Back in the 20th century (1976, to be exact), I wrote an article for Guitar Player on how to build the Stage Center Reverb. That spring reverb effect mutated into a dual-spring reverb tank design, with the inputs wired in parallel and out of phase so that when the reverb first hit, the sound cancelled. As the reverb progressed, the decays became more dissimilar and were no longer out of phase. As a result, the reverb would “bloom” after your initial pluck, emulating the sound you hear onstage, where the reverb bounces off the room’s surfaces and eventually comes back to you. (This circuit is still available on Paia.com as the “Hot Springs” DIY kit.)
But with a tip of the hat to Blade Runner 2049, it’s a new century. In 2013, my “Reinventing Reverb” Guitar Player column described how to construct the same effect out of several plug-ins and a pair of send buses. Now, five years later, we have a simpler, more effective way to create it with the Line 6 Helix Native plug-in. (The same principles described in 2013 remain valid when using plug-ins that don’t offer parallel paths or phase flipping.)
Figure 1 shows the Helix preset. The input goes into a Y split (circled in blue, with the parameter settings outlined in blue). Each split goes into a reverb — Hall is a good choice — with identical settings, and then into a mixer (circled in green, with the parameter settings outlined in green). The crucial elements are outlined in red. Set the second, parallel signal path input to “None,” and the mixer’s “B Polarity” parameter to “Invert.” It’s also important to set both reverb mix parameters to 100% and both reverb level parameters