Tapco 4400 Rack Reverb

Price Paid: US Free

Ease of Use: 10
I have modified this unit as explained below. It's very easy to use if you know what's going on in the box. I generally hit the input pretty hard cause it brightens up the sound. Then I roll off some of the highs and lows and tweak out the two mid bands to fit what I'm doing. But I generally use it as a "trash reverb", so the "normal" rules don't apply.

Sound Quality: 7
I used to be a radio engineer, and these things were everywhere cause
they were cheap. I saved this one from the dumpster-bound pile a few
years ago and stuck it in the closet. When I bought a used Music Man 112, the reverb tank in it was fried, so I cannibalized one of the Accutronics tanks from this unit to replace it (I'm cheap). That left the Tapco 4400 as a mono unit that took up too much space.

I started to stick it back in the closet, but curiosity got the best of me, and as it turns out, this was all a happy accident that inspired a modification that turned this thing into a different animal. When I checked out the old tank I pulled from the Music Man, I found that the driver was fried, but the receive pickup worked fine. That got me to thinking about how some of the old "stereo" plate units worked: they had a single mono driver with two recover pickups placed strategically on the plate. This provided a "stereo room" sound from a mono source. I noticed that the way the thing was built would allow me to remount the damaged tank face to face with
the other unit (with the two open sides facing each other) and then
carefully reconnect *both* sets of springs to the same (working) driver with each set of springs feeding separate recovery pickups. I then chose an input channel (the one with the least knobs broken off), and wye'd it to both channels (so the "reverb percentage" controls would work properly). Now this thing sounds like nothing else I've ever heard. It's not good for everything, but it sounds great on guitar solos, synths, and some vocals. It's also good when you have a mix that just sounds too sterile and you want to trash it up a bit without being obvious about it (or maybe you do!). If I had known it would do this, I'd have modified it a long time ago even though there was nothing wrong with it.

Reliability: N/A
Oh, please. This thing has no real right to even exist!

Customer Support: N/A
Very funny.

Overall Rating: N/A
If I ran across another one of these for free or cheap, I'd snatch it up and do the same thing to it just to have it around. This thing would pretty much suck as your main reverb, but it can really add some spread to a mono source, and keep a boring part interesting or add a nice washey touch to a mix. I love the way it sounds on distorted leads and old vintage synth sounds. Don't use it on any percussion unless you just want to trash it up on purpose. It's pretty boingy sounding (which can be cool sometimes). I give it *both* a 1 (what a hunk of junk) and a 10 (fantastic value). That's why I registered a rating of "no opinion."

Submitted by Anonymous at 02/14/2005 18:41

Price Paid: US $150.00 used

Ease of Use: 10
It's easy to get it to sound the way you want... just adjust the EQ and reverb level. It's big, heavy and bulky (takes up 4 rack spaces), and you can kick it without worrying about destroying it.

Sound Quality: 10
It sounds good on anything. I like the way it sounds though some people may call it trashy, but those people don't have any taste. :)

Reliability: 10
Theres not much to go wrong, but if something went wrong it's ultra easy to repair.
There is a small circuit board that controls the mixer.
It uses IC's which are still readily available. Besides that it has two reverb tanks and a power supply.
Anyone who repairs electronics can repair this without a schematic.

Customer Support: 10
Tapco doesn't support this anymore.
One of the original Tapco staff does however, and their contact information can be found via tapcogear.com

Overall Rating: 10
It's perfect for what I do. If you're looking for an alternative to a Fender Reverb then this is it.

Submitted by Anonymous at 12/09/2003 02:10

Price Paid: US $100 used

Ease of Use: N/A
Everything on the front panel is self-explanatory, there are sliders for (1) input level, (2) graphic EQ, (3), reverb % wet/dry, and (4) output level. The analog input level meters are a nice touch but very small and hard to see from more than 2 feet away. The sound is pretty 'tweakable', due to the four-band EQ controls. The sliders don't have the smoothest action, and make some scratchy audio sounds when moved. The switches lack the tactile 'click' that we like to feel and make an audio pop when flipped.

