Boss RV-6 Reverb Pedal Review
Boss RV-6 is a legendary guitar effect pedal from the leading manufacturer of guitar gears, “Boss” company. In fact, when you buy the Boss RV-6 you are looking at a processor with eight effects, all in a box, smaller than a paper book. The Boss RV-6 is fully compatible with any acoustic guitar. Also, the pedal goes well with bass and electric guitars. More the this, some musicians use this pedal for vocals. Let’s take a closer look at the advantages of this gadget.
Boss RV-6 Reverb review
Two factors set the Boss RV-6 apart from the competition:
- High quality sound;
- A large number of effects.
The sound processing method is completely digital. At the heart of the electronic pedal circuit from “Boss” are the latest innovations of the company’s engineers. This implies one drawback – the bypass is buffered, not analog (not true bypass). That is, the sound will disappear when the power is turned off. Despite the fact that the reverb is completely digital, we have a detailed imitation of analog sound. The processed sound is so detailed it resembles a studio sound. At the same time, configurations are not complicated.
User Manual
In fact, it has everything you need from a reverb, and even more. On board the RV-6, we have eight modes, ranging from the classics in the form of “Room”, “Hall”, “Plate”, and ending with “Spring” (classic spring), “Shimmer” (many-sided space shimmer with the addition of an octave), as well as “Reverb + Delay” mode.
In addition, there are two more modes: “Modulate” and “Dynamic”. “Modulate” is an interesting modulation mode that’s added to the familiar sound of the standard Hall mode. Boss RV-6 “Dynamic” mode is a completely dependent mode that takes into account the dynamics of your playing, and produces different effects depth of reverberation at the output. Cool feature on the Boss RV-6 Reverb when you plug in an expression pedal you can control the blend between the dry signal and the affected signal.
Controls
All “Boss” products are renowned for their concern for guitarists. Pedals are easy to tune and difficult to spoil the sound they make. Boss RV-6 Reverb is not an exception. Four controllers are used for fine tuning: “Mode”, “Time”, “Tone”, “E. Level”.
- Mode – switches the reverb modes.
- Time – sets the length of the reverb tail.
- Tone controls brighter or darker sounding.
- E. Level – sets the volume of the effect
Pedal is stereo IN and stereo OUT. There is possibility to use mono as well. According to configuration user gets two INPUTS for 1/4″ Jack and two OUTPUTS for the same 1/4″ Jack. On the right side of the box there is an INPUT for external pedal. On the front side there is a LAD indicator to indicate the device state. The robust casing made of a metal alloy with the addition of aluminum ensures low weight and durability of the device, as well as its maximum quiet operation, provided that high-quality switching.
Power consumption
The pedal is powered by a 9-volt battery or AC adapter (sold separately). The battery life will last for five hours of non-stop playing under normal use.
Favorite settings
Earlier in this article, we mentioned that engineers from “Boss” produce guitar pedals in such a way that their sound cannot be spoiled. As for the Boss RV-6 Reverb, each of the eight effects requires a different setting. The pedal sounds great with all controllers set to moon. But we are recommending to use the following universal controller settings:
- E. Level – 2 hours;
- Tone – 11 hours;
- Time – 11 hours;
Boss RV-6 Opinion
This guitar pedal is definitely worth the space inside your pedalboard. It’s hard to find on the market a decent alternative to Boss RV-6 Reverb. It allows you to quickly and easily set up great atmospheric sound. Eight effects allow you to achieve any sound, and the ability to connect an external pedal will allow you to combine them in any proportion. A large number of inputs and outputs will make connection issues unimportant. The durable rubberized pedal with “Boss” logo in it will serve its owner for a long time. Boss RV-6 on Amazon has more than 432 verified reviews from customers and 90% of them are 5 stars. It’s tells best about the quality of product.
Conclusion
Really pretty sounds. They succeeded in matching that RV-5 mod reverb sound and then making it better by making the EQ less scooped. This results in the best mod verb sound I’ve heard. The dynamic (ducking) mode is also excellent. Hall and plate are nice, but conventional. The spring is pretty subtle but you can get it to drip. There’s also a delay mode which can be nice in a pinch. The shimmer is the best I’ve heard – the tone control really tames it. The overall sound is kind of modern: not too hifi, and not grainy like old rack units, but definitely digital. Overall, you can hardly find a better reverb for ambient / shoegaze / drone / whatever.
This pedal is outstanding from a versatility standpoint in that is has many different basic sounds yet also basic in that there are only a few parameters to be controlled. This also means that there really isn’t a bad setting in the pedal. This is a perfect reverb if you want to have lot’s of different sounds but without all the options that would come on something like a strymon pedal which can lead to option paralysis. The weak points of this pedal are the shimmer and delay settings in my opinion. It can be a little difficult to dial in shimmer that isn’t totally overwhelming and the delay is limited in it’s versatility. That being said both modes can make usable sounds, they just might take a little longer to dial in.
I compared the RV-6 with a number of other reverbs, and just flat-out thought it sounded better. The plate/spring/room reverbs have good character, and the other modes are great too. I’ve been playing around with the modulate and shimmer options for leads, and simply love the effect. The ability to run in true stereo is also a huge plus, and highly recommended if you’ve got stereo effects before this in your signal chain. My only small complaint is the lack of ability to toggle between effects. Like I said, I like using the modulate effect for lead, but not so much for chord work. This means I either have to go without reverb for rhythm, or get a second delay pedal. I realize this is what the RV-500 is for, but I’ve seen Boss add similar functionality on other pedals. Other than that, it’s a fine pedal, and I encourage you to try it out against anything else out there.
