Boss FRV-1 '63 Fender Reverb Guitar Effects Pedal

I ordered this pedal a few days ago after hours of painstaking research on surf forums and, of course, YouTube. This pedal is a digital recreation of the vintage analogue tube, spring '63 Fender Reverb Unit, which is the wet, dripping, natural reverb sound which brought life to Surf Rock.

I have never played either the original unit, or the pedal, but I have listened to both on Youtube; grant it, there is nothing like getting the feel of something's response to your actual playing, but this was the best I could do. Oh wait. Just got the pedal in the mail. Time to play.

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Actual Tank

Pedal

I am one who believes in buying in person, just to know exactly what I'm purchasing, but to my belief, this pedal has been discontinued (for reasons unknown), so I was forced to resort to ebay, where I picked it up for $99 (plus $7 shipping), which is a bit easier on the wallet than the $630 price tag of the reverb tank.

The FRV-1 gets the sound of the tank, and that's it. To be honest, I'm a bit disappointed with the capabilities of the pedal, due to its one achievable sound, but that sound is good. Playing surf with the pedal is as natural as breathing, but I was having difficulties provoking a light 'verb out of her, like I was expecting to be able to do. My music is not straight up surf (a good deal of it is, so I am fairly satisfied with the pedal), so it would be nice to have a slight spring effect to act as gray area for different-ish styles, but I guess you can't win them all. Overall, for Surf rock, you can have a Fender tank without having a Fender tank, which I like.

My only real complaint, is that the spring reverb overpowers and conceals the unique tone of my Casino. With my Strat, it plays like a dream, but it hides my Casino's beautiful tone, which is bad, because that's my main guitar.

I'll try and get my own demo up sometime.