Some reverbs in real life are crap

[yemski]

Upon briefly experimenting with certain substances, I was stuck by how similar the derangement of thought/mind matched the echoing sound used in dub. I actually found it very unpleasant, though listening to dub I do not.

I too have indulged in similar experimentation. I think the technical term for it is "getting shot out into space like a shaved monkey". For the most part it was quite pleasant. One thing I found was that certain types of music made the feeling of certain substances more intense. Minimalist stuff like Nyman and Glass, "contemporary" classical like Stravinsky or Bartok, most Jazz especially Modal and fusion,and quite a lot of IDM. Triphop and psychedelic rock (although I like them), left me decidely unmoved though. Strange that.

[Barbarossa]

My bedroom does not have anything on the walls and is bit naked... it also has a terrible metallic grainy reverb as sound just ping pongs around. Its not even interesting like under a bridge or in a rocky grotto...its just bad. If a vst did this, we'd all think 'yuk'.

This is a curious issue...a 'bad' reverb vst.... if it simulates a bad space accurately, is it really bad? And can you simulate a bad space badly? Presumably. But it might sound good.

I think there must be differentiated between the sound/color of a reverb, and the depth, the virtual stage, it creates.
A good sounding color seems much easier to program, since even freeware verbs can sound nice. While the creation of an authentic virtual depth is only accomodated by less than a handful of algorithmic plugins.

The question is very good, if well simulated, but bad sounding room, would be found sounding nice on a record. Well, i think it totally depends on the project. For post-poduction, an authentic reproduction of rooms is not bad, but not necessary (think of impulse responses). For music-production, real authentic rooms are not necessary at all. I prefer a Lexicon or Princeton reverb always over a real impulse response, because they create a better depth and they sound better than reality.
I'm sure this is so, because it's more important to create an impression (and music/film production is about creating virtual impressions), that remembers us about spaceiousness or rooms, than modelling the real room. A Lexicon doesn't sound like a real room. Vocal plates do not exist as real rooms. But we love this sound.

[yemski]

I used to work as a summer job in a Popsicle factory. There were these giant, cylindrical, stainless steel popsicle juice holding tanks. (I forget the volume, but they'd be maybe 10 foot diameter and 20 to 30 feet deep. No hard edges inside. Cylinder with somewhat flattened hemispherical caps.)

For fun, when nobody was around, I'd stick my head in them and sing and whistle. The reverb was INCREDIBLE! Thick, CREAMY... you couldn't make out any discreet echoes at all... it just sounded like the components of your voice were sustaining. It didn't really sound like reverb. Its hard to describe, you just have to try it.

Did the same thing on a brewery tour once too. Big empty vat... sounded amazing. I wanted to bring recordings, play them into it, and record the sound, to use as an effects chamber. You could lower a small speaker on a wire to get it all the way to the bottom, then mic at the top, and you'd get an almost perfectly wet signal.

If anybody is into collecting impulse responses... you might want to try one of these! Or like I said... take a portable DAW to one and use it as a chamber on your effects send mix, then bring that recording back and insert it into your song.

I like the way this guy thinks.

[hifiboom]

I am also not convinced with reality's reverb...

Is god using convolution or algorithmix reverb....
?

[lunik]

So what IS so special about plate reverbs on vocals?

Can you suggest any popularish 60s or 70's recordings with examples of excellent analogue plates on vocals?

My main response to 70's verbs seems to be they often have long tails and splash around a lot in the background. And often theres other weird stuff going on old funk and jazz records - drums panned to one side, bass guitar on the other side. Its quite quirky often. Possibly those substances again!

Super Tramp seem to have big verby productions but done very well. Some very nice sounding slabs of vinyl.

Everyone raves about Lexicon units - never had a chance to use one. But in terms of production and sound recording in general...the art seemed to have been perfected by about the early 70's on all analogue gear. There is a bad tendency for the mastering engineers to roll the bass off under 100hz for juke boxes or whatever on lps of that time, but if you get some hardly played vinyl from the era that was produced well, it sounds great. And presumably this all used plates or reverb rooms.

My bedroom does not have anything on the walls and is bit naked... it also has a terrible metallic grainy reverb as sound just ping pongs around. Its not even interesting like under a bridge or in a rocky grotto...its just bad. If a vst did this, we'd all think 'yuk'.

