Best reverb pedals
The first question is whether you need one at all. If your amp has a spring reverb you like, the answer is often no.
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We have not played this gear. Every pick below is chosen from published manufacturer specifications and the arithmetic set out in how we research, which you can re-run yourself.
Check your amp first. Most valve combos have spring reverb and most solid-state practice amps have a digital one, and if yours is adequate a reverb pedal buys you modes rather than a missing capability. If you do need one, a multi-mode pedal like the BOSS RV-6 covers every reverb type at 95 mA and there is no reason to buy a second one.
Reverb is the effect most likely to be bought redundantly, and the second most likely to be set far too high. Both of those are worth saying before any product recommendation.
Best reverb pedals
| # | Product | Best for | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | No photo BOSS RV-6 Reverb Eight modes including Spring, Shimmer and Dynamic, with true stereo I/O and an expression input. | Every reverb type in one box | |
| 02 | No photo TC Electronic Hall of Fame 2 Reverb The MASH footswitch is pressure-sensitive and can be mapped to a chosen parameter. | A parameter under your foot | |
| 03 | No photo Strymon Flint Tremolo & Reverb Three reverb voicings and three tremolo voicings, with selectable true or buffered bypass. | Reverb and tremolo in one slot | |
| ! | No photo Orange Crush 20RT Built-in reverb, a tuner and a CabSim headphone output — for the price of a reverb pedal. Skip this one — see why below | When the answer is that your amp already has one |
Rows link to the full write-up further down this page. Prices come from the live price layer only — where there is no live figure the button reads “Check price” rather than showing a remembered number.
02The reverb types, and what actually differs
| Type | What it simulates | Character | Use it when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spring | A physical spring tank, as in a Fender amp | Splashy, transient, metallic | You want the classic guitar-amp reverb sound |
| Room | A small enclosed space | Short, subtle, mostly just 'not dry' | Anything that should sound present, not distant |
| Plate | A vibrating metal plate | Smooth, dense, fast onset | Vocals and lead lines; keeps the pick attack |
| Hall | A large hall | Long, diffuse, obviously a space | Ambient parts; can swamp the attack |
| Shimmer | Not a real space — a pitch-shifted tail | Octave-up content in the decay | Ambient washes; the sound people mean by 'huge' |
| Modulate | A detuned reverb tail | Movement without a separate modulation pedal | Adding motion to a sustained chord |
All six of these are modes on a single BOSS RV-6. Buying six reverb pedals is not the move.
03Pre-delay: the control that keeps reverb usable
Pre-delay is the gap between the dry note and the start of the reverb tail. With no pre-delay, the tail starts immediately and smears the attack. With 20-40 ms of pre-delay, the note's front edge is clear before the reverb begins, so you can use far more reverb without losing definition.
Not every pedal exposes it. The TC Hall of Fame 2 has a pre-delay selector on the front panel; the RV-6 does not, but its Dynamic mode achieves a similar practical result by ducking during playing.
BOSS RV-6 Reverb
Every reverb type in one box
The number95 mA, and approximately 3 hours on an alkaline battery.
BOSS publishes eight modes: Hall, Plate, Room, Spring, Modulate, +Delay, Shimmer and Dynamic. That covers the entire practical range of what a guitar reverb is asked to do, and it means you never need a second reverb pedal.
Dynamic mode is the one people keep. It ducks the reverb while you play and lets it bloom in the gaps, which means you can run far more reverb than usual without losing note definition.
The expression pedal jack is worth planning for. Sweeping reverb level with a foot during a section is a control you cannot get from the front panel, and it is the single most useful live addition to this pedal.
| Modes | 8 — Hall, Plate, Room, Spring, Modulate, +Delay, Shimmer, Dynamic |
|---|---|
| Controls | E.Level, Tone, Time, Mode, pedal switch |
| Current draw | 95 mA |
| Battery life | Approx. 3 hours on alkaline |
| I/O | Input A (mono) and B, Output A (mono) and B, expression jack |
| Weight | 450 g including battery |
| What it does not do | No adaptor included. 95 mA rules out a daisy chain shared with other digital pedals, and there is no way to save a setting — every mode change is a knob move. |
Specs from BOSS RV-6 specifications. We have not used this unit.
TC Electronic Hall of Fame 2 Reverb
A parameter under your foot
Pressing harder increases whatever parameter you have assigned. For reverb that usually means mix or decay, and having it under a foot mid-phrase is a genuinely expressive control rather than a gimmick.
