Digital reverb

woops

woops

is not like other people
william_kent said:
@Woebot once made a thread "echo and reverb" which covers some of the history of reverb - in which @woops made some pretty pertinent points - plus plenty of examples of historical uses of reverb, echo, and delay in pre-80s recordings - it wasn't always "dry" before the 80s
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well my understanding is that when digital reverb was invented whenever that was, was the first time you had a reasonable reproduction of a physical space. prior to that you only had simulations of "what" a sound reverberating "might" sound like. the reverb was produced by a physical object like a spring - or a plate reverb which apparently was so massive it filled a room. so these effects could be used tastefully i suppose, but if they were turned up loud and noticeable as on most of those 60s records in @Woebot's thread, they'd sound like a special effect.

but suddenly you have this relatively small unit, the digital reverb, which could produce a realistic (probably at first not that realistic, but more so as technology improves) reproduction of a physical space, like all the classic presets "cathedral", "drum room" and so on. these were modelled after nature, ie you'd have a load of echoes (produced by a delay) increasingly filtered (and "convoluted") by the acoustics of the space in question. a bit like the classic thing of shouting across a canyon, hello-0-0 same principle right? in a small space like a bathroom that happens much more quickly.

20 to 1 at night
 
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woops

woops

is not like other people
so suddenly you have this effect that is much more useable and tempting to the producers of the time and next thing you know, they're putting it on everything, cos they're producers. it sounds fresh and everyone wants it etc. and a new era is born. not only that but phil collins figures out a way to "gate" the reverb, to cut it off quickly and make a snare drum sound massive. and that effect has never been away, just got more refined.
 
wektor

wektor

Well-known member
PJ: And this modus operandi is beautifully seen in your aforementioned quote: ‘[t]he medium is no longer the message, the tool has become the message’ (Cascone 2000a). This statement is so important, that we might unpack it a bit further. What, for you, is the difference between a medium and a tool? For instance, is Spotify a tool or a medium?

KC: When I made that statement, I was mainly referring to tools of digital audio becoming the message. To wit: I was invited to the studio of an ambient record label where the owner was mastering a new release. He fires up a rack-mount Lexicon reverb to sweeten the material, puts me in front of the high-end studio monitors and makes me listen. After a while he turns to me and whispers ‘that’s what money sounds like’. That experience was a eureka moment for me, it showed me how ‘tools can become the message’.

This expensive-sounding reverb became the ‘message’ of his label; by adding this reverberant shellac to their releases the label imparted value to their CD’s, it became a signifier for content that ‘sounded like money’ and became an expectation (of value) for their fans/consumers.
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wektor

wektor

Well-known member
I found a beautiful envelope shape. All you need is modulation of frequency, modulation of space, for a doppler-like effect, but in reality, can walls actually move?
Can a room shrink and then suddenly expand, all within less than 1000ms?

 
A Liniment's Evil Work

A Liniment's Evil Work

A Livelier Twin Monks
snav said:
some of you guys are old so maybe you can tell me what happened in 1985 and why everything sounds like it was produced underwater, in a fashion that never really stopped. was it exciting at the time? to feel like that, listening to The Smiths or something?
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They started playing this on MTV and the reverb on the vocals literally gave me a headache:
 
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