Best Reverb Pedals — The Complete Buyer's Guide
Reverb is the most universally used guitar effect. Unlike distortion or modulation — which define specific genres — reverb appears in virtually every style of guitar playing, from country to metal to ambient. It adds space, depth, and the acoustic character of a room to dry guitar signal.
Understanding reverb types, how they differ, and which applications suit which type is the foundation for making a good choice. This guide covers the best reverb pedals at every budget, with clear explanations of types and uses.
Reverb Types Explained
Spring Reverb
Spring reverb was the first widely available electronic reverb, used in Fender amplifiers from the early 1960s. It works by passing the signal through a physical spring; the signal bounces back and forth, creating a distinctive drip-like character.
Sound: The spring's physical properties produce a specific "drip" when the reverb is struck or abruptly stopped — a splashy, descending cascade. At normal playing levels, it has a bright, slightly metallic character.
Best for: Classic surf guitar (Dick Dale), vintage country and rockabilly, blues, and any context where period-correct Fender amplifier tone is the goal.
Room Reverb
A short reverb that simulates the natural reflections of a small-to-medium room. The reverb tail decays quickly, adding presence and depth without overwhelming the dry signal.
Sound: Natural, subtle, present. The guitar sounds like it is being played in an actual room rather than a treated recording studio.
Best for: Live playing where you want to add air without dominating the mix, jazz, country, blues.
Hall Reverb
A longer reverb modelling a concert hall. The reflections are more complex and the tail is longer, producing a spacious, architectural quality.
Sound: Full, wide, spatial. Notes decay naturally with a sense of large space around them.
Best for: Clean electric guitar in a band context, ambient passages, melodic lead guitar that needs to sit in a large, spacious mix.
Plate Reverb
Originally, plate reverb used a large sheet of metal suspended in a frame — signal was sent through it and the vibrations of the plate produced reverb. The character is dense, smooth, and musical — plates have a particular quality that neither spring nor digital approximations fully capture.
Sound: Smooth, dense, less obviously "reverb-like" than hall or room. The tail blends into the signal cleanly.
Best for: Studio recording contexts, lead guitar that needs sustain and space without obvious reverb character.
Shimmer Reverb
A digital invention: shimmer is reverb with the tail shifted up by one or two octaves, producing a sustained, choir-like wash that grows behind the played note. Brian Eno pioneered the concept in the 1970s; Bono of U2 and The Edge used it extensively.
Sound: Ethereal, atmospheric, distinctly modern and ambient. Not period-correct for any analogue context.
Best for: Post-rock, ambient music, modern worship music, atmospheric passages.
Reverse Reverb
The reverb tail plays backwards — instead of a wash that follows the note, there is a build-up before the note arrives. This creates a surreal, swelling-before-the-note effect.
Best for: Studio effects, experimental music, specific dramatic passages.
The Best Reverb Pedals
Under £100 — Entry Level
Electro-Harmonix Holy Grail Nano (£90) A single-knob reverb pedal (plus a three-way type selector) that provides room, spring, and hall reverb in a compact form. The Holy Grail has been in production since 2002 and is widely respected for providing genuinely musical reverb at a low price.
Controls: Reverb amount (wet/dry mix), Type switch (Spring/Room/Hall)
Character: Smooth, musical, does not impose obviously digital artifacts. The spring setting is a reasonable approximation of amplifier spring reverb.
Best for: Players who want a single reverb pedal with three basic types, simple controls, and compact size.
TC Electronic Skysurfer (£50) TC's most affordable reverb pedal. Spring, room, hall, and shimmer reverb in a very compact unit. Build quality is adequate (smaller components, lighter feel) but the audio quality is good for the price.
Donner Yellow Fall (£25) A minimal analogue-digital reverb for beginners. Limited type options but provides adequate reverb character for practice and simple stage use.
Buy: Amazon UK
£100–200 — The Quality Leap
Boss RV-6 Digital Reverb (£130) The Boss RV-6 is the most recommended mid-range reverb pedal for most players. It provides eight reverb modes (Room, Hall, Plate, Spring, Shimmer, Modulate, Dynamic, Delay+Reverb) in a robust Boss enclosure with Boss's characteristic reliability and build quality.
Why it is the best mid-range choice:
- Eight different reverb types cover virtually every application
- Excellent audio quality — Boss's DSP is well-developed and avoids the digitally harsh character of cheaper pedals
- Robust construction — Boss pedals are used professionally worldwide
- Expression pedal input for dynamic control of reverb depth
- Works in stereo (mono in, stereo out)
Settings for key tones:
- Subtle ambient reverb: Room mode, Effect Level 9–10 o'clock, Tone 12
- Big clean reverb: Hall mode, Effect Level 12–1 o'clock, Tone 12
- Vintage spring: Spring mode, Effect Level 12, Tone 11–12
- Ambient shimmer: Shimmer mode, Effect Level 1–2 o'clock
TC Electronic Hall of Fame 2 (£140) TC's flagship reverb pedal. The HOF2 is notable for its TonePrint technology — you can load custom reverb algorithms created by professional guitarists directly from TC's free app via your phone's speaker (the pedal's pickup acts as the receiver). This means thousands of artist-designed reverbs are available beyond the built-in 11 types.
Reverb types: Room, Hall, Spring, Plate, Shimmer, Lo-Fi, Cathedral, and TonePrint.
- Best for: Players who want maximum variety and the ability to customise their reverb sounds
- Mash footswitch: Acts as an expression control when held
£200–500 — Professional Reverb
Strymon Flint (£220) Strymon is the benchmark for premium reverb quality. The Flint specifically focuses on three spring reverb voicings paired with three tremolo voicings — a unique combination that captures the vintage Fender amplifier character in complete detail.
