Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share The Surf Guitar Wave
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
The Surf Guitar Wave
In the late 1950s, electric guitar amplifiers were designed for jazz ensembles and small clubs. They were low-wattage and bone-dry, lacking the power to fill large venues or the atmospheric texture to make notes sustain. This episode explores how the mechanical spring reverb tank, originally developed to simulate acoustics for church organs, was hacked to solve this problem. The result was the loud, percussive, and reverb-drenched guitar tone that defined the surf rock genre and changed American popular music.
We follow guitarist Dick Dale as he attempts to push a guitar to its physical limits inside the massive Rendezvous Ballroom in Southern California. The episode covers his collaboration with Fender and JBL to build the 100-watt Showman amplifier and the standalone 6G15 Fender Reverb unit. We track the timeline from Dale destroying low-wattage amplifiers with heavy string gauges, to his discovery of the tube-driven reverb tank, and finally to the widespread adoption of the surf sound by bands like The Beach Boys and the early developers of hard rock.
---
Connect with UsPresented by Rehearsary.com
Subscribe to The Splice Point on Apple / Spotify
Follow Rehearsary on TikTok / Instagram / Rehearsary.com
---
Sources and Further ReadingFeatured Articles & Interviews- "Before the 100-Watt Marshall Stack There Was the Mighty Fender Showman." GuitarPlayer, January 6, 2023.
- "The Fender Showman." Vintage Guitar Magazine, September 23, 2013.
- "The History of Spring Reverb." Pulsar Audio, April 9, 2024.
- "The Rendezvous Ballroom Reunion: Surf Rock and the Righteous Brothers." PBS SoCal, July 25, 2014.
- "How Dick Dale Teamed Up with Fender to Create a Sound Like No Other." Happy Mag, March 18, 2019.
View all episodes
By RehearsaryIn the late 1950s, electric guitar amplifiers were designed for jazz ensembles and small clubs. They were low-wattage and bone-dry, lacking the power to fill large venues or the atmospheric texture to make notes sustain. This episode explores how the mechanical spring reverb tank, originally developed to simulate acoustics for church organs, was hacked to solve this problem. The result was the loud, percussive, and reverb-drenched guitar tone that defined the surf rock genre and changed American popular music.
We follow guitarist Dick Dale as he attempts to push a guitar to its physical limits inside the massive Rendezvous Ballroom in Southern California. The episode covers his collaboration with Fender and JBL to build the 100-watt Showman amplifier and the standalone 6G15 Fender Reverb unit. We track the timeline from Dale destroying low-wattage amplifiers with heavy string gauges, to his discovery of the tube-driven reverb tank, and finally to the widespread adoption of the surf sound by bands like The Beach Boys and the early developers of hard rock.
---
Connect with UsPresented by Rehearsary.com
Subscribe to The Splice Point on Apple / Spotify
Follow Rehearsary on TikTok / Instagram / Rehearsary.com
---
Sources and Further ReadingFeatured Articles & Interviews- "Before the 100-Watt Marshall Stack There Was the Mighty Fender Showman." GuitarPlayer, January 6, 2023.
- "The Fender Showman." Vintage Guitar Magazine, September 23, 2013.
- "The History of Spring Reverb." Pulsar Audio, April 9, 2024.
- "The Rendezvous Ballroom Reunion: Surf Rock and the Righteous Brothers." PBS SoCal, July 25, 2014.
- "How Dick Dale Teamed Up with Fender to Create a Sound Like No Other." Happy Mag, March 18, 2019.