Surge Wave Compact Spring Reverb Unit
A Custom unit will be built for you. I will send you some pics of different housings for you to choose from and offer you some aesthetic options and we will go from there. You can choose from Silver (Aluminum), Brass, or Copper acid-etched label tags and standard or tunnel-sound spring tank.
This vintage electrical test unit, radio, weird unidentified thing houses a real mini (metal) spring reverb tank driven by an original design drive, recovery, and pre-amp circuit. Though it uses almost the same circuitry as our Long Wave Reverb, the filtering is a little different for this obnoxious little guy. It was designed with the idea of sitting beside a pedalboard to connect at the end of your pedal chain and run off an outlet of your pedal power supply. It can run off a 9 volt up to 18 volt output from your power supply and uses less than 100 ma of current. I recommend 9 or 12 volts. The Surge Wave really doesn’t get any extra benefit from 18 volts, unless you are using it as an ultra pristine preamp.
The Surge Wave is equally at home in front of your amp or in the effects loop. It handles overdrives and fuzzes in front of it just fine. If you turn the mix and depth down and turn the volume up, it can also make a really pleasant pre-amp in front of your amp. As you pass 2 o’clock on the mix control, the sound goes from subtle thick reverb to bright, metallic clangy craziness. The sweet spot for most music is with the depth between 10 and 3 and the Mix between 9 and 2 o’clock. For surf music, of course, you can crank the mix higher, though surf is not exactly right in the wheelhouse of this unit (that’s our Long Wave territory). Roll the tone way back to tame the brightness as you roll the mix up. The mix control is tuned to allow for a wide range of adjustments, but to keep a lot of it in the commonly used range.
Rather than bouncing with the guitar signal, the vintage meter moves with the mix control to indicate relative strength of the Reverb Effect.
If you are interested in a custom travel case for this unit made from a vintage Samsonite or similar "make-up case", add a note to your order and I will contact you. Prices range from $75-$150 for cases.
