My favorite of UA’s newest pedal releases brings lots of versatility, and brilliant spring reverb to your board.
Back during the NAMM madness Universal Audio unveiled three new pedals. The DelVerb Ambience Companion, the MAX Preamp Dual Compressor, and Galaxy Tape Echo & Reverb. In the coming weeks, I’ll have a Galaxy versus Boss RE-2 Space Echo shootout coming to Ultimate-Guitar. Plus, you can check out my detailed, objective review of the MAX and DelVerb on UG right now! But here we’re going to take a more opinionated dive into why I love the DelVerb so very much.
The feature set is somewhat reminiscent of another pedal I love, the Keeley Caverns. Now these pedals aren’t copies of each other at all, but both offer multiple reverb and delay voices in one enclosure with two independant footswitches. To me, that’s an unbeatable format for a pedal, and something I will always feel is a good return on investment. For me, the Caverns is a little safer, packing more U2 and ’80s inspired tones. The DelVerb is a beautiful mix of both old and new however, with seriously hi-fi digital delay and both plate and hall reverbs. Perfect for the ambient adventures that are popular these days amongst the guitar community.
Grab your own DelVerb from Sweetwater
But the spring reverb is where this thing shines. I’ve cycled through so many spring reverb sounds on my boards. The Boss RV-6 just isn’t drippy enough (but does everything else well), the JHS Spring Tank is fun and useful, but still misses that vintage vibe I’m looking for. It’s more a textured boost to me.
The spring sound in the DelVerb though is on par with the UA Dream ’65 Spring algorithm that I have ranted and raved about for awhile now. The Dream was one of my top rated pedals of 2022, and the brilliant, drippy spring sound was a big part. Now I have that in an external pedal that can be applied to other amps or amp sims? Now my Vox AC15 or UA Ruby can drip? Amazing. Mix that in with fantastic delay options for both tape and analog voicings (my favorites), plus more nuanced reverbs, and this is a do-it-all pedal for me. It literally allows me to take as many as 2 or 3 pedals off of board. In fact, it has replaced the JHS Spring Tank and Lucky Cat at the time of this writing, allowing me to throw a trem back on the board.
Features like stereo in and outs add further value for me, especially in my all digital rig. But here’s the deal, this pedal is $350, which is expensive. Usually I’m not so nice to expensive pedals, however I think you get a lot of functionality in this box plus I have huge trust in the build quality of Universal Audio. The DelVerb is not a necessity. It’s just not, you don’t need this pedal, it’s a luxury. It’s a fun luxury that I really like and will use for my creative process. But don’t let anyone tell you that you NEED a $350 pedal. That’s not a knock on this or any of the other UA pedals I have given glowing reviews of. But let’s take a reality check, this is fun, useful, and worth the money, but not essential.
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