Sound Quality: 8
I run a synthesizer (stereo) directly into both channels of the 4400, then into an Alesis 3630 dual compressor/gate, then into the mixing board. With this setup, I get some awesome percussive sounds, such as bass stabs or snare drum, due to the compression. (a la Portishead drums!!!) Running it in stereo makes for a gorgeous effect. There is a lot of HF noise, though, but using the 3630's noise gates is effective in cleaning it up. The springs have a good, 'sproingy' twang - when I first received the unit, though, it sounded very dead and crappy. There was no crispness or sustain to the reverberation. I opened it up and found that the foam padding which protects the springs from excessive bouncing around had decayed into sticky particles of gunk that were stuck all over the springs. *** A QUICK FIX was to take the unit outside, remove the cover, and spray the springs down with some 'carburetor and choke cleaner' from the auto parts store *** Voila! The crisp springyness was mostly restored ... The only thing I would like to see improved is to have a better S/N ratio, and perhaps higher quality springs with more twang and crisper sproing ...

Reliability: 7
Reliable - I think so. My drummer knocked the unit off of the counter onto a tile floor (4 ft drop), with it plugged into the PA!!! Booomm!!! Huge, horrible sound!!! But no loss of function.

Customer Support: N/A

Overall Rating: 8
The 4400 is at home in the studio, making dub / trip hop. The looks are very retro scientific... The sound beats digital reverb for my purposes.

Submitted by Anonymous at 06/05/2002 11:13

Price Paid: US $60. + s/h (ebay) used

Ease of Use: 7
this unit is not self-explanatory, at least not immediately. it has an
eq for the reverb, but needless to say it also affects the guitar tone. i prefer a high-end reverb, as boosting the low-end makes
for a muddier sound. but you can't boost the high eq's too much or
you'll start to get hiss. also keeping the input or output volumes too high will overdrive the sound, like a signal boost. using the bypass is a good way to match the clean and wet sound. in short, it
takes some tweaking to get the right sound. but it's real spring reverb, and no digital unit can beat that.

Sound Quality: 9
i play an SG through several boxes, into the tapco, and onto a '76
marshall 1/2 stack. the unit sounds great with analog chorus and delay. it is a bit muddy, but what reverb isn't? the only clean reverb
i've ever heard is on an old fender twin, but i'm a marshall guy, so
i didn't want to go that route.

Reliability: 10
i'm not gentle with equipment, and the tapco seems to made quite well.
it's from 1976 (i opened it up when i got it, date's written on the circuit board), and it still looks brand new. these were handmade, i
believe, and done so with an ethic that you don't find in most stuff
made nowadays.

Customer Support: N/A
tapco has been defunct for like two decades now. if this thing ever
broke down, i'd be s.o.l. here's a link to a guy who used to work
at the factory, i think he still repairs them. http://www.eskimo.com/~bgudgel/cgi-bin/tapco.html

Overall Rating: 8
i think everything sounds better with reverb. guitar, vocals, drums,
you name it. if you're an old marshall loyalist like i am, reverb is
a bit of a dilemma. there are a million reverb units out there, yet
surprisingly few good ones. digital wasn't an option for me. and if
you're into old marshalls you probably feel the same way. i'm always
on the look out for better reverbs. i've never tried the old fender
stand-alone tube units, but at $300+, i don't know that i will
anytime soon. i did my homework before i bought this thing. boss's
digital reverb rv-3 was the only decent new thing i found, but it was
still phony sounding. dod made a rack spring reverb unit in the 80's
but it's very thin sounding. gibson made a weird reverb unit that
involved the signal passing through a revolving oil can. strange sound, not quite reverb though. you'll find a lot of random units on
ebay if you search "reverb units", but this isn't a bad way to go
if you want to keep it analog. and affordable!

Submitted by JC (no spam, PLEASE!) at 11/22/2001 21:49

Price Paid: US $50

Ease of Use: 7
The fact that it has input level controls, output level controls, 4-band EQ, and "Reverb Percentage" for each channel makes it a little harder than a Fender Reverb Unit to use. But, that's the beauty of it...it's amazingly tweakable.

Sound Quality: 10
Very nice actually. Reverb tails are smooth. This thing can go from barely there, to rockabilly, to surf, to ridiculous. Being of sick mind, I ran the output of one channel to the input of the other. That was fun and weird. You can overdrive the crap out of a signal with the input and output controls. Being a line level device...it liked the Tele boosted with a DOD 250 preamp, but it still worked fine straight through. It just barely registered on the input VU meters (very cool) straight through. Smoooooth 'verb. It can get noisy with the input and output cranked, but at 50%, it's very (surprisingly) quiet for a two-tank reverb. If Greg Mackie designed it, that explains the sound quality.

