![]() ![]() Transients do not twang or boing, but behave much as they would in a reverberant room, sounding smooth and natural.Īs an additional feature, incorporating a damping plate to change the decay time of the reverberated signal can be included in the design. The plate’s motion is then picked up by one or two contact mics, and added to the dry signal at the mixer. A driver attached to the plate excites it, and as the sound waves travel through it, the plate flexes. In theory, the plate simulates a large concert hall, or church, with a decay time (RT-60 the time required for the level of the reverb to diminish by 60 dB) of approximately five seconds at approximately 500 Hz. Typically, the plate is a large (one by two meters, or 39.37 by 78.74 inches) sheet of steel suspended in a tubular steel frame. Plate reverb has none of these drawbacks, although it can go from sounding like a true concert hall to an oil drum being banged with an ax in the subway, again depending on its application and who’s using it. Although some designers have used tricks to smooth out their sound with excellent results, they may still have spring characteristics inherent in their sound, as well as a limited bandwidth, especially at high frequencies (8 kHz-plus). ![]() However, instead of being plucked, the reverb springs are excited at one end by a driver and mic’d at the other end by a pickup - and so are the twang and boing, especially on transient material. Just like the springs on your screen door, they will “twang” or “boing” when plucked. There are usually several rows of them, possibly with two or three strung in a series. The reason spring units sound the way they do is because that is exactly what they are springs. That “spring sound” can range from excellent to “under water,” depending on the unit and the way it is used. Most low-end or semi-pro reverb units were based on the spring principle, as are most musical instrument amps or accessories with reverb. Now digital reverberation units are the type most often used.) ( They were the most common type reverbs used in studios when this article was originally written. It concludes with some “tricks” and techniques for enhancing plate sound.Īlmost everyone with a knowledge of recording is familiar with spring reverbs, or at least with their sound. Later in the article, I’ll also detail how to find and evaluate the materials needed, construct the frame, mount and tune the plate, fit the driver and pickups, and add dampening to the plate. The construction cost will be between $100 and $500, depending upon what components you already own - a lot less than the $2,500-$8,500 for commercially available units. ![]() (If you don’t have these items, you’re not ready for a reverb plate anyway.) This article presents our plans for making a plate reverb unit, which won’t require any electronics other than your mixer and a headphone amp. So an engineer who worked with me, Joe Errico, and I researched plate reverbs and came up with an affordable way to build one. While they were cheaper, they still averaged $2,500! Spring reverb was the only affordable system for small studios at that time, since EMT plate reverbs ran almost $9,000! EMT’s patent was about to expire, and when it did, competitors came out with similar products. One of the things that really separated the sounds of the recordings we could get from the sounds of the recordings made in major facilities was the quality of the reverb. In 1983, I was the owner of a 16-track studio. Many people ask me about this and I usually tell them to listen to some records from the ’70s and ’80s and look for reverb with a thick, pillowy sound that doesn’t obscure the vocal yet doesn’t quite sound like an actual room.” For those who might have missed it and/or may have read it long ago, we thought it helpful (and fun) to bring it out of the deep archives to the surface.Īs Larry Crane, editor of Tape Op magazine, noted, “Plate Reverb. Editor’s Note: This is one of the first articles ever published on ProSoundWeb (nearly 20 years ago!), and despite being “dated,” it continues to draw significant readership numbers. ![]()
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