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SurfGuitar101 Forums » Gear »

Permalink Surfy Bear for studio use?

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I've wanted one of these for my guitar for a while, and now I'm considering building one for synth and drum machine use as well. I love how spring reverb sounds on synths, see the Moog Grandmother for a great example. Has anyone done this before? Any issues?

I plan to mount everything into a 1 or 2u rack with a front plate for knobs and an indicator light. I've even considered putting two in one rack so I can run stereo or just bridge the two and have super long decay. This would also open up the option of running different sized tanks for different uses. Anything you guys would want to add to this? Would the second tank be necessary or would it just become too muddy? Seems like one surfy bear does have a pretty long decay.

Would love to hear some thoughts on this. Thanks!

A pan has way too high output impedance and way too low output to drive a second pan (in series).
But having two pans in one enclosure is definitely nice.

I have a short 3 spring and a long 2 spring in one enclosures and they both sound completely different: the long 4AB pan is for bright, drippy, typical surf and short 8AB pan for lush, dense hall-like reverb. I switch between the two with a 4PDT toggle switch.

You could also add the c10 mod on a switch, the color switch and a kill dry/100% wet option. All are worth the effort.

Not sure if this is exactly what you have in mind, but this member joined while building one for some really great reggae dub stuff he does under the name Anti-Bypass.

Here's one of his in-progress posts in the Surfy Bear thread:
https://surfguitar101.com/forums/topic/24295/?page=37#p348282

He's made a few other cool vintage inspired devices for the project too. You can see several of his creations on his YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/user/ocoughi/videos

Jah! Ras Tafari Yes

Fady

El Mirage @ ReverbNation

D_Rock wrote:

I've wanted one of these for my guitar for a while, and now I'm considering building one for synth and drum machine use as well. I love how spring reverb sounds on synths, see the Moog Grandmother for a great example. Has anyone done this before? Any issues?

I think this could work very well. I don't know if the drip will be a problem with the attack of a drum signal but you can always reduce the dwell to counter that.

I plan to mount everything into a 1 or 2u rack with a front plate for knobs and an indicator light. I've even considered putting two in one rack so I can run stereo or just bridge the two and have super long decay. This would also open up the option of running different sized tanks for different uses. Anything you guys would want to add to this? Would the second tank be necessary or would it just become too muddy? Seems like one surfy bear does have a pretty long decay.

Would love to hear some thoughts on this. Thanks!

For a longer reverb time you could have an extra pan in there with 3 springs (9AB2C1B) and a switch to select between the two pans. In stereo that would mean two extra pans, which seems a bit over the top. The question is if a stereo setup is really that necessary, but don't let that stop you from building one!

Last edited: Dec 26, 2018 13:45:01

Thanks for the responses guys! If I did do a two in one box for stereo use I would have to use two separate reverb circuits so the pans would be driven individually. My biggest question is do you guys ever wish for more decay from the reverb tank? I was thinking running two in series would make for a super long decay but it may just be overkill. My other concern is that with 2 in series the EQ of two springs dripping into one another might just be too hollow and tinny?

I'm thinking the better option may just to do one surfy bear with multiple tanks and EQ options. I could also add a passive attenuator for synth input signals while adding a FET boost after the circuit for extra gain. I plan to keep this patched into my interface as a send so I can add some reverb to anything at any time. Only other cool idea that I had was to put a low gain germanium dirt circuit on the back end to add artifacts to the reverb sound and have something a little different that everyone else.

It all sounds good. I run stereo Surfys with separate pans in a cab.
image

The Kahuna Kings

https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Kahuna-Kings/459752090818447

https://thekahunakings.bandcamp.com/releases

stratdancer wrote:

It all sounds good. I run stereo Surfys with separate pans in a cab.
image

Super nice build there. So you can confirm the stereo is worth it? What about one after the other? The cost of a extra kit is pretty marginal compared to rack studio reverbs so I'm considering just going all out. Then I could retain the stereo spread of my moog phaser through stereo spring reverb. This just sounds too good to be true.

I am about to upgrade one of the circuits and I"ll experiment with stacking both Surfy's on one signal. I will confirm that a stereo signal is very lush, particularly with two different types of pans.

The Kahuna Kings

https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Kahuna-Kings/459752090818447

https://thekahunakings.bandcamp.com/releases

stratdancer wrote:

I am about to upgrade one of the circuits and I"ll experiment with stacking both Surfy's on one signal. I will confirm that a stereo signal is very lush, particularly with two different types of pans.

Well I've got two on the way now so curious to hear back as to if its awesome. My other idea is to mount surfy on my guitar board with the tank under my pedalboard and then do a different surfy with mods in a rack case for studio use.

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