The Behringer DR600 is a digital reverb pedal for the electric guitar.
This is basically the cheapest available reverb pedal I could find available when I was looking
for a new addition to my pedalboard.
In this video, we’ll go over the controls of this pedal and listen to a few sound samples
that we can get from it, that way you can decide for yourself if this is something you’re
interested in getting.
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At the time of making this video, the Behringer DR600 Reverb Pedal had really peaked my interest.
I picked this pedal up for just over $40, making it the cheapest reverb pedal available.
At that price, it seemed like a good deal to test out, so let’s see what this low
budget pedal is capable of in this video.
The Behringer DR600 reverb pedal has 3 controls for adjusting the amounts and tone of the
reverb, then one control that adjusts the type of the reverb.
The first control is the level.
Level doesn’t affect our dry signal, which is the guitar sound without the reverb added.
It just controls how much reverb is added on top of that.
So we can just add a little bit of reverb to our signal or have a huge reverb sound.
I do tend to find that the sound of it does get very washed out after about a third of
the way up, and this is not really a reverb that I like to use too heavily.
Then we have a tone knob, which can make it a darker reverb with the highs rolled off,
or a brighter reverb.
Even when set to the brightest setting, it still seems a little bit of a dull sound to
me and we don’t really have a lot of that high frequency fluttering sound that some
reverbs will provide.
This is with a direct recording on the bridge pickup without the tone knob rolled off, so
I didn’t really expect it to be that dull.
The time control adjusts how long the reverb sound goes on for, so we can have a really
quick reverb that sounds as if it were in a fairly small room, all the way up to a large
concert hall.
The amount of reverb sound we get will depend largely on this control along with the overall
level control.
Here’s a clip of testing out all the controls for level, tone, and time on this pedal.
All the recordings for this pedal were done direct to get the cleanest sound possible.
I’m using a Gibson Les Paul Studio through a Focusrite Scarlett 18i20, and the Behringer
DR600 reverb pedal is in-between, with the output in stereo mode going to the first two
instrument inputs on my audio interface.
The
last knob is for a few different modes for the reverb; they are modulate, room, gate,
hall, plate and spring.
These just kind of change the sound and type of reverb that we get.
This control may seem continuous since it’s a knob that can smoothly move between each
mode, but it isn’t.
When I listen closely, I can hear the sound cut off and switch modes when the knob passes
between them, so there is no in-between mode.
Modulate almost songs more like a chorus to the reverb, all the way to spring which gives
us this wavy slapping sound of a spring reverb that some people may be familiar with, and
this is a common type of reverb for some guitar amps to use.
This spring reverb kind of has a more hollowed out sound than some of the other reverbs.
The plate reverb is a little smoother.
Hall and room replicate the sound of larger and smaller rooms, with room sounding like
the reflections are a little closer together due to the smaller room size.
The gate mode cuts off the reverb sound instead of continuously fading it out, as if it were
run through a noise gate that cuts it off when it goes below a certain level.
Here's each of those modes starting with modulate.
Then we have
room mode.
Here is gate mode.
This next sound is hall.
Now we have plate.
The last mode is spring mode.
Let’s talk about the construction of this pedal.
The design is like all the other Behringer pedals with a metallic finish on it, and in
this case it’s a silver color.
This pedal housing is completely made out of plastic, which can be a durability concern
for some people, and we can really see how it’s constructed when we take it apart to
access the battery compartment.
To access the battery, we need to use a pen to push in these hinges and get them out of
the way, then pop the top off.
This entire housing and mechanism for activating the pedal seems very flimsy so it’s something
you’ll need to keep an eye and be very careful with.
It’s not like some of the metal construction pedals where they’re very durable, so I
do have some concerns about how this is designed.
The knobs for all the controls are also plastic, and since they’re small and tightly spaced
together, they can be a little difficult to turn at times.
To power the pedal, we need either a 9V battery or a 9V adapter.
The 9V battery is fairly difficult to access compared to some other pedals I’ve used,
but most will likely use a power adapter either for the individual pedal or on a pedalboard
to avoid replacing the batteries all the time.
Of note, I did have a dying 9V battery that I was testing with before I recorded this
video and when the battery level starts to get low, I ran into some problems with the
guitar signal clipping and it gives it a really awful sound since it’s a digital pedal.
Keep that in mind if using batteries, or just pick up a 9V power adapter instead.
For connectivity, we have two inputs and two outputs for using it in stereo, but we can
use it in mono as well using a single input and output.
Most people will likely use this reverb pedal in mono mode to connect it to a single amp,
but you can use it in stereo mode if you’re using more than one amp, a guitar effects
processor, or direct recording.
Now for my overall impressions.
I do find this has a very digital sound without a lot of warmth to it, even when I run it
through some of my nicer sounding amps.
Basically, I just find it kind of dull sounding and it doesn’t have much of a pleasant sound
that I like, plus it can really make a mess of the guitar tone and muddy it up if you
use it too much.
With this pedal, it’s probably best to keep it as a subtle reverb in the background, particularly
if you’re using an amp like mine that doesn’t have a built in reverb effect.
For that role though, I actually do find it useful.
The Marshall Class 5 tube amp has no built in reverb effect at all, so this can really
add more space and depth to the tone I get out of that amp for really cheap, and it’s
not bad as long as the reverb sound is not overpowering.
The build quality could definitely be better, but that’s one of the reasons this pedal
is so inexpensive.
This pedal has its place, and that would be someone that’s just playing around with
their guitar in their bedroom.
I wouldn’t necessarily use this pedal for any sort of live performance or recording,
since I don’t think the sound quality is good enough for that.
Thanks for checking out this video on the Behringer DR600 digital reverb pedal.
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