A pleasure for your ears.

real easy to use, took all of 5 minuets spinning dials to get it.

i run this into a fender type amp (musicman rd 50), so the amp is putting out clean with plenty of headroom. * note i think this pedal should sit right infront of your amp in the chain, that may be just me, i prefer my distortions reverberated, not my reverberations distored, but i think this is the general rule with time based effects though you may just prefer a violation at times, anyway this reverb unit just works great, with the tone and rumble controls getting fine tones is easy, also has great range of depth to the room size, not true bypass, though the buffer sounds quality to me, i don't hear any added color when pedal is bypassed, and they say you should run at least one signal buffered pedal in your chain anyway, cause long cables plus switches just lose it a little on the way. so, looking for depth, look no further, or go for nothing that just may work for you to.

lover man in a van~

just got it

i'm sure their nice, so give em a break.

All the basic features of a reverb pedal, plus some extras. Some of the controls are not intuitive, but easy to understand once you read the manual. The level knob lets you cut or boost level. Mix knob blends in processed signal all the way up to 100% wet. Feedback controls the reprocessing of the wet signal (use higher values to simulate a spring reverb). Tone is a trim control on the highs, while Rumble is a trim control on the lows. Time control sets the decay time on the reverb - set low for plate or higher for hall type reverb. The controls are designed to allow the user to tailor any reverb sound rather than be limited to picking from discrete presets like 'plate', 'hall', etc. The manual includes some examples to get a plate, room, hall or spring type reverb. The only negative I can say is the placement of the DC input jack near the output jack - not the best location especially if you are putting this effect on a pedal board and using right-angled 1/4 jacks. Overall, the Boost-RVB represents a nice fresh approach to the reverb pedal compared to offerings from other pedal manufacturers.

My music styles are jazz and acoustic-pop, and so I'm basically working with clean sounds. When playing out I'm either playing jazz/pop standards with a violinist, or picking/strumming chords to accompany singers in a prayer group. For the former, my setup is an Eastman 805CE archtop guitar -> Diamond compressor -> Boost RVB -> DI box (whirlwind director) to PA. For the latter application, setup is Taylor 414 acoustic with Baggs M1 pickup -> Baggs para-acoustic DI, with the Boost RVB pedal in its effects loop. I don't rely on an amp, but have started using a Mackie SRM150 as a personal stage monitor and as an amp during rehearsals. Sometime in the future I may get a dedicated jazz amp, but my current setup sounds very good to me (better than the average acoustic amp) and allows me to hear myself just as the audience will hear me through the PA in live settings. The Boost RVB works great in both setups. The Tone and Rumble controls are excellent for tweaking the tone of the reverb - more versatile than other pedals that only have a single tone knob to cut highs. You can go from a full range in the reverb tone to a more focused tonality to suit your taste - it's like changing the character of the walls and floor of the space being emulated. The feedback knob is nice if you want to add in the 'washiness' of a spring tank - I'm not a fan of spring reverbs and so prefer to leave this knob near minimum. This pedal has a buffered-bypass design - I looked for a difference in tone with and without the pedal in my chain, and could find none. Overall, I prefer the sound and tweakability of this effect to the boss RV-5 and line6 verbzilla pedals which I have previously used (still have the verbzilla but may put it on ebay soon). The added boost control is easy to set (straight up is unity gain) and does not appear to change tone in any way. Although the boost works nicely I'm not using it since I want to have reverb ON all the time, rather than only when I need to solo (which is less than 10% of the time). So I'm often using a Morley little alligator volume pedal after the RVB, just to switch between rhythm and solo volumes. The Boost RVB is a high quality effect pedal. Reverb is the only modulation/ambience effect that I use, and the Boost RVB fits my needs perfectly. I must also point out that the single sound clip of this pedal on www.tech21nyc.com (as of Feb, 2008) sounds nice for surf-music, but does not showcase the full capabilities of this pedal.

I've had this pedal for only a few weeks now. The knobs have a firm feel, and the pedal exudes quality. I've owned other Tech21 products in the past, and have found them to be above-average in terms of reliability. I also like the fact that this pedal does not have a true-bypass switch. In my experience, true-bypass switches break down in just a few years and need to be replaced.

