Guitar Gear Forum

I've been thinking about adding reverb to the JCA5012c. Mainly because I couldn't get the master volume mod to clean up and act right. So now I have this knob on the front that does nothing! LOL
Anyway, I feel there must be a way to patch into the effects loop circuit and add a reverb tank and pot but I seem to be having trouble finding this info on the net.
Any ideas?

Thanks,

mrfret

Effects loop connected to my....hip bone..


Sorry..

Some things are hard to resist LOL

From what I know of spring reverb circuits, you'd need to build up an amplifier circuit to feed and return the signal going through the tank, and then mix it with your dry signal. Essentially, you could use something like one of the Fender reverb units, but it'd have to take a line-level (not pedal-level) signal without distorting.


Here's a couple schematics for Fender Tube Reverbs like what I'm talking about





They look like this



Quite a bit of circuitry

I was hoping to avoid all that!! LOL
Doesn't the JCA50 already have tubes for the effects loop? Call me lazy, but I was hoping to utilize what was already there.

Thr fx loop in the amp is set up to take foot pedal effects like digital reverb pedals.

The Fender Reverb Tank has a spring reverb unit inside. The spring reverb uses a lot of electricity and must be stepped up with an amplifier of it's own. After the signal goes through the spring, it must be stepped down again, before hitting the fx return on your amp.

Get the Fender Reverb!!!

Yup - Ajax is right. The simple thing would be to get a reverb unit that's compatible with the effects loop. Hell, you could probably build a pedal into the amp and use the extra knob that you installed to control it.

However, I'm thinking it may be possible to repurpose the effects loop circuitry (it's using both sides of a 12ax7, I believe) for at least part of a reverb circuit, but I wouldn't know where to start hacking - this is way beyond my expertise. Perhaps one of the more knowledgable folks will stop by and chime in. I'm pretty sure by doing something like this you'd not be able to use the effects loop for anything else.

Good luck!

I have a reverb tank. I was hoping to add it to the existing fx circuit somehow with a pot to control it. Maybe my noobness is showing tho. LOL

GRIMESPACE wrote:Yup - Ajax is right. The simple thing would be to get a reverb unit that's compatible with the effects loop. Hell, you could probably build a pedal into the amp and use the extra knob that you installed to control it.

However, I'm thinking it may be possible to repurpose the effects loop circuitry (it's using both sides of a 12ax7, I believe) for at least part of a reverb circuit, but I wouldn't know where to start hacking - this is way beyond my expertise. Perhaps one of the more knowledgable folks will stop by and chime in. I'm pretty sure by doing something like this you'd not be able to use the effects loop for anything else.

Good luck!

That's what I'm hoping to do. And I don't care about keeping the FX loop at all.

Just to make sure we're on the same page...

This is a "reverb tank" - you can't just plug it into any amp and you can't just wire it into the fx loop of an amp:


This is a "Fender Reverb Tank" (it contains a "reverb tank" with the required amplifier and electronics to make it work)


This is a Redial, 500 Series Tank Driver - it allows you to plug a "reverb tank" into your Digital Audio Interface -and- if you wanted to, it's an expensive way to plug the "reverb tank" into a guitar amp input...
http://www.radialeng.com/tankdriver.php


Here's an easy to use, real spring reverb tank, in pedal form:
http://vanamps.com/products/sole-mate/


I have one of these and it does spring, hall and flerb but, you can't give it a punch to make that real spring reverb splash sound - this can be plugged into your fx loop:
http://www.ehx.com/products/holy-grail

Yes, the first picture is what I have.
I guess I just don't know enough and maybe I'm not asking the right questions. I've seen many things online about converting a reverb circuit into an effects loop, so I just assumed the reverse was possible. I'm not looking to simply plug something into the effects loop, but to convert it or otherwise modify it to use the reverb tank.

You'd still have to have an amplifier and recovery stage that's set up properly for the reverb can, as well as a mixer control / circuit to determine how much reverb to add into the signal chain. Honestly, I'd say that if it were something easy, there'd be mods all over for doing just this - there's enough people discontented with the stock loop (setup for rack instead of pedal level) that someone would have come up with a way to do what you're asking. I'm not saying it can't be done - it's just that it's not going to be easy.

...and therefore well above my pay grade

LOL Yeah looking to be well above mine as well! Oh well. It was worth a shot. Thanks!