Review: Dr. Scientist Radical Red Reverberator

The Dr. Scientist Reverberator is an amazing little contraption considering it fits so much reverb into such a small stompbox. It bestows its user with many different reverb types (hall, room, plate and brighter or darker variations on each as well as a sweet sounding Leslie speaker simulator). With the ability to do anything from adding a bright shimmer to your chords to providing absolutely cavernous reverb, there is a reason the Dr. Scientist Reverberator is a favorite among many guitarists who love reverb.

The Hardware
My specific Reverberator has an eye-cathing blue finish with a bit of sparkle to it, one of my favorite looking pedals that I have on my board. Jacks and power plug are top mounted and this little verb can take 18v power if extra headroom is needed. Like all Dr. Scientist pedals I've tried, seen or heard, it looks and feels amazing and the new RRR even has soft-touch relay based switching for click-less switching. The control layout is fairly simple, offering a mix control a volume control that could easily replace a clean boost on your board, there's a ton of extra volume on tap. The switch is for changing from long or short decay on the reverb or between two different speeds on the Leslie simulator. The reverb selection knob is a rotary switch to change between different reverb types, pretty straight-forward stuff.

The Sounds
There's so much reverb in this compact box! Players can easily just set the rotary selector to the reverb they want, set the mix and decay and you're set. It provides lots of different options but still allows players to get a tone they are looking for with very minimal tweaking. Every reverb type has it's own qualities and it's fun to experiment trying different ones. Not to mention the Leslie sim is a sweet addition especially because it's mixed with a bit of verb as well, it sounds awesome. The mix control is pretty fleixble offering players anything from a very subtle verb to cavernous echoes. Check out some of my clips for just how flexible the Reverberator is.

Dr. Scientist Reverberator by Mike Fetting
In this clip I switch the between the mix at 50% and 75% and cycle the different settings hall, room and plate.

Dr. Scientist Reverberator With Fuzz by Mike Fetting
Here is the Reverberator with fuzz demonstrating the plate setting and later the Leslie simulator.

Cavernous by EelFistNoise
If you've read my Year4545 review you'll have already heard this but I thought I'd share it hear as well. This is an example of how I use the Reverberator in my own music for my project Eel Fist. Also used in this is a Dwarfcraft Eau Claire Thunder and a smallsound/bigsound Year4545. The RRR is on throughout this piece on a dark plate setting.

Final Say
The Dr. Scientist Radical Red Reverberator is the only reverb pedal I see myself owning for quite some time. There might be others out there with more parameters to tweak and more features but the Reverberator simply sounds amazing with just the right amount of parameters to tweak while still retaining the simplicity many players desire. With a wide range of reverb sounds, eye-pleasing aesthetics and an easy to use control layout, the Dr. Scientist Radical Red Reveverberator is a great reverb choice for any guitar player looking for a simple, elegant solution to add some depth to their guitar tone. Check out all the cool finishes on the Dr. Scientist Website.