The Best Budget Reverb Pedals for your setup
Affordable Reverb pedals for your home studio.
No matter the style of music you’re making, your choice of reverb is an essential part of your overall sound. We’ve selected some of the best budget reverb pedals for use with any instrument in your setup.
These days, many synths, samplers, and drum machines you’ll find have built-in reverb and other effects too. The trouble is, these effects often have a limited selection of parameters and the quality of the reverb can be disappointing.
High-quality hardware and even software reverbs like Altiverb are a considerable investment. So how does one go about getting a decent reverb sound without dropping the equivalent of a 3rd world country’s deficit?
The Best Budget Reverb Pedals
The answer lies as much in the technique as the reverb you choose. If you’ve ever tried mixing music before, you’ll understand the limitation of using a reverb effect as an in-line processor.
Instead, using reverb in parallel is an extremely versatile approach, and using an aux send of a compact mixer is an affordable way to do this. Moreover, using a stereo chorus (30-50% mix) on your reverb is a neat trick to make it sound more expensive.
Some reverbs have a wealth of different algorithms, while others offer a more detailed set of parameters with which to alter the sound. We’re specifically looking at stereo reverbs, so you can use them on a wide range of instruments.
Behringer DR600
If you’re just looking for the basics, the DR600 does just that. With six 24-bit digital reverb modes, including spring, plate, hall, gate, room, and modulate, you have enough to get started.
There isn’t much in terms of precise sound sculpting controls, so your best bet is to find a mode you like and play with the reverb time and tone until you’re happy.
Overall, the DR600 is a great option for beginners and those checking out hardware workflows for the first time.
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Flamma FS02
With the Flamma FS02, you get 7 different modes including Room, Hall, Church, Cave, Plate, Spring, and Mod. In addition, each of these numbered algorithms has a slot where you can save and recall your own settings.
Apart from the high and low cut filters, the pre-delay control is an important addition. This gives you a fair degree of control, as you can really separate the reverb from the original sound if you desire.
Holding in the footswitch while powering on will toggle trails on or off. So you can get naturally decaying reverb tails or stick with the envelopes of the algorithm you’re using.
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tc electronic Hall of Fame 2
The popular Hall of Fame 2 provides a great balance of sounds and dynamic playability. You get 8 different reverb types and 3 slots for saving your own presets or downloading them with the TonePrint app.
You also can alter the pre-delay time with a simple switch and the footswitch offers pressure sensitivity with the expressive TC MASH feature.
When you combine the built-in algorithms with the TonePrint library of 279 presets from top artists, the Hall of Fame 2 provides a lot of value for the price.
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Mooer R7 X2
The Mooer R7 X2 provides a collection of 14 reverb effects from Mooers A7 and R7 pedals. This includes Room, Hall, Church, Cave, Plate, Spring, Studio, Mod, Reverse, Wrap, Shake, Crush, Shimmer, and Dream.
In addition, the controls give you plenty to play with. You have adjustable high and low-cut filters, controls for decay and pre-delay times, as well as mix amount.
Reverb tails can be set to natural, standard, and infinite. So the amount of control is quite deep for such a compact pedal.
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Boss RV-6
The Boss RV-6 is a great-sounding digital reverb pedal with 8 different settings, including +Delay, Shimmer, Dynamic, Room, Hall, Plate, Spring, and Modulate.
The controls may look a bit sparse, but as with many classic reverbs there isn’t too much tweaking necessary, so time and tone is enough to get a decent sound.
In addition, you can add an expression pedal for controlling the reverb density, which is a great effect to use on stage for guitars, keyboards, or vocals.
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