This is an Accutronics Reverb Tank.
This is one of the crazier music-related inventions, going back quite a few years. Some guitar amplifiers employ these little chambers to create a cool sound effect called "reverb". You've all heard reverb, but you may not recognize that it has a name. Essentially it's a kind of delay or echo that makes a given sound seem more spacious. It shows up especially well when a guitar string is bent because the delayed part of the sound is at a different pitch than the direct part.
Reverb is also used to make singers sound much better - sort of like the "shower effect", a small amount of delay really helps the sound of your voice which is why most people like their voices in the shower better. A shower is a natural reverb chamber.
The traditional way of creating reverb in amplifiers is via a reverb tank. It uses a very bizarre assembly of springs, each with different physical properties, linked together in sets and wired at one end to a transducer and at the other to a pickup which is plugged into the front end of the first power amp gain stage.
What can I say to describe this sound...hmm...you really have to hear what I'm talking about to imagine it. Then you'll hear it everywhere. It's like an echo but with a little more "wiggle" in it.
This type of reverb is often called "Classic British Spring Reverb" because it was (and is) used heavily in British vacuum tube amplifiers such as those made by Marshall, Laney, and Vox. I've got one of these tanks in my Marshall JCM2000 DSL. Listen to various Hendrix songs, and Jimmy Page's guitar solo in Heartbreaker if you want to hear what classic Marshall reverb sounds like.
Spring reverb was also used in the old Hammond organs, to great effect.
This type of reverb is often called "Classic British Spring Reverb" because it was (and is) used heavily in British vacuum tube amplifiers such as those made by Marshall, Laney, and Vox. I've got one of these tanks in my Marshall JCM2000 DSL. Listen to various Hendrix songs, and Jimmy Page's guitar solo in Heartbreaker if you want to hear what classic Marshall reverb sounds like.
Spring reverb was also used in the old Hammond organs, to great effect.
Nowadays digital delay/reverb units have replaced spring reverb in most applications. Marshall still includes Accutronic reverb tanks because they provide a vintage sound that's got all the lovable imperfections - noise, lack of reproducibility, tendency to break - of 90 year old technology. I suppose it doesn't seem that strange, since my Marshall also has a full-blown vacuum tube architecture in both the preamp and power amp sections - and if anything is MORE obsolete than spring reverb in the world of electronics, it's vacuum tubes. You have to buy them from Russia now, from companies with names like "Svetlana".
Reverb and other delay effects really sound best when they are placed in between the pre- and power amplifiers and that's another reason they were often built-in. Many amps now have an "effects loop" that plugs into the signal path right downstream of the preamp section, and this is where you usually place delay effects. And it's exactly where Marshall puts the internal spring unit.
Reverb and other delay effects really sound best when they are placed in between the pre- and power amplifiers and that's another reason they were often built-in. Many amps now have an "effects loop" that plugs into the signal path right downstream of the preamp section, and this is where you usually place delay effects. And it's exactly where Marshall puts the internal spring unit.
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