Seymour Duncan Silver Lake

Although Seymour Duncan is mostly known for their pickups, they have come up with quite a lot of really good effects recently that they are gaining quite a good reputation as effect makers. Initially, their effects are mostly signal boosters but they've added more and more complex and varied effects to their lineup. Today we will be looking at one of their new reverb effects called the "Silver Lake".

A little about reverbs

So how important are reverbs? Well if you are looking to play heavy crunchy rock / metal then perhaps reverbs aren't for you. However, for other genres, reverbs do elevate the tone by giving it much more dimensions. Among all effects, some would argue that reverbs are the most feature-rich and lends it self to plenty of styles. Let's find out of the Silver Lake holds up.

Specs

The Silver Lake comes with eight reverb types which are: Room, Hall, Plate, Spring, Shimmer, Gated, Swell, and Delay Verb and selecting one is as simple as turning a knob. Several more knobs are used to adjust various other parameters namely: Delay, Pre-Delay, Grit, Damp, Tweak, and Hix. An addition "function" knob is used to select between: Mod Depth, Mod Rate, Hi Pass, or Low pass. Two buttons are used to control the Dynamic Expressions, the left is where you choose the type (hard, soft, or off) and the right chooses between Mix, Mod, and Damp. A small 3 character LED shows some rudimentary setting information. The unit runs on 9 - 18 Volt power supply.

Aesthetics

The unit is a larger than normal blue effects box with white artwork all over it. Personally I find the design quite messy and the controls a bit hard to read. But then again you will probably get used to it after a few days worth of usage.

How It Works

This is one reverb effects that is feature rich. You can select eight reverb types and then mix those types with six more modulations giving you 48 base reverb tones in total. You can then tweak those tones even further using the controls mentioned in the "specs" section. What you might need in order to bring out the true potential of the unit is some understanding of working with "dry" or "wet" signals. I personally found that the knobs and control took some getting used to but that's not really something to complain about since it's true for most new equipment.

Pros

This highlight of this unit for the various modifications you can make to the reverb. You can also set how the reverb response to the dynamics of your own hand when playing with the hard or soft tweak. The modulations also sound great, especially the Shimmer and the Gated type. You can also use the "bank" and "preset" functions to save your favorite settings. All in all, this is a great effect effects for guitarists looking to explore some new sounds. Though it may not be for the rock or crunchy oriented players, I think many softer tone players will really appreciate this unit.

Conclusion

So there you have it. With so many effects on the market it's really all about finding one that's right for you. Nowadays it's not about which one is "better" and each effects are just different with their own characters. So if you are looking for some new tones, give the Seymour Duncan Silver Lake a try!