Several reverb types plus a TonePrint slot loadable over USB. Pre-delay is on a front-panel selector, which matters more than it sounds like — pre-delay is what keeps the attack of the note clear of the reverb tail.
TC publishes no current draw or impedance figures for it, so plan the power budget conservatively.
| Controls | Decay, Tone, Level, reverb-type selector, pre-delay selector |
|---|---|
| Switching | MASH pressure-sensitive footswitch controls a chosen parameter under foot |
| Presets | TonePrint slot loadable over USB |
| Power | 9 V DC center-negative |
| Electrical data | No current-draw or impedance figure is published for this pedal, so none is stated here. |
| What it does not do | No power supply included. The MASH switch is a genuinely different way to play reverb and it is also the part most people never use — if you only want a set-and-forget hall, you are paying for it anyway. |
Specs from TC Electronic Hall of Fame 2 product page. We have not used this unit.
Strymon Flint Tremolo & Reverb
Reverb and tremolo in one slot
The number9 V DC, minimum 300 mA. 1 M ohm in, 100 ohm out, 24-bit/96 kHz conversion.
Strymon publishes the whole specification: 1 M ohm input, 100 ohm output, 24-bit/96 kHz converters, and a minimum 300 mA supply requirement.
That 300 mA figure is the practical headline. A Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2 PLUS tops out at 250 mA per output, so this pedal needs a doubler cable there or a supply with higher-current outputs — a Strymon Zuma or a Truetone CS7's 500 mA outputs.
Combining tremolo and reverb saves a slot and costs you the ability to reorder them. If you wanted reverb into tremolo rather than the other way round, this is not the pedal.
| Effects | Three tremolo voicings and three reverb voicings in one enclosure |
|---|---|
| Power requirement | 9 V DC center-negative, minimum 300 mA (supply not included) |
| Input impedance | 1 M ohm |
| Output impedance | 100 ohm |
| Converters | 24-bit / 96 kHz A/D and D/A |
| Bypass | Selectable relay true bypass or buffered bypass |
| Size | 4.5" deep x 4" wide x 2.4" tall (11.43 x 10.16 x 6.1 cm) |
| What it does not do | No power supply in the box, and the 300 mA minimum means most cheap bricks cannot run it. There is no delay in here and no way to reorder the tremolo and reverb. |
Specs from Strymon Flint product page. We have not used this unit.
Orange Crush 20RT
When the answer is that your amp already has one
We are not picking this as a reverb purchase, and it is here to make a point about sequencing. A very large fraction of the people shopping for a first reverb pedal already own an amp with a reverb they have not tried properly.
Most valve combos have spring reverb and most solid-state practice amps have a digital one. If your amp's reverb is adequate, spending on a pedal buys you modes you may not use, and the money would do more elsewhere on the board.
Buy a reverb pedal when your amp has none, when you need a type your amp does not have, or when you need stereo. Otherwise, spend it on a delay instead.
| Power | 20 W, solid state |
|---|---|
| Speaker | 8" |
| Channels | Two — clean and dirty, with a shared four-band tone stack on the dirty channel |
| Extras | Built-in reverb, built-in chromatic tuner, CabSim-loaded headphone output |
| What it does not do | No effects loop and no aux input on the 20RT. The clean channel has a single Volume control — there is no EQ on it at all. |
Specs from Orange Crush 20RT product page. We have not used this unit.
04Where reverb goes
Last in the chain, after delay, or in the amp's effects loop. Reverb before distortion means the distortion is clipping the reverb tail as well as the note, which is a specific effect and not a general-purpose one — it produces a dense, undifferentiated wash rather than a note in a space.
Reverb into delay or delay into reverb is a real choice. Delay first means each repeat gets its own reverb tail; reverb first means the delay repeats the reverberated signal. The first is more common and more controlled.
05The power arithmetic for a reverb
95 mA for an RV-6, a published 300 mA minimum for a Strymon Flint, and unpublished for the TC. That spread matters: the Flint alone requires a supply output that several isolated bricks cannot provide. Check the highest single output rating before you buy, not the total. The power guide has the full method.
Frequently asked questions
+ Do I need a reverb pedal if my amp has reverb?
+ What is the best reverb type for guitar?
+ Should reverb go before or after delay?
+ Why does my reverb make everything muddy?
Sources
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