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Mike Storey and His Plate Reverb (Video)
"Reverberation is the persistence of sound in a particular space after the original sound is produced," says Wikipedia. More often than not, in studio recordings reverb is added digitally; virtually every FOSS or proprietary sound-editing program has a built-in reverb utility. But what if you're the sort of purist who prefers the analog sound of vinyl records to the digital sound of MP3s or CDs? What if you're the kind of musician who records at the original Sun Studio in Memphis to get that original rock and roll sound? That may be overly picky for most musicians, but there are some who would rather sound like Johnny Cash than Flavor Flav, and they're the ones who are going to insist on real analog reverb instead of twiddling a setting in Audacity. There are many types of analog reverbs, of course. One of the purest types, preferred by many audio purists, is the adjustable plate reverb, and Jim Cunnigham's Ecoplate is considered by many to be the best plate reverb ever -- which brings us to Mike Storey, who wanted an Ecoplate-type plate reverb so badly that he spent eight months building one. He'll run your audio files through it for a (highly negotiable) fee, and maybe give you a bit of advice if you want to build your own, although his biggest piece of advice for you (at the end of the video) to think long and hard before you become a home-brew reverberator, with or without advice and components from Jim Cunningham.
I'll run your music through my super-secret-sauce Monster Cables reverberator for only 10x what this guy is charging! That means its going to sound 10 times better. You can't go wrong with a deal like that!
Oh, now I see. As you were.
I didn't use to be aware of what the studio space bring to a recording under I started collecting releases from the jazz and classical label ECM, whose uncanny founder Manfred Eicher produces nearly every recording himself in the best venue he can find. I've heard jazz recordings on ECM that might be banal under any other producer, but the studio ambience curiously becomes a sort of musical substance, endowing weight and beauty to otherwise unworthy music. For music that is great already, the production just pushes it to even more sublime heights (I'd point to the ECM recording of Arvo Part's Kanon Pokajanen as an example of that).
Anyone else know of a label where the studio ambience plays a large role?
You could have dropped a few more names of people no one on slashdot knows in there!
DDD audio CDs are the purist sound because there's no possible tape hiss or snap/crackle/degradation of needle on vinyl.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
But it's jazz, no-one cares.
But I can't tell any difference. I mean, that means he built it really well. But it also means it's pointless...
I worked in a recording studio that had a nice, large, live room - no parallel walls (including the ceiling/floor). Very often we would use that room as the reverb in our mixdowns. A single high-end speaker in one end and a couple of nice mics on the other was the sweetest reverb you could get. If you have a good sized garage that is "bouncy", you can get a nice short verb out of that.
Goodness, my typing is sloppy. The first sentence should read "I didn't use to be aware of what the studio space could bring to a recording until I started collecting releases from the jazz and classical label ECM".
(An edit function on Slashdot would be great, at least for posters with good karma whom one can trust not to e.g. change acceptable posts into Goatse links after they've been modded to +5.)
I've been a recording engineer for many decades. The notion that plate reverbs are "the purest type" is laughable. Typical internet product-mojo hogwash.
Plate reverbs have a very distinct sound, as do spring reverbs. If a plate reverb sound is desired for a project, it's perfectly reasonable for a 'purist" to prefer a REAL plate to a digitally modeled plate. No issue with that.
Digital (DSP) acoustic reverb modeling has been in use since the 80's with Yamaha's and Lexicon's units paving the way. Its emulation of real acoustic environments sounded astonishing back then, and 25 years later it sounds even more astonishing. Purist should probably consider how they are using reverb, not so much how it is generated. But if you have more money than brains, fill your boots.
Plate reverb is synthetic reverb. It is done, literally, by making a large metal plate vibrate. These days it is very rarely done as an actual physical thing since it can be simulated very well digitally, and with more flexibility.
However, any time you have a new technology, there are always "purists" who claim that it ruins everything and want to do it the old fashion way, hence there are places with real plate reverb units.
Actual room reverb or ambiance is captured just as function of recording in that space. The micing techniques you use (like what kind of pickup, how close to the musicians and so on) controls the amount. It can also be added later to quite a high degree of realism by taking an impulse of the room and using digital convolution on the audio signal. Still not quite the same as an actual recording in the space for various reasons, but close.
In terms of studios with famous ambiance, East West has one of the better ones out there. They bought the Cello Studios in California and there are some very good sounding rooms there. On account of that, many acts hire out the space to record in. It is also where they record their own samples, of course.
Anyone else know of a label where the studio ambience plays a large role?
I know of a person rather than a label - I think Devin Townsend has a knack of improving music he produces, apart from being a good musician himself. For example, his production had a nice effect on the quality of Soilwork's Natural Born Chaos album. This may not be your cup of tea, though, since it's death metal.
Some of the artists on ECM hate that sound and have left the label and /or left the label precisely because of it.
And they had 5 of the Ecoplate monsters. They have a sound all to their own - bigger, fuller, warmer, with more depth, that couldn't be duplicated any other way, and Warners had about every type of reverb at the studio. You have to sit in a control room, listening through great monitors like Westlakes, to hear what they do to vocals and drums. For voice, a good C12 and an Ecoplate will put a S$^t eatin' grin on any engineer's face.