Why Flint for spring reverb: The Flint's spring reverb algorithm is considered the best digital spring reverb available. It captures the specific drip, brightness, and decay character of vintage Fender tube amplifier springs in detail that cheaper pedals cannot match.
- Best for: Blues, country, surf, rockabilly, vintage styles requiring authentic spring reverb
Source Audio Ventris (£250) A dual-engine reverb capable of running two independent reverb algorithms simultaneously — for example, a short room reverb and a long hall reverb blended together, or plate plus shimmer. Highly configurable via the Source Audio app.
Boss RV-500 (£270) Boss's top-of-range reverb with 21 modes, comprehensive routing options, and studio-grade DSP quality. The RV-500 can run multiple reverb types simultaneously and provides parameter access beyond what front-panel controls show.
£500+ — The Reference Pedals
Strymon BigSky (£440) The BigSky is widely considered the finest reverb pedal available. Twelve reverb machines, each with exhaustive parameter control, plus MIDI implementation for complete programmability.
The twelve reverb machines:
- Room, Hall, Plate, Spring, Swell, Bloom, Cloud, Chorale, Shimmer, Magneto, Nonlinear, Reflections
Why it is the reference: The BigSky's room and hall algorithms are detailed enough to distinguish between different room sizes and material types. The spring algorithm captures the specific character of vintage Fender springs. The ambient machines (Cloud, Swell, Bloom) produce genuinely musical, non-repetitive textures. MIDI integration allows complete preset recall.
- Best for: Players who need the best possible reverb quality, studio recording, professional stage use, ambient music
Eventide Space (£350) Twelve reverb algorithms from a company with decades of professional studio hardware experience. The Eventide reverb character is slightly different from Strymon — warmer in some modes, more technical in others. Full MIDI, expression control, and deep parameter editing.
Reverb Placement in Signal Chain
Reverb goes last — after all other effects, immediately before the amplifier input. The standard order:
Tuner → Wah → Compressor → Overdrive/Distortion → Modulation → Delay → Reverb
Why last: Putting reverb before distortion or modulation processes the reverb tails through those effects, producing muddy, unnatural-sounding results in most cases. Reverb after delay allows the delay's repeating echoes to naturally decay into the reverb's tail — this is the most common approach for atmospheric playing.
Exception: Reverb in the effects loop (between preamp and power amp in a tube amplifier) produces a different character than reverb placed before the input. Some players prefer reverb in the loop for a more "studio" sound.
Reverb Settings for Common Guitar Styles
Blues and Classic Rock
Spring reverb, moderate amount. The goal is to add the ambience of a vintage tube amplifier in a live room — present but not obviously "effected."
- Type: Spring
- Level: 9–10 o'clock (subtle)
- Tone: Neutral (12 o'clock)
Clean Country and Pop
Room or hall reverb, slightly more prominent. Country clean tones often use a noticeable reverb that adds space and sustain to single-note playing.
- Type: Room or Plate
- Level: 11 o'clock–12 o'clock
- Decay: Medium-short
Ambient and Post-Rock
Long hall or shimmer reverb, prominent, often with delay preceding it. The guitar fades into a wash of layered reverb and delay tails.
- Type: Hall or Shimmer
- Level: 1–2 o'clock (prominent)
- Decay: Long
Metal Lead Guitar
Plate or room reverb, subtle, to add dimension without muddying the high-gain signal. Very long reverb is counterproductive in metal because distorted signals accumulate reverb into a muddy wash.
- Type: Room or Plate
- Level: 9 o'clock (very subtle)
- Decay: Short
Jazz
Room reverb or very subtle plate. Jazz guitar often uses reverb sparingly — the amplifier's natural room sound is often sufficient.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need a reverb pedal if my amplifier has reverb built in? If your amplifier's built-in reverb sounds good, no — it may be entirely sufficient. Amplifier spring reverb in particular is often excellent (Fender amps especially). A reverb pedal is useful when: your amplifier has no reverb; the amp's reverb is poor quality; you need multiple reverb types; or you want to control reverb placement in the signal chain precisely.
What is the difference between reverb and delay? Delay creates distinct, audible repetitions of the guitar signal (echo). Reverb creates a wash of dense reflections that blend into the signal (room sound). Some reverbs include a pre-delay (a short gap before the reverb begins) to keep the dry signal forward. Delay is often used before reverb in a signal chain.
What reverb type is used in country music? Spring reverb — the same reverb that was built into vintage Fender amplifiers. The bright, slightly splashy character of spring reverb is part of the classic country guitar tone palette.
Is the Strymon BigSky worth the money? For professional use or for players who will rely on their reverb for a wide range of musical applications, yes. For players who need simple, subtle ambience, the Boss RV-6 (around £130) provides excellent quality at a much lower price. The BigSky's advantage is in the depth of its algorithms and the quality of its ambient machines — features that matter for ambient, post-rock, and studio recording but are less critical for live blues or rock.
What is shimmer reverb? Shimmer reverb adds harmonically shifted repetitions (typically an octave above) to the reverb tail. The effect is a sustained, choir-like wash that builds behind the played note. It is a digital effect with no vintage analogue equivalent — it was invented in the studio using digital pitch-shifting technology.
Can reverb be used for metal guitar? Yes, but sparingly. Subtle room or plate reverb adds dimension to lead guitar without muddying the dense, distorted signal. Prominent reverb on heavily distorted guitar accumulates into an indistinct wash. Short reverb times and low mix settings are appropriate in metal contexts.