Reliability: 9
Seems good to me. I'd gig with it. The other guy said his was tempramental, but this one is good. And it's in mint shape! If Greg Mackie designed this thing...I would trust it.

Customer Support: N/A
Good luck.

Overall Rating: 10
I play anything. Not in a band currently, but hit blues jams around town. This one is going with me next time. More versatile than my Fender Unit...sounds different, but I would say at least as good. Sounds MUCH better than some of the inboard reverbs in some of my amps.

Submitted by Anonymous at 08/11/2001 15:52

Price Paid: US $50

Ease of Use: 7
The controls are pretty straight forward if you know what they do. There are two separate channels with rear inputs and an outputs. Each channel has it's own four-band eq(very Mackie-like)which boosts more mid to high frequencies, although it can drive some low end. It has a mute switch that controld both channels and is a simple push-and-hold switch. There are reverb percentage levels, volume output levels, and normal output levels which appear to exactly like the volume levels. The coolest thing are the bypass switches on each channel, which I believe are true bypasses. And of course, there is the very direct on/off switch. The controls are straight forward but require much "tweaking." More on this below...

Sound Quality: 6
I don't control this reverb box, I just kinda let it do it's thing and see where it goes. My channel two is incredibly dirty and creates noise and distortion. The distortion(which is a restult of age and use)would be quite a pleasing and tasteful distortion if the fuzz and background noise weren't so bad.
Channel one is where the fun lies. When I first got my 4400(used on eBay) I plugged everything in and got no tone from my amp, just background noise. I opened it up(by the way, if you ever get one of these rip er' open and check out the classic 70's interior, very tidy!) and started whacking at the various components inside. And slowly but surely my amp started to roar to life with some grungy reverb sounds. I tunred it off after a few minutes of trying to clean up the noise with the eq and output nobs and experimented with the bypass switches. I knew the noise was coming from the unit because when I switch them the noise on my amp disapeared completely. I shut the unit off and went upstairs to watch a little "Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii"(hell of a great movie,) and when I came down later psyched to play a little "Echoes," I switched my amp and the reverb unit(not really thinking about it) and cranked a little gain on the amp and started playing. After about five minutes of playing I suddenly realized my amp had some reverby tones to it(my amp has no reverb!) I looked at the Tapco and realized that the bypass was turned off(I had done so absentmindedly when I turned it off earlier) and that the reverb out put swith has at an almost nil setting. I pushed it up and suddenly I had beautiful cathedrally(not a word) spring reverb going(akin to that of a certain D. Gilmour). The noise from before had completely disapeared and it sounded great! All the eq and output sliders had sudddenly become very responsive too! I got this quality several more times, but every now and then it slips back into it's original noisy quality, with seemingly little or no loginc behind it.

Reliability: 5
This is a wacked-out nightmare of reliability. This thing does whatever the hell it wants. Sometimes even the springs themselves feedback. It has character and attitude, and very decent reverb once in a while! But if you can to cooperate with the units attitude, you'll do fine.

Customer Support: 1
Tapco is a long dead relic of the 70's. IT was started by Greg Mackie and he obviously went on to bigger things. But if it ever needs service(which it undoubtedly will)go get a book on spring reverb(there's plently of books on effects processors), crack it open and fix it yourself. The interior is actually quite straight forward and I was able to figure out what to hit to bring it to life.

Overall Rating: 10
My review does not cover all Taco 4400 Reverb units. It covers the specific one which I own. My is pretty old and definitely saw MUCH use before it came into my life. It probably saw a majority of that use before I was even BORN. So I can only comment on my own. I hate those ridiculous reviews on here that make statements such as: "the tone from the pedal sucks, when I plug it in, all it does is hiss and spark. Doesn't sound like Hendrix, SRV, Eric Johnson, etc. at all!" Hisses and sparks? It's obviously damaged you brainless dipshit. Anywho, the reverb end of this unit(which is what it is made for) is very high quality and deserves applause, even the EQ is a nice addition, but my $50 also paid for some serious attitude. Plus, when you buy it you get a monster device that takes up 4 rack spaces and looks really cool with it's vintage 70's lettering!

Submitted by Nik at 08/09/2000 22:09