Republican leadership = Idiocracy
Nice. Digital samples processed through analog reverb and digitized again.
Analog is SO MUCH better than sucky digital.
-- Boycott Shell
Cite? I've only read stories about artists happy to move from another label to ECM in order to get that ECM sound. It would be interesting to read the stories of dissenters.
An edit function on Slashdot would be great, at least for posters with good karma whom one can trust not to e.g. change acceptable posts into Goatse links after they've been modded to +5.
That should be the ONLY use for an edit function.
had a technique where he would pipe the audio from the recording studio down to a basement where loudspeakers played the audio and picked it back up on microphones and back to the control room. I always thought that it would be fun to try if I had access to a large warehouse or something.
somewhere along the lines of history, they added the 'reverb' knob to amps - and from there, people seemed to think any form of DECAY is REVERB.
... the propagation of incorrect use (eg, hijacking) of the term REVERB continues.
it is not, although many use it as slang. but most do not appear to understand the true definition of REVERB and thus REVERBERANT SOUND-FIELD, and the volume requirements required to support such energy flows.
a reverberant sound-field is one where the energy flows are statistically equal and probable in every direction. one cannot resolve an indirect specular reflection's gain, time arrival (with respect to the direct signal), and vector (direction). the energy is "well-mixed".
and the bounded acoustical space's volume required to support such a reverberant sound-field at a given frequency is dictated by Dr. Manfred Schroeders work in this field - and also his FsubL equation.
without the existence of a statistically "random-incidence" "diffuse-field", you do not have "reverb".
people seem to imply any form of signal decay or acoustical decay of a bounded space as being "reverb". this is entirely incorrect. in small acoustical spaces that lack the volume to support a reverberant sound-field at a given frequency, we instead of focused specular reflections and modal issues - all local areas of variable pressure with respect to the ambient noise floor. what reverberation that DOES exist is above our hearing range and below the ambient noise floor. this is also why you do not have a critical-distance (Dc) of which the reverberant sound-field becomes louder in gain than the direct signal. this is also why RTxx (RT60) calculations and Sabine's equations are entirely irrelevant unless one is within a Large Acoustical Space.
and now with Plate Reverbs or any other "FX" knob that applies a form of decay to a signal
http://www.hometheatershack.com/forums/home-audio-acoustics/12027-appropriate-replacement-rt60s-sas.html
". But what if you're the sort of purist who prefers the analog sound of vinyl records to the digital sound of MP3s or CDs?
that's 'hipster' not 'purist'.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
There are still artists/engineers that master things properly.
They have an edit button, it's called preview. /. doesn't need an after submit post button, it needs reader who read the preview.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
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metal plates connected together with springs and a simple lever to increase or decrease the tension between plates, place this device in front of speaker and run your audio in thru another mike in front of said device, you get that OLD fender telecaster kind of twangy pure analog reverb
If you go to the UofC's computer music lab, you'll find a plate reverb that I built in the 1980s. I've got a spring reverb from a trashed Fender amp from the 60's and even a chamber reverb that I built in an unused shower in the basement bathroom here at the house.
I especially love the reverbs based on solid media. I did music way back when that used the harp from an upright grand piano as the reverb medium. It was only adjustable in the crudest way, but there was something about the different string thicknesses that gave it a very nice, complex texture.
Nowadays? As much as I'd like to say "The old ways were the best", convolution and synthesized reverbs have absolutely surpassed the old stuff. (though I've got an old bucket brigade analog delay that has a wild sound that I cannot replicate with the newer technologies).
You are welcome on my lawn.
Rock: Playing 4 chords to thousands of people
Jass: Playing thousands of chords to 4 people.
They can take my LifeAlert pendant when they pry it from my cold dead fingers.
For free, you can send your sounds into a grain silo in Quebec for reverberation: http://www.silophone.net/ Unfortunately, this project is so old it uses RealAudio.
In high school. I didn't even have a spring, so I wrapped a piece of wire tightly around a pencil and then slid it off the end. Put this between two pieces of plastic at the ends of a cardboard tube (section of wrapping paper tube). Glued a little 3" speaker to one end and a mic the other. Played some sound through it. It sounded like total crap - as if someone was talking / playing music in a garbage can. But reverberate it did. So the lesson was that it's easy, but as expected using quality components is important. And given that "quality" is going to be difficult to specify, one should probably do this all digitally where it's easy to make changes.
Anyone else note "although his biggest piece of advice for you (at the end of the video) " in the original post, and wonder where in hell the video is located?
Three Squirrels
The beats are actually producing a lower frequency sound, hence why you can hear it. A band limited system has no problems capturing it.
It turns out that really, digital sampling does the trick. All the arguments people come up with against it come from not understanding how it works, and not understanding how human hearing works.
So yes, if you create an interference pattern between two high frequency waves the results is a lower frequency wave, one that is quite real. As such when it applies to acoustics and sampling, one that will be recorded, if it is within the pass band of the system.
The reverb is the suckiest part of ECM. Aside from being cartoony, it emphasizes non-musical stuff like string noise.
