I’ve been using Fors Romb on a ton of stuff lately and I think it’s an excellent reverb that covers a lot of ground.
It’s also simple and fast, with only a few key parameters.
Does anyone have a recommendation for a good hardware reverb that is similar in approach (and maybe sound) to Fors Romb?
Thanks!
Before people start making suggestions, a lot of hardware reverb units which sound great are actually mono. Are you looking specifically for a stereo hardware reverb or are you just looking to use this with line-in instruments and not an out of the box treatment?
Good question!
In-line Instrument is my first priority/usage so I’m very open to mono reverbs.
But I’m still (at the same time) looking for this to be an out of the box solution.
I’m open to suggestions for both mono and stereo reverbs, I think I can suss them out from there.
I should also specify that I’d prefer pedal or desktop formats over rackmount
I own a walrus fathom and it’s a great sounding reverb unit in pedal format with a simple control layout, but which spans a range of pretty complex textures and has a useful hold function in the second footswitch for holding trails. It is mono though.
I’m sort of casually in the market for a stereo reverb unit which is why I ask, and in that regard I’ve had my eye on a few things but it’s not always clear how useful something will be until you’ve had a hands on with it. I’m not really looking for the equivalent of a modular experiment in a reverb format, I want something I can dial in and have it sound great but also turn it down and just use it for a little padding.
The ones which caught my eye are the meris mercury 7 and death by audio rooms reverb, I had some interest in the strymon big sky but I’m not sure if that’s the palette that I’m looking for.
There are so many options it’s really hard to narrow down your window without really having a hands on with them, I guess your ears are probably the best judge. Unfortunately, I can’t provide insight as to the similarity with fors.
the fathom is a great suggestion, thank you!
It also led me to a cheap used version of their R1 Mako pedal, which might be a good fit for me as well.
The DBA Rooms and Strymon Big Sky are also good leads, but yeah maybe DBA looks more interesting.
I also, believe it or not, am now looking at the Chroma Console, but need more info on the reverbs.
The biggest thing with many of the pedals above is balancing the amount of control (and algos). I really don’t think I want much control and the Fors Romb M4L device only has like 4 or 5 parameters, I appreciate the simplicity.
I think if you dig too deep into any pedal with menu diving, it takes away from the joy of reverb. I have nothing bad to say about the fathom, save for that I wish it were stereo so I could stop thinking about reverb pedals altogether.
Good luck with this, hope it works out to something cool at a reasonable cost 
Edit: this thread is actually great because it made me think about pedals I already own and strymon el capistan (which I own) has a secondary function as a spring reverb and can be configured as a trs stereo in / split out. So now, I’m going to take my tape delay for a test drive as a stereo reverb. Pretty awesome.
I don’t know if @Ess has said so, but the Romb page on the Fors site does mention 90s electronic music as a point of inspiration, which I took to mean something like the Alesis Quadraverb. Lexicon reverbs were also used a lot, so you could look at something like the Oto Bam. The Bam is pretty straightforward control-wise once you know what each thing does. Quadraverb is a rackmount obv so prob not what you’re looking for.
What about the Digitech Polara? I’ve never used it but it’s cheap, has simple controls, and uses Lexicon reverb algos.
Yeah very inspired by like Alesis Midiverb I, but not directly modeled or anything. OTO Bam is the closest modern thing I’ve tried.
If Electrosmith still made their daisy pedal thing I would have said get that and I’ll put Romb on it, haha.
surfy bear
Yes! 100% this, great point.
I actually also have the ALMicon and QuaidraVerb from ALM (the plugins)
and very much enjoy using them. your post reminded me of that, and I see that they’ve released a hardware pedal with those algos on it. Might be a good bet, pretty minimal/simple controls and good sound.
I haven’t come across the Digitech polara, so I will look at that. The OTO Bam looks good to me as well. I had the Bim a while back and seriously enjoyed it.
@Ess! thanks for the recc on the Bam, I’m going to look at that more seriously.
Also, I think the Electrosmith Daisy stuff might be out of my realm. I’m not a programmer, and that stuff starts to freak me out 
so, I really appreciate Romb for it’s simplicity, sound and, of course, price point.
The Mercury 7 is conditionally good. I can never remember what is on the second page of settings, though they do little plastic overlays. Advantages here are high headroom for line level signals and a straightforward choice of plate or cathedral. The plate is good on percussion and the cathedral can go full Ambient Guy on longer decay times. I don’t use the shimmer/octave stuff much as it can get samey.
Speaking of Ambient Guy, the BigSky is more versatile than you might think. The plate, hall, and other basic modes are pretty solid. There’s a few parameters tucked into the menu but not too many, and the presets are useful. You need to watch your gain staging more than with Meris. I’m not sure if I would bother with the new one. I have sometimes used one verb for sound design plus a second for glue/ambience but I do #2 in Ableton. I never had El Cap but the spring on the Volante can get harsh with some kinds of synth sounds.
Walrus Slo/Sloer are a solid Ambient Guy choice, too. This one is specifically good at making harsh stuff sound lovely and sparkly.
Pretty different direction than what’s being discussed (90s rack verb flavors) but an awesome pedal! I have the “compact” and it’s incredible!
You may want to check out the UAFX Evermore, which is modeled after the old Lexicon 224 reverb. You can find them on sale now for less than $100. I have the UAFX Orion (tape echo), and it’s excellent.
awesome suggestion at a pretty solid price! I might be leaning towards the stereo realm at this point, but the Evermore looks like a solid, simple mono Lexicon clone.
Most of the time I use the UAFX Golden Reverberator - purely for its LX224 emulation (replacing the Arturia LX224 plugin w/hardware as I need the CPU cycles lol). Plus it’s stereo. For an ultra-small setup I often use the Korg NTS-1, and I really like the SubMarine verb setting.
Are you saying in those units stereo inputs get summed? Or are you talking about guitar stomboxes with mono input/possibly mono output?
Strymon Blue Sky v1 are sold for 200€ second hand.
A new Eventide Blackhole is around this price tag.
You’re the bEsst!
Expensive, but CXM 1978 is very easy to use. There are no menus at all. Took me 5 minutes to figure everything out. The faders actually help make it even easier.
I’m guessing it would be non-trivial to port Romb to Mod Audio Dwarf? 
Ive been using the new ALM MFX pedal, highly recommend.