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SurfGuitar101 Forums » Gear »

Permalink NPD: EHX Oceans 11 Reverb Pedal

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I went out today, to try out the Electro Harmonix Oceans 11, reverb pedal.
I'd been reading some good comments on it's spring reverb sound and have been listening to it on youtube.
I've been using a Wampler Faux Spring reverb, for some time now.
It does a great vintage, drippy spring reverb but has one annoyance, to my ears.
It's reverb tails are modulated, which gives them a mild chorus/detune effect.
Which I really don't like.
I didn't really notice it at first but once noticed you can't un-notice it.
So I was on the hunt for a replacement.
The shop gave me a Fender Strat, into an Orange Crush combo, to try it out with.
The Oceans 11 has a choice of 11 reverbs: Hall, Spring, Plate, Reverse, with Echo, with Tremolo, Modulated, Dynamic, Auto-Infinite, Shimmer and Polyphonic.
I didn't have the time or the inclination to try them all out in the shop, so concentrated on Spring and Shimmer.
My thinking being even if the Spring was only half decent and the Shimmer was good, I'd probably still get it.
So I dialled in the Spring Reverb straight off.
This pedal has 3 controls, to adjust your chosen reverb.
FX LVL, which lets you adjust the balance between the dry sound and the effect.
TIME, which adjusts decay, or dwell on the Spring.
TONE, fairly obvious this one, although it does effect some reverbs slightly differently.
The first thing you notice is it goes for the that really wet, drippy tank sound, even on medium settings.
And is pretty impressive, especially if you have any love for intro surf music.
The tails are good and no chorus/detune on them.
I owned the Boss FRV-1, a few years back, which again aimed (rather successfully) to emulate the old Fender Reverb tanks.
I sold it because I thought it was a bit of a tone killer.
And in some ways the EHX Spring reminds me a little of the old Boss.
The EHX being a little more extremme and not such a tone killer.
However, if you're not careful, it can give a harsh, toppy quality to that lovely, watery spring reverb.
It took me a while and I may still need to twiddle a little more to get that balance between the FX LVL and the TONE, that is essential to getting that sufy tank sound.
Overall though, very useable.
So it was onto the Shimmer reverb, which for those who don't know, adds a heavenly, synthetic string sound behind the guitar's natural reverbed tone.
I've listened to a number different pedals with Shimmer and I think the the Oceans 11's sounds better than most.
Very consistent and lush and it takes no time at all for you to create some gorgeous, ambient music.
So, on the strength of those 2 reverbs, the EHX came home with me.
I've had a quick go on the other 9 reverbs and they mostly sound good quality and quite useable.
I even used the Shimmer with some delay and Sub N Up octaves, creating some awesome sounds.
Lots of fun to be had here.
The Oceans 11 is not like most EHX pedals, with their brushed aluminium box and stuck on, front artwork.
It's more like a slender MXR pedal in design.
All to the good, in my opinion, as the simple artwork on here, with the white knobs on black pedal are very pleasing on the eye, as well as practical.
There are a lot of other extras on this pedal, that I'll probably never use.
There's a mode button to extend even more, what each reverb can do and how control knobs function.
You can use an external footswitch, turn the tails off, etc etc.
Overall then, despite that it does a ton of stuff I'll probably never use, it does things that I will use, rather well.
Nice one EHX.

http://soundcloud.com/graham-pike

I replaced my FRV-1 with one of these a few months ago and pretty happy with it. I use the spring for surf and plate for everything else, after re-adjusting all four knobs.

I haven't spent much time with all the other features except the "kick the reverb tank" effect which is fun except it doesn't always seem to work. Confused

I also bought one a couple of months ago, primarily for the spring, which I really like. The tremolo is also nice, but I wish the default reverb was spring instead of plate. I don't really have much use for any of the other settings. Normally, I would like the plate, but in my pedal, it rings too much on the default setting (feedback?).

SinNombre: The "kick the reverb tank" effect is a little fiddly to get right every time. Just down to timing and a very rapid double click, I think.

taijiguy: I'm not sure what you mean by default setting? Mine comes on to whatever reverb I have it set to. I haven't used plate yet but will give it a try.

http://soundcloud.com/graham-pike

grayn wrote:

SinNombre: The "kick the reverb tank" effect is a little fiddly to get right every time. Just down to timing and a very rapid double click, I think.

taijiguy: I'm not sure what you mean by default setting? Mine comes on to whatever reverb I have it set to. I haven't used plate yet but will give it a try.

By Default setting, I mean right out of the box with controls set at mid. I haven't made any internal mods.

Last edited: Mar 24, 2019 15:03:01

I’m probably not going to be buying any more reverb pedals, but that Oceans 11 sure does sound good. I like the idea of a reverb/trem preset, as well. Had I seen this earlier, I may we’ll have chosen it over several others I’ve tried.

For Spring zreverb emulation, I am still sold on the Catalinbread Topanga. I’ve had mine for several years, at this point, and it’s been a wonderful gadget.

The artist formerly known as: Synchro

When Surf Guitar is outlawed only outlaws will play Surf Guitar.

Last edited: Apr 13, 2019 21:04:05

The new Fender Tre-Verb looks interesting.
Tremolo and Reverb in one pedal and an emulation of a reverb tank. Argh

http://soundcloud.com/graham-pike

The key to the “tank – kick” sound in the Oceans 11 is not just a quick double - click, it also has to have some kind of sound going through it while you do that. If you try it to start off a song, or without any kind of sound going through it, it has no signal to react to - I actually shot EHX an email about that, they give me a quick response and answer makes sense!

Jimabr wrote:

The key to the “tank – kick” sound in the Oceans 11 is not just a quick double - click, it also has to have some kind of sound going through it while you do that. If you try it to start off a song, or without any kind of sound going through it, it has no signal to react to - I actually shot EHX an email about that, they give me a quick response and answer makes sense!

Nice one. As you say, it makes sense.

http://soundcloud.com/graham-pike

My reverb kick on my unit works equally well or not whether there is a guitar signal or not. In other words I can sometimes get the effect to work before a song starts.
If there is a perfect timing between taps I have not figured what it is.

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