Honestly, what's the real difference to digital "fake" reverb, musically speaking? If you're using it to create a fake perspective or as glue for music that doesn't dynamically hold together well, then it's a distraction hiding your real problems that need solving.
Yeah, I don't think they do that on like Keith Jarrett records.
it needs a reader who read the preview ... snicker
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
One of the most basic principles of signal processing is the impulse response - how a system reacts to a unit pulse of zero time.
An interesting aspect is that sound, when digitized using PCM is just a series of impulses of varying heights. If you convolve the impulse response with the input signal, you get a signal that "sounds like" you sent it through the original system.
The real trick is getting the impulse response - where you put the microphones determines where you "hear" it, and where you set off the impulse determines where the "source" is. For a simple reverb box, it's pretty easy (one input, one output). For a complex environment like a theatre, you'd probably want the best acoustic spot to be the "ears" (getting the response), and set of multiple impulses in various locations (e.g., at each instrument spot onstage, so each instrument's recording can be convolved with its specific impulse response).
Oh yeah - most good audio editors will have a "convolution" filter that takes an impulse response and applies it to the input signal, so all you need is the impulse response of this thing and you're set.
Apart from the usual nit-picking over audiophile and their slightly fetish-like obsessions with materials, this device is going to pick up environment sounds. A good plate reverb must be well shielded. This one isn't, and his apartment is pretty noisy, judging by the video.
And wrt convolution: the normal convolution reverbs are simple FIR convolvers, which is a highly idealized model. In reality, processes are never finite (but we don't care, if the sampled response is long enough), but more importantly they can be non-linear. Saturation effects are very much liked by musicians, but cannot be treated as a normal convolution process. There have been attempts at modelling non-linear processes with convolution, but not to great success.
Anyway, it is a great project.
I would like to mention that with due respect to Ecoplate there are many seasoned audio professionals who would argue that the best reverbs are proper acoustic chambers like Capitol Studios' basement rooms, the Power Station's stairwells in NYC or the ones rumoured to be at Abbey Road and Air Studios in the UK.
As far as getting awesome plate reverb, there'll be some who will say that a pair of well-tuned and maintained mono tube EMT 140 units ganged together as a stereo effect is pretty much unbeatable. But the maintenance and tuning is a real lost art that very few techs remember. Also equally worthy of mention is the EMT 240 gold-foil plate, which has a sound of it own and has arguably been used on so many records that it is a necessary part of a producer's arsenal to get certain vintage sounds.
Although looked on as black sheeps by many fancy mix engineers, spring reverbs like the ones used back in the day at King Tubby's and Lee Scratch Perry's studios in Jamaica are something that just cannot be emulated with software, and have become such an integral part of the sound of Reggae that some pundits might find it a bit disingenuous to say that Ecoplates are that superior. Just as much, many producers used to splash AKG BX-10 and BX-20 spring reverb on many a track to the point that that sound became an important part of pop music in the late 60's and 70's.
So I'd venture to say that for anyone reading this who hasn't had experience with the gear mentioned those pronouncements about Ecoplate being so incredible should clearly be taken as a matter of someone's taste, aesthetic and cultural biases, rather than as fact.
I did not even bother going into the high-end digital reverb category, with serious contenders from Quantec, Bricasti, EMT, Sony, Lexicon, TC Electronics and other brands, many of which have found favor with all of today's price-is-no-object top mix engineers.
Just the same way a Neumann U-47 microphone can sound pretty bad when not used properly if either of its irreplaceable VF-14m tube inside or its gold-foil capsule have gone to the dogs, this is yet another illustration of what an inexact science audio production really is.
As always, use your ears!
virtually every FOSS or proprietary sound-editing program
Was there a need to list both types of software? Or is there another type of software, that has sound-editing programs that doesn't include this?
Or was this just another way to toss "FOSS" out there?
Plate and spring reverb units will produce different output a good ear can hear depending on where the unit is located. I.e a norther high altitude location will have a sound that is different than a sea level equator location. There are issues with gravity waves as well.
He seems to drag on what is really much simpler, like the interview is being run though the reeeeeeevvvvvvvvvvvverrrrrrrb
There are no good plate reverb emulations yet, so the real thing is the only way to get that sound.
Modelling a metal plate is way beyond today's available DSP power to do as a real time process. I have run simulations, but they take about 15 hours to process three seconds of audio (at a 22Khz sample rate). The difficulty is that it's very hard to reduce the number of nodes the model uses before it stops sounding like a plate.
The same problems are inherent in modelling cymbals, which is why no one does that either.
You can use convolution to emulate a single snapshot of a plate, but it sounds about as realistic as a drum machine cymbal, which is also a single snapshot. One the plate or cymbal is played several times in succession, it's obvious from the lack of model complexity and energy build up that it's a sample.
Some companies (like UAD) try and get around this by using a combination of a modulated algorithmic 'plate' reverb for the tail, combined with convolution for the initial attack, but it tends to sound just like that, and still doesn't respond like a real plate.
Just send him a dirac impulse, and create a 'Mike Storey's plate reverb' plugin for audacity. It's not rocket science.