Recently I came across this article (below) and became curious as to whether anybody here has built their own plate reverb. Anybody have experience building one, or at least done any research on it? I'd like to have one in my studio, but I'll probably build it with a little something extra to make it sound incredible and unique. Seems like a fun project to experiment with.
http://www.prosoundweb.com/recording/ta ... /plate.php
DIY Plate Reverb
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gregwhartley
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DIY Plate Reverb
"We are all disgusting, doomed to our dirty little tasks. Eating and farting and scratching and smiling and celebrating holidays." -Bukowski
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ganapatimusic
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In the 80's United Western Studios was one of the eminent and legendery studios in Los Angeles, started by legend Bill Putnum (of United Audio and UREI fame) and later owned by Alan Sides and now I think part is owned by East West or one of the sampling companies who boast about it. Lot's of hit makers recorded there.
Jim Cunningham worked there as a technician. Part of his responsibilites were to tweak their equipment so that the same piece of equipment would sound better at United Western than other studios. Plate reverbs lent themselves to this, because as with most electromechanical devices there is a wide latitude of performance variation where transducers are involved.
I loved the shimmer and sparkle I associated with plates, the s's that shimmered and lasted longer than they otherwise would.
Jim Cunningham tweaked EMT 140's at Western to have that additional sparkle by a variety of methods, including tensionsing and tuning the plate. I believe there is a late 70's/80's song by a band called "Ace" (one hit wonders) that was recorded at Western and has shimmery reverb that I believe was an example of Jim Cunnighams modified EMT's. Eventually he had experimented with so many modifications that he put into production his own plate reverb design, the Ecoplate (I).
After comparing it to the prototype I purchased and still have the very first production unit, as well as another unit I obtained later.
At one time I had a smaller unit as well, but it was more like the early reflection sound of a room sound on a digital reverb than the shimmer of a plate.
Digital reverbs were becoming common in studios- Lexicon 224's particulary became standard, with a few other cheaper alternatives, and the more rare quantec and EMT250/251 R2D2 digital reverb (it looked like a 3 foot high robot and originally cost $20k).
The Ecoplates became common, but reverb units that took up space the size of a small office, that picked up traffic if not well isolated, and were not adjustable except by going into the reverb room and moving the decay arm ( a few studios had remotes) were destined to decline in the wake of the convenience economy and versatility of digital reverbs. Many people never actually had worked with a plate to notice it's greater density and naturalness of high frequency reflections compared to early digital reverbs Try putting a bright high hat with +10db at 12k into a 224- you will hear each reflection seperately like a scatter gun. With a good, well adjusted plate the same test will not neccessarily sound like a lot of discrete echos. As digital reverbs have developed there reflections are more natural, and most people don't mix sizling high hats into heavy reverb ( on one time this technique was used on ballads and such for atmosphere).
Building a plate reverb will probably result in something that works, and has a character sound, but unlikely to compare with an EMT or large Ecoplate. Probably it will be a sound sort of like some reverb plugin preset somewhere.
If you try, you might see if Jim Cunningham still sells parts and consider his accelerator/driver for the plate, and his pickups, designed specially for this application. His plates were specially machined cold rolled steel about 1/64" thick I believe, with tight tolerances and quality control. They were reinforced on the corners to allow a greater degree of tensioning in order to improve the high frequency response- though I don't know if he ever offered those for sale.
Studio Technologies used to know how to contact him (he helped with the design of some of their products)- in the Chicago area maybe 8 or ten years ago- I think he was largely retired at that time.
At my website (ganapatimusic.com) the last ten sample tracks used the two Ecoplate reverbs (each had it's own character, but were mainly set to different decay times)- along with a pcm 70. These were done in the late 80's, before reverb plugins, using Linn Drums and 8 and 12 bit samplers so the sound is somewhat limited by the technology of the time.
In 2000 I tried a mix with the plate again, but it's a nuisance to run 120 of cables to the garage and make sure everything is working, so I've been using PCM91, PCM 70, revibe, reverb one and TCspace mostly, and it hasn't been the reverb sound that has generally been the challenge in my mixing. There will be examples up soon of these mixes to compare.
By the way, I've tried Princeton Reverb, UAD plate, and other "Plate sounds"- the reverb that currently seems closest to the ecoplates now is the TCspace EMT - not the TCspace Ecoplate interestingly enough (It sounds like the TCspace Ecoplate might have had its decay time damper too closed when they sampled it).
P.S. the sample tracks above were done with "Performer" but before "Digital Performer" - performer was slaved by a sync box to 24 track tape, triggering Prophet 2000, Yamaha 16w, Casio 16FW, Korg DSM samplers and a MKS80, audio mixed through a Harrison board.
Well this is here for reference if ever someone wants to indulge in recording history arcana.