This is a curious issue...a 'bad' reverb vst.... if it simulates a bad space accurately, is it really bad? And can you simulate a bad space badly? Presumably. But it might sound good.

I think there must be differentiated between the sound/color of a reverb, and the depth, the virtual stage, it creates.
A good sounding color seems much easier to program, since even freeware verbs can sound nice. While the creation of an authentic virtual depth is only accomodated by less than a handful of algorithmic plugins.

The question is very good, if well simulated, but bad sounding room, would be found sounding nice on a record. Well, i think it totally depends on the project. For post-poduction, an authentic reproduction of rooms is not bad, but not necessary (think of impulse responses). For music-production, real authentic rooms are not necessary at all. I prefer a Lexicon or Princeton reverb always over a real impulse response, because they create a better depth and they sound better than reality.
I'm sure this is so, because it's more important to create an impression (and music/film production is about creating virtual impressions), that remembers us about spaceiousness or rooms, than modelling the real room. A Lexicon doesn't sound like a real room. Vocal plates do not exist as real rooms. But we love this sound.

[lunik]

I enjoy quite a bit of dark stoner music like early Hawkwind, Electric Wizard, Sunn 0))) etc typically created by drug addled hippie-rockers - which does not really describe me! I'm not quite sure what this means - if anything: "The stoner that isn't a stoner". Something about that vibe is attractive though - powerful energy.

Upon briefly experimenting with certain substances, I was stuck by how similar the derangement of thought/mind matched the echoing sound used in dub. I actually found it very unpleasant, though listening to dub I do not.

I too have indulged in similar experimentation. I think the technical term for it is "getting shot out into space like a shaved monkey". For the most part it was quite pleasant. One thing I found was that certain types of music made the feeling of certain substances more intense. Minimalist stuff like Nyman and Glass, "contemporary" classical like Stravinsky or Bartok, most Jazz especially Modal and fusion,and quite a lot of IDM. Triphop and psychedelic rock (although I like them), left me decidely unmoved though. Strange that.

[jackson]

Upon briefly experimenting with certain substances, I was stuck by how similar the derangement of thought/mind matched the echoing sound used in dub. I actually found it very unpleasant, though listening to dub I do not.

I too have indulged in similar experimentation. I think the technical term for it is "getting shot out into space like a shaved monkey". For the most part it was quite pleasant. One thing I found was that certain types of music made the feeling of certain substances more intense. Minimalist stuff like Nyman and Glass, "contemporary" classical like Stravinsky or Bartok, most Jazz especially Modal and fusion,and quite a lot of IDM. Triphop and psychedelic rock (although I like them), left me decidely unmoved though. Strange that.

Despite it's name, triphop's best taken while drunk. Oh and stoned, of course.

I got really, really sick of music a few years ago that's created, partly at least, for people on drugs. Trance, for example. A lot of psychedelic rock. Shit like Phish, the Dead. Eck. Not dub though. Dub's tight, no matter what my mindset, but I don't think of dub as a drug related genre in the way I do others.

[xoxos]

only read original post -

go behind the carpet installers shop and pull strips of underpadding otu the dumpster and tack them to your walls.

will kill near reflections (test: clap in one treated and untreated room - wowie!)

and free and clean and so what are you waiting for

[The Chase]

the best real life reverbs I;ve heard have been caves and some churches

and the restroom at my old school. I would go there just to make click sounds and listen. When someone else would come in I would start beatboxing and then leave.

[yemski]

Here are some interesting reverb ideas.

Once while recording a drum kit, we used the standard tres boring techniques everyone else uses. We had a spare mic left ( I can't remember what kind), so we put a small metal dustbin over it and put it a corner. The overall sound was absolutely mental, like some one playing a gas tank, but the main stand out was the bass drum. It sounded like a heavily resonant 808 bass.When we mixed the whole kit we blended it in with the main kick, and it gave the whole kit a depth and weight I've not heard before or since.

Another thing we did was to use two mics on a saxophone, one used conventionally the other, placed in an 8 foot air conditioning hose. The sound from this was a bit like a bit reduced sax, which blended really well with the main mic, giving a smoothe performance a "raw" edge.

[jackson]

When someone else would come in I would start beatboxing and then leave.

We called it something else when I was back in school