February Birthdays 
I finally broke down and purchased a Boss FRV1 reverb pedal. I've had an original '64 reverb unit and a reissue reverb unit but after selling those (needed the $$) I've been using a big box holy grail (which I think is not too bad). My original reverb unit was fantastic but with the reissue I had a hard time bonding to. I'm not a surf player, I'm a blues player into late 40's jump blues, 50's chicago blues primarily so needless to say I don't use the same amount of reverb as a surf styled player but have the same desire to get fantastic tones which fit my style.
It's not fair to compare the pedal to a real reverb because that's not a fair apples to apples comparison, but what I can describe is this:
Fender Reverb Unit (outboard) - the reverb is around the guitar notes giving a very 3D feel and open sound. As if the notes are floating
Boss FRV1 Pedal - the reverb in on the note giving faster response and less of that 3D open feel with a quicker decay, As if there is less distance between the reverb and note. But there's less maintenance and less difficulties live with the FRV1.
Now saying that, the FRV1 does share the same tonal characteristic's as a reverb unit for quite a bit less of cash, and if reverb is not a huge part of your tone/sound then you might be happy like me with the FRV1 pedal. I'm a huge analog, reverb loving guy who wishes I did not sell my original unit, but I can get the same essence with this pedal playing live with it.
Now compared to my holy grail pedal, to me the holy grail sounds like a 3 spring emulation where as the Boss FRV is a two spring emulation - different characteristics all together. Both do their thing quite well.
So what does this all mean to me, if I had a choice yea I'd use an original fender reverb unit (but that was before the pedal came out), but now with the pedal as a choice it makes a good reason to leave the vintage tank at home or like me who needs to capture that vibe the pedal is an affordable solution.
p.s. When I demoed the FRV1 I noticed a fake sounding decay/reverb tail (this FRV was at least a year and a half old). Then I demo'ed a new pedal and did not notice as much of a fake sounding decay. I bought the one that sounded good to me because I couldn't chance getting one of these without hearing it first.
Last edited: Feb 13, 2012 02:19:48