Ciao.
Jim Cunningham worked there as a technician. Part of his responsibilites were to tweak their equipment so that the same piece of equipment would sound better at United Western than other studios. Plate reverbs lent themselves to this, because as with most electromechanical devices there is a wide latitude of performance variation where transducers are involved.
I loved the shimmer and sparkle I associated with plates, the s's that shimmered and lasted longer than they otherwise would.
Jim Cunningham tweaked EMT 140's at Western to have that additional sparkle by a variety of methods, including tensionsing and tuning the plate. I believe there is a late 70's/80's song by a band called "Ace" (one hit wonders) that was recorded at Western and has shimmery reverb that I believe was an example of Jim Cunnighams modified EMT's. Eventually he had experimented with so many modifications that he put into production his own plate reverb design, the Ecoplate (I).
After comparing it to the prototype I purchased and still have the very first production unit, as well as another unit I obtained later.
At one time I had a smaller unit as well, but it was more like the early reflection sound of a room sound on a digital reverb than the shimmer of a plate.
Digital reverbs were becoming common in studios- Lexicon 224's particulary became standard, with a few other cheaper alternatives, and the more rare quantec and EMT250/251 R2D2 digital reverb (it looked like a 3 foot high robot and originally cost $20k).
The Ecoplates became common, but reverb units that took up space the size of a small office, that picked up traffic if not well isolated, and were not adjustable except by going into the reverb room and moving the decay arm ( a few studios had remotes) were destined to decline in the wake of the convenience economy and versatility of digital reverbs. Many people never actually had worked with a plate to notice it's greater density and naturalness of high frequency reflections compared to early digital reverbs Try putting a bright high hat with +10db at 12k into a 224- you will hear each reflection seperately like a scatter gun. With a good, well adjusted plate the same test will not neccessarily sound like a lot of discrete echos. As digital reverbs have developed there reflections are more natural, and most people don't mix sizling high hats into heavy reverb ( on one time this technique was used on ballads and such for atmosphere).
Building a plate reverb will probably result in something that works, and has a character sound, but unlikely to compare with an EMT or large Ecoplate. Probably it will be a sound sort of like some reverb plugin preset somewhere.
If you try, you might see if Jim Cunningham still sells parts and consider his accelerator/driver for the plate, and his pickups, designed specially for this application. His plates were specially machined cold rolled steel about 1/64" thick I believe, with tight tolerances and quality control. They were reinforced on the corners to allow a greater degree of tensioning in order to improve the high frequency response- though I don't know if he ever offered those for sale.
Studio Technologies used to know how to contact him (he helped with the design of some of their products)- in the Chicago area maybe 8 or ten years ago- I think he was largely retired at that time.
At my website (ganapatimusic.com) the last ten sample tracks used the two Ecoplate reverbs (each had it's own character, but were mainly set to different decay times)- along with a pcm 70. These were done in the late 80's, before reverb plugins, using Linn Drums and 8 and 12 bit samplers so the sound is somewhat limited by the technology of the time.
In 2000 I tried a mix with the plate again, but it's a nuisance to run 120 of cables to the garage and make sure everything is working, so I've been using PCM91, PCM 70, revibe, reverb one and TCspace mostly, and it hasn't been the reverb sound that has generally been the challenge in my mixing. There will be examples up soon of these mixes to compare.
By the way, I've tried Princeton Reverb, UAD plate, and other "Plate sounds"- the reverb that currently seems closest to the ecoplates now is the TCspace EMT - not the TCspace Ecoplate interestingly enough (It sounds like the TCspace Ecoplate might have had its decay time damper too closed when they sampled it).
P.S. the sample tracks above were done with "Performer" but before "Digital Performer" - performer was slaved by a sync box to 24 track tape, triggering Prophet 2000, Yamaha 16w, Casio 16FW, Korg DSM samplers and a MKS80, audio mixed through a Harrison board.
Well this is here for reference if ever someone wants to indulge in recording history arcana.
Ciao.
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gregwhartley
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monkey man
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buzzsmith
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That is a great post, ganapatimusic...I'm big time into early recording history and that was a fun read.
Greg, there's a studio here in Houston that has 2 vintage plate reverbs...I don't know the manufacturer, but I do know they're at least 25 to 30 years old (maybe older).
They might be for sale.
I'm not sure if it's cool to post that info here (I have no financial connection with the studio), but if you PM me, I'll give you the contact info.
=buzz=
Greg, there's a studio here in Houston that has 2 vintage plate reverbs...I don't know the manufacturer, but I do know they're at least 25 to 30 years old (maybe older).
They might be for sale.
I'm not sure if it's cool to post that info here (I have no financial connection with the studio), but if you PM me, I'll give you the contact info.
=buzz=
