I have one, & it quickly found it's way onto my board. Again, not = to tank, but I actually Le it better than the FRV-1, for what it's worth. Less harsh, super -drippy. And the trem is great. As w / many trem pedals it drops the volume a bit, but I like it so much, that I compensate in a couple of ways - one of those being to run it into a Mr. Black Supermoon reverb to bring he level back up a bit, which sounds odd, but it works for me. As many seem to have noted re: the more decent pedal reverbs, it would be great if you could hit something to get a "splash" - only one I've seen do that is the Danelectro pedal. You can get something like that out of this one by setting the trem high & quick & crashing the strings, but have to manually dial it down after that. That said, I like this thing quite a bit, keeping it. Hope that helps, for what it's worth! - Jim

Jimabr wrote:

As many seem to have noted re: the more decent pedal reverbs, it would be great if you could hit something to get a "splash" - only one I've seen do that is the Danelectro pedal.

Well, you need real springs for a real crash sound, which very few pedals have. I suppose it would be possible to implement a system that plays a digital crash sample when you press a footswitch, but the sound you'd get would always be the same, without the random (but also, to a certain extent, controllable) variations in intensity, duration, etc. than a kick to a tank provides. And I can hear the complaining already: "it sounds too digital!" "Awful icepick tone!" "If you're serious about playing surf music then you need a real tank with real tubes and real springs" and so on.

Of course, it would always be possible to do this the ol' analog way, ie have a spring connected to a transducer inside the pedal as well, so that kicking the pedal would superimpose a "real" spring crash to the digitally emulated reverb effect. But my guess is that to get a decently long and deep crash you'd need a spring of a certain length, which is not really feasible in a pedal-sized box. And if your reverb effect is going to be the size of a short-style spring pan, you might as well go for a real spring reverb, be it solid state (e.g. Danelectro Spring King or Van Amps Sole-Mate) instead of a digital emulation. And then... well people have pointed out that the Spring King sounds better with a full length spring pan, and that it doesn't have that nice tube tone... You see where this is going.

Bottom line: there's no pleasing surf rockers... except with a tube unit (preferably a vintage one with NOS tubes).

Old punks never die... They just become surf rockers.

Amen, for certain! Outboard tube wins. I have to say, the Billy Zoom Lil' Kahuna unit might be the winner, & that's from the owner of an old rehab'd '63 Fender, and a 4X10 Hot Rod Deluxe, which has the best on-board 'verb I have ever had. All that said, some of the pedal reverbs are getting better and better! There is some much cooler stuff out there on that front than there was even 5 years (or less!) ago.

Sounds great!

El Bluesky
El Ray
El Ray on Bandcamp
El Twang on YouTube

I actually bought the Deluxe Plus and tried it side by side with my Flint, and I'd say for just spring reverb and "tube" tremolo it's a tough choice.

Deluxe Plus:
Pros: Ever-so-slightly nicer tremolo sound. The wave shape is literally just a tiny, tiny bit different to the Flint's so there's very little in it.
Spring reverb is pretty nice. Really strong sounding. IRRC I just kept it at 11 o' clock. Doesn't really have a "splash" but it has some kind of texture thing going on. I liked it.

Cons: There's a volume drop with the tremolo with the depth past noon. The reverb sounded a bit too murky on the low strings for my liking.

The Flint has no volume drop with the trem (you can even boost it), and the spring reverb has a more authentic 'splash' sound to it, though it's more subtle than the Deluxe Plus. That has a more in-your-face sound, but not so much an authentic 'splash'. Plus you have more control over the Flint's reverb.

Ultimately, I'd have to go with the Flint, simply because of all the extra settings you get with it, and there's not a huge amount of difference. However, the sound quality of the Deluxe Plus is certainly above average.

I've been checking this out. Can you toggle back and forth between reverb and tremolo? Demos and descriptions I have seen indicate that is can be a reverb, tremolo, or both but you can't easily add tremolo to the reverb sound unless you want to get down on the floor and turn knobs, correct?

I remember looking at this pedal. Sounds real nice. I tend to steer clear of 2-in-1 pedals though. Though, you don't have to use both, and the price on this pedal isn't bad. I also don't like the reported volume drop. That's something about my old TR-2 that made it unusable for me.

Guitarist for Northern Tides from Hudson Valley, NY.
Northern Tides on FB

Why cannot you not turn the reverb/trem on independently? Reverb is probably one of the most commonly kept on effects, if you want to turn off your tremolo you have to turn off the reverb as well or take the time to bend over to turn the knob for tremolo down...

Dear god...

The trem sounds good, but good trem pedals are easy to find.