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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.
Sitting down with a bag of popcorn...
Just because I can hook a shark from a boat, I do no offer to wrestle it in the water.
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.
Because it's geek-worthy. This sort of equipment has been used all over the world for decades, but is becoming obsolete. Just like vacuum tubes or computers, sure, plate reverbs have been used for decades. But how many people do you know that have ever hand-made either? As audio geek, it excites me to know people still have enough hacker spirit left in them to home-brew this sort of thing, just as much as it excited me to read about the guy who built his own computer from logic gates. Different level of complexity, same spirit. Seriously, I don't mind finding the occasional "hackaday" style post on Slashdot. Keep them coming please.
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
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.
In college I worked at a mufti-purpose coliseum. The building could be a basketball arena or by dropping in curtains at one end a large theater. Behind the curtains were big speakers. An analog audio processing system was used to make the walls sound "solid" - this was before digital processing was popular. Part of the analog audio processing was this oddly shaped room with a speaker at one end, a microphone at the other, and zig-zag baffles in between. The room acted as a delay and echo chamber. It worked great with one exception. The architects put the bathrooms right over the echo chamber...