Art & Inspiration Reverb? Anyone recall?

We had a Motorola Vibrasonic in a 63 Cadillac and when my dad traded the car, he kept it. It sat on a shelf in the garage until I got my 69 Mercury Comet. I had no wiring diagram but I managed to connect it without incident.
It was very cool, wish I had one today!

 

I had a reverb. system in a '65 Belvedere. Regretted not removing it and keeping it when I sold the car. To me it sounded way better than a factory radio stereo system. I agree completely with those who say it was an awesome system. Thanks for the memory.

 

Don’t forget “Heavenly Horns”

 

When I recently bought my '64 Studebaker Avanti it has a Motorola reverb.
It still works and brings memories of the 1960's back.
KK

 

I had one in 1969, in my unmentionable car! I think it was a factory option. Liked it and disliked it!






Bones

 

They don't need um nowadays because since the 80s music comes pre-drowned in studio reverb!

 

Got a Motorola in the trunk of my 65 Falcon.

 

In the CB radio world, we had a similar box called a echo box, or by the brand name, Tweety Bird. It was basically the same thing as the am reverb unit, you plugged the mike into it and it then plugged into the mike jack. You could adjust the amount of reverb, it made everyone sound like they were from Texas, lol. I still have one around here somewhere, haven’t used it in years.

 

Yep, they were like a magic box to us back in the 60's. Wolfman Jack used to hit his echo button
from time to time on his broadcasts, and the reverb unlocked a whole new world of sound in a
car. I got tired of mine as it tended to give you a headache, so I traded it for a color light bar
that mounted under the dash similar to this one. Depending on the music, the light bar would flash different colors
of the rainbow. Only really good at night, and it made driving hard. Traded it after 3 wks.

 

I had a new off-topic car in '65 and a buddy was always showing up to cruise with me. After about 6 months of that, he bought a new Impala which had the 'reverb' deal. As I recall the single speaker in the rear had springs on the 4 mounting studs so the speaker could float somewhat. I don't recollect if it had the electronic doo-hicky but it must have because he could turn it on and off. I wasn't too impressed with it because the radio DJs did a lot of talking between plays and everything had an unnatural sound if you didn't switch the reverb off and on. The music then was "American Bandstand" style and singers and lyrics were still where it was at. The rock bands were yet in the future. My next new car was in '68 and there was one station on FM that was playing some rock band stuff. FM was an extra cost option so I added that to my build sheet, custom order, so as not to miss out on how the music scene was changing.

 

On stereos, but not the reverb, did anyone else run the signal wire from the left and right channel to a middle speaker, and get some "fill" sound?

 

I had a 64 impala with one. I don't remember what brand it was but it was just a box that mounted under the speaker deck behind the rear seat. I looked inside and it had a marshmallow looking thing on the end of a wire that wobbled back and forth when you hit a bump . lol And yes over the railroad crossings it went.....WAwAwAwa. LOL Long time ago. Lippy

 

Retail clerks was at the corner of Stanton Ave and Crescent a block away from Knott's. I had the four track and three speakers, two rear and one front with the switch mounted under the dash for balancing the front/rear sound. @jnaki was absolutely correct about the vibrasonic unit...if you hit a bump or railroad tracks, it would make an ungodly echo bang. We all went to Varian's Auto Stereo to get the sounds.

 

My 64 Bonneville had a factory mounted trunk unit with the factory flip switch mounted under the top edge of the dash board.

I loved it, then I added the old Craig power play under dash 8 track and hooked it up. Great sound for a 16 yr old ! Later I added the Craig power play speakers to the rear and by passed the reverb, wasn't quite the same.

 

Back in high school I had a factory reverb unit in my 69 Mercury. It had another switch above the dimmer switch on the floor that would make it work. It sounded cool on some songs on the AM radio.

 

i had one from radio shack in my '64 chevy. two songs of the period really sounded great on it, canned heat's "let's get together" and "i hear you knockin'" by some english dude.
of course the thing sounded like a thunderstorm when you drove over railroad tracks!

 

When I was a kid in the 60'smy Dad had a music store and I installed a reverb unit in my '55 Ford. It was cool for awhile and then it sort of just never got used much.

I bought a '63 Ford Galaxie for a parts car years ago and it had a factory ?? reverb system in it mounted in the trunk. I took it out and put it in a box and it's still somewhere in my garage at home. I don't know if it works or not.

 

This is the only reverb unit, that is really worth the money !
Usually found in the trunk of car going to a gig !

 

Hey @Sky Six,

Thanks for the nod. My wife lived almost a mile from the Buena Park Retail Clerks Auditorium. But back then, the walk down Crescent Avenue was empty fields and a small store called Tom's. It was always packed with super cold Cokes and good sandwiches. But, these days, the big giant, that started out as a berry farm, took over every bit of surrounding land and the Crescent Avenue is just not the same. Her friends and family had gone to concerts at the Retail Clerks Auditorium back then. It was another music venue for the So Cal audiences.

Even when we were going to college, the drive home was down Crescent and it was a fairly quiet, low traffic street. Besides, her street adjoined a parallel to Crescent side street that had even less traffic. Those were the times when my wife would drive down Crescent to get to Anaheim for her job as a nighttime long distance phone operator. Yes, headphones, switches and corded plugs, like we all have seen of old time operators, to make the connections.

Jnaki

If anyone called long distance from 1963-66, from 6 pm to 11 pm daily, you probably talked to her. Ha!
Our El Camino made many trips down Crescent for dinners and visits to those places along the whole area, including her house...

It was well versed for the local streets, during those final single person days...

 

I do remember that if I had a car with 4 speakers I would cross the left and right channels diagonally between the fronts and rears. The fronts were wired correctly for LH and RH. The rears were reversed so the RH channel was on the driver's side and the passenger's side was the LH channel.

A lot of songs from that time were mixed with very discrete LH and RH channels (think early Beatles or Beach Boys recordings) and crossing the rear speakers left for right seemed to give a fuller, more natural sound. At least on car stereo systems.

 

I had a reverb unit in my first generation Barracuda. The advent of stereo caused the demise of the "getting old" reverb for me. Still have the Barracuda though.

 

Wow...and that's back when things were printed and made in Japan....confirms it's vintage, ha ha...

 

That's tremelo, not reverb!

 

All amps with a spring reverb tank will do that, the sound is from the springs hitting each other, and/or the chassis. Makes a cool thunder sound. Really not too good for the amp though.

 

The dances at the Retail Clerks union hall were before my time, but I recall my older sisters going to them a lot. We lived in Buena Park for a time, then moved to Fullerton in 62. Retail Clerks hall was just a couple of miles from home. Many years later my wife joined the union and worked for a local drug store chain, that union health insurance plan was really, really good.

 

Had a add-on unit in my 1966 Chevrolet Caprice in 1971.......the Caprice I took in trade .......along with a Yamaha 250.....in exchange for my 1963 silver Corvette split window coupe......because I was getting out of building dirt track cars and going back to finish college ........stupid....stupid....stupid

 

Welp, I know what I'm doing tonight.

Wah wah wah wah wah wah..

 

I recall a girl in HS whose dad's car was a late 60's Impala SS that had a reverb on it. We used to put a whole bunch of us in that car and cruise around doing things that were highly illegal at the time (but semi-legal today) and every once in awhile we'd talk her into turning on the reverb and we'd all get a big laugh out of it. It really didn't add any improvement to the sound, but it was fun to listen to when you were under the influence, if you know what I mean. Really, it was more of a gimmick than a useful audio enhancement.