The Tall Bird Plus is Benson's flagship all tube-driven spring reverb with classic and harmonic optical tremolo. It is a ground up original design with the goal of attaining the classic 60s sounds but with added functionality and improved noise characteristics.
Chris Benson and crew have joined the short ranks of modern amplifier builders ambitious and adventurous enough to tackle one of the great outboard effects units in the guitar world, and we're here for it! The Tall Bird+ features tube-driven spring reverb and two classic tremolo styles in one beautiful box.
To give you some more background on this new Tall Bird+, we'll share some words straight from Benson HQ. But rest assured you'll get the highest vote of confidence from us here at TME. It's just a marvelous piece of gear!
Back in 2023 we were approached by The Beach Boys to create a limited edition reverb-tremolo unit called the Surf’s Up, based on the classic Fender circuits with some upgrades, which was exciting because it allowed us to slay some dragons in the form of abiding tech problems with that type of circuit. The Surf’s Up project ended but the journey was far from over.
After the dust settled, we realized the dragons could be deader, threw out the 60s schematics and performed a ground up redesign of how WE would achieve the classic sounds with even more versatility and lower noise…and also have regular AND harmonic tremolo in one unit. After trying a few things out we settled on a path that eventually led to the Tall Bird Plus!
Independent Wet/Dry Controls - The dry path can push into wide-open, console-style distortion; the wet path can slam anything downstream.
Size Control - Inspired by the Chimera amp’s bass knob, it goes from cavernous to vintage-tight.
Reverb Section - EL84-powered, feeding a spring tank capable of classy shimmer to wild chaos.
Tremolo Circuit - Harmonic or Conventional tremolo modes, hand-tuned LDRs, and an ultra-wide sweep via a custom 3-pole oscillator. Possibly the only tube powered optically driven harmonic tremolo on the market.
Low Noise - The gain staging has been carefully implemented for low self noise.
Every parameter is designed to go to extremes—the Tall Bird Plus is capable of a huge range of classic spring reverb and tremolo sounds, as well as boundary pushing settings to satisfy the most curious of players and sound creators.
