Realistic reverb box re-reborn again

Back in the mists of time (9/04), one of the first posts on Music Thing concerned some company called Audio Damage, creating a wacky-looking plugin based on one of those old Realistic reverb boxes. 18 months later, Audio Damage are famous for making cool plugins and being bloggers themselves. They've just released Ratshack Reverb v.2, which is - of course - wonderful for making skinny loops sound fat and adding weird resonant feedback to anything. At $34.99, it's a bargain, but also unusual because it's probably the only plugin which costs more than the vintage kit it models - you can usually pick up an 'Electronic Reverb' for $20-$30 on the 'bay, although I'm gutted I missed item #7402891870 - a treasure trove of black, fader covered, Realistic badness (including the Concertmate 500, which is a Casio SK-1 in disguise), which just went for $52...

Posted by Tom Whitwell.

Comments:

I'm gutted that I got sniped at the last minute and didn't win that auction. Why, oh why didn't I bid higher?

# posted by

Anonymous : 3:29 am

I bought one of these from an actual Radio Shack when I was a kid. I was very disappointed - not at the sound, but that ALL of the faders broke off. Of course, I was not able to repair things like I do now, but when they're glued on, there's not much you can do without learning about installing better faders. Oh well.

# posted by

Anonymous : 6:50 pm

i got mine at goodwill for $3. and it was worth every penny. you can open them up and turn a small pot to the right that controls the delay/reverb length. they should have a panel off button and that little pot on the undeside you can tweak as part of the vst.

# posted by

Anonymous : 8:18 pm

http://www.loudsound.com/casio/images/sk1_ad.jpg

speaking of sampling.....

hilarious!

# posted by

Anonymous : 8:49 pm

That was actually my first piece of gear way back in 1988 and I milked the hell out of it. As I got more experimental, I would have a kick from my drum machine on a send to the input of the Reverb and then feeding that signal back into the unit itself and it made for this nice, warm, distorted yet not distorted boooooooom sound.

Oh those were the days.

TB

# posted by

Mr. Miscreant : 9:03 am

I almost bid on one of those reverbs. I was wondering since it has the inputs and a selector for the type of input whether you can use it as a phono preamp. Anyone know?

Anyway, the concertmate 500 was my first keyboard. I started circuit bend testing in the early 90s with it. Since I took it apart I believe it is gone. Great thing to poke wires in around. Especially the built in rhythms were a favorite.

# posted by

Anonymous : 2:56 pm

Here's a Realistic Reverb blended with a tape player:
http://www.mysterycircuits.com/projects/tapeverb/tapeverb.html

# posted by

Anonymous : 8:04 pm