Reverb: Analog Classics—Plates and Springs

In my last blog, I introduced the concept of reverb—specifically the kind produced in rooms and concert halls. However, I mentioned that recording in a concert hall is not always practical or possible and even larger studio rooms can sound too subtle or uninteresting if you’re looking for a more prominent reverb character. Studio engineers were thus compelled to invent simpler ways of capturing reverb for recordings.

Echo Chambers

One of the ways of “working with what they had” (prior to inventing the dedicated equipment we’ll talk about) was using echo chambers, bathrooms or tiled hallways to capture a dramatic effect. It went something like this:

• record the singer (or whatever instrument) in a normal vocal booth

• play the recording through loudspeakers in the echo chamber, bathroom, hallway, etc

• place microphones away from the speakers to capture the sound reflecting off the surfaces

• record that sound (aka the “wet” sound) and mix it with the dry recording to find an appropriate balance

The Studio Two echo chamber at the famous Abbey Road Studios. Notice the two microphones placed behind the white columns. These will pick up a stereo sound image from the loud speaker at the center of the room. This recording is sent to the console in the next room where it is mixed with the “dry” source recording.

Plates

Dedicated echo chambers, while more convenient than renting a concert hall, were still impractical for many studios around the world that weren’t a huge recording facility. So, in 1957, a German turntable manufacturer, Elektro-Mess-Technik, produced the first plate reverb: the EMT 140. This monstrosity measuring over 8 feet wide and 500+ pounds of wood and metal started a reverb revolution—any decent studio in the world could now fit high-quality reverb into a much smaller space.

Hall reverbs were typically characterized by long decay times, lower frequencies and an overall rich, deep sound. Plate reverbs, on the other hand, have a bright, smooth, dense, sweet, metallic sound that is still a go-to reverb for nearly all recording situations today. Further, while a hall’s reverb characteristics could only be designed prior to construction and were literally “set in stone,” a plate reverb’s characteristics could be modified via dampeners, size and the type of metal used. As cumbersome as they may seem to us today, they were highly versatile, affordable and convenient tools compared to what was available at the time.

A typical plate reverb measures 4’x8’ and weighs over 500 pounds!

As innovative as they were, however, they still were incredibly impractical for live use. After all, what band could or would tour around the country with one of those? (…funny to think about considering the multi-million dollar productions that many pop stars tour with today.) Another kind of reverb had to be invented that a band could take on stage: spring.

Springs

Spring reverbs were invented for use with church organs as early as the 1930s, but the first compact unit, the Type 4 Spring Reverb Unit, was developed in 1960 by Accusonics. This unit was so popular, that it was licensed by Fender for use in their legendary and still highly regarded Twin Reverb guitar amp beginning in 1962. The effect that this invention had on guitar players cannot be overstated; it is perhaps even MORE prevalent today than it was then. In fact, almost all Fender amps worth owning today, including many non-Fender amps, come with a built-in spring reverb tank. Further, the spring reverb sound spawned entire genres of music including surf rock and the Spaghetti Western music of Ennio Morricone, about which I’ve also written a blog. (Compare the surf rock below to the spaghetti western music in my Morricone blog.)

You’ve probably heard this a million times, but listen to the “boingy” sound of the guitar. THAT’S spring reverb!

Yeah, those are literally springs. The sound travels through the springs, gets picked up by magnetic coils at the other end and is sent to the output speaker so you can hear/record it.

Check out my videos page to hear these reverbs in use. “Julia Blooms” uses a plate reverb with a lush 5 second decay time, and “Dance of the High Plains” (currently available as a demo on the friends page) uses spring reverb after the atmospheric introduction. The next blog in this series will be about digital reverb, which is able to create sounds not possible in the physical world! The intro to “Dance of the High Plains” uses an exotic reverb algorithm developed by Eventide called the “Blackhole.”

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