Have not had to contact them on this product. Have in the past contacted them about my Tech21 Acoustic DI, and they were very helpful. They are a nice company to deal with.

The Boost-RVB is a very nice sounding reverb with excellent tweakability and an added boost function. I've been playing guitar for over 20 years and played bass for 4 years before that. I'm not a fulltime pro musician, but I'm picky about my tone and try not to cut corners when it comes to purchasing quality gear. In addition to the Eastman archtop and Taylor flattop, my other guitars are an Epiphone Sheraton, a La Patrie Classical, and a Johnson Resonator. I'm really enjoying the sound I get with the Boost-RVB and will buy one again if mine is lost or stolen. This pedal is advertised as being all analog and as being able to inject the imperfectness of vintage designs. That initially put me off from trying this pedal since I'm not fussy about being all analog (many high quality studio reverbs are digital) and I know nothing about the sound of vintage reverb effects - I just wanted a great sounding reverb effect. But I ventured to try it based on Tech21's reputation, and once I tried it I really liked its sound and liked how the controls let you finely tweak the effect to your taste. The Boost-RVB is an excellent sounding reverb at a modest price and I'm really happy with my purchase.

I hope you understand my english ;-)))

It is not complicated, but there are very sesetive knobs, so you must turn them very carefully. Any way if you got eyears you will found your favorite sound easyly.
Manual instruction book also included, all is fine explaned.

For me it is best REV pedal i ever heard.
Before i had Boss BR5, so i return RV5 to shop after 20 sec. of use!!! It was tone sucker in bypass, plus full of shitt like useless efects.( you can read my RV5 review)

Here everything is totaly opposite - no pressets, no programs, no nothing stupid, just fine working pedal, very very good quality sound, very good bypass ( no tone sucking) at least i do not hear it so purely like with RV5.
I can not describe sound, must listen, but it is soooooooooo sweet, sooooooooooo huge, sooooooooo nice.

It is built very good, hard metal/aluminium box.
For its price im not sure you can buy something better and im sure that pedal will stay in my board for a long time.

Never dealt with them, but I hope they are nice people, so nice like their pedals ;-))))

Like guy before me said - it must cost much much higher....... is it true!
In music market there are a lot of paedals with less quality and with higher price.

Once you've learned "how to use it", it is very easy to get great sounds out of it...

No patches... No editing... Just a great flexible unique effect...

Manual is useless if you don't know how to use an amp and a reverb...

Can??t say it is easy to use... Not for kids... really...

Sound quality?... Are you kidding?... This is something never existed before... It delivers absolutely great reverb!!!

The thing is this:

Like every Tech 21 unit out there, this "pedal" has a very peculiar learnig curve... Definitely not for you - regardless of your age - if you are used to the regular "gain, tone, output" configuration of simple pedals...

This is a very rich and complex machine (just like the SansAmp Classic)... So it takes time to understand its complexity and start milking the great sounds (an endless variety) it is able to deliver...

If you are a dedicated guitar player... YOU NEED THIS UNIT... It is the most useful tool for every guy missing great reverb tone for recording or playing live, and can't get himself a thousand dollars Fender reverb...

This is not as beautiful sounding as the Fender verb used by Brian Setzer or Dale, but it might be more flexible, way cheaper and easy to carry around...

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful reverb sounds aplenty!...

You, mature guitar players, get one of these and forget about the fact that you'll always be greatful with Tech 21 for changing your life... They deserve it... Very nice people offering more than the standard "boutique pedal" makers for less money...

VERY IMPORTANT TIP: DO NOT OVERDRIVE THE UNIT... IT HAS A 9 dB "BOOST" for you to recover your signal... IT SUFFERS WITH "LINE LEVEL" SIGNAL... But, don't worry it is all covered here... Just don't push it, and use the control millimetrically... It is VERY RESPONSIVE... Just great stuff!!!

Tech 21 stuff is usually very reliable IMHO...

They have a great customer service Staff anyway ... They help you, even if you are not in the USA...

Really...

Great! Believe me I have my own story with these guys, and they are cool people...

What can I say... Get one and your amplifier, your recordings an your feeling while playing will improve dramatically...

This is an esoteric piece of engineering...

Great job by the Andrew Barta staff...

Fairly priced (sound wise) it should be priced way above 500 usd...