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Topic: Software Reverb Plugin I Found- Check It Out! |
David Mitchell
From:
Tyler, Texas
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Posted 14 Oct 2017 4:09 pm |
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This video and reverb sound applies to all instruments and voices and not just steel guitars and dobros so I thought I might share what I found with this forum too. The purpose of this video is not to improve on an already perfect RCA sound but to demonstrate how real plate reverb as used in the 1960's can be achieved with digital software. Plate reverb's have a unique sound to them. I've owned and used 4 EMT & Echoplate reverb's through the years in various studios I have built and I'm pretty good at tuning them to. I even built a full size plate once. When digital software came along I began a search for a good EMT emulation when I want my recording to step back in time. I tried all kinds of VST plugins both paid and free and I never heard anything that sounded like a real plate. Everyone said the new Universal Audio EMT sounded just like a plate. I played with it and it sounded great and real close but no cigars and I'll tell you why. A plate has random flutters in it like the ripples on an ocean so perfectly smooth algorithms as beautiful as they sound don't have any metal plate qualities. All I'm hearing is it EQ brighter which is an important characteristic but not the whole story. The closest I've found an used up till recently since I don't have the space anymore in my house for a real plate (sold my last one to a studio in Nashville) is Convolution Reverb with Impulse Responses of EMT 140 Plate and EMT 250 digital reverbs which is a different animal. They sounded close but were still missing something. You
all can tell I'm a nit-picker by now. So after over 15 years in digital software I finally gave up. Then one day while searching for a mix on another computer that had no plugins I decided to try a little stock reverb that came packaged with the Nuendo 2.0 I bought years ago and lo and behold there was that sound. Plate warble/ripple and all. It's a sound that excites the ears, makes all music sound wonderful with it's tiny imperfections just like musicians. I don't know why it sounds that way if it was intended are just a cheap written plugin but there it was. I played a recording I made to Robin Hood Brians that recorded ZZ Top's first three albums and without me saying anything the first thing he asked was what kind of reverb was I using and asked me if it was my plate. It didn't come easy however. I had to equalize the reverb returns by boosting the tar out of the highs but it can't be any kind of boost or it will get peaky and hurt your ears. The highs have to be smooth which is not that easy to do. I spent about 2 weeks tweaking this reverb till everything I ran through it worked perfectly with no harsh peaks. In this video I have the reverb turned up loud almost to the point of no direct signal at all and I left the decay long so you can hear those odd flutters in it. Some cheap reverb's flutter in a way that's not usable and sound like dog dung but this little guy has it just right in the right frequencies. I remember reading an article back in the 70's by Bill Porter who was an engineer at RCA Studio B in Nashville and the reporter with Recording Engineer/Producer magazine asked him what was the secret to the RCA Nashville sound. He said if there was anything I did different than other studios in the country it was how I used the plate reverbs. He said he would get to the studio about 2 hours early in the morning and go down in the basement where they had 3 mono plate reverbs and turn the air conditioner down there real cold because the plates would contract and get real bright sounding. He said I drove them very hard but returned little of it back to the console. He said when he first started doing it clients would keep telling him his console VU meters were pegging. He said it got so annoying he took his wire cutters and cut those meters loose so they couldn't see it. To make a long story short if you have an old copy of Steinberg Nuendo for PC you should go check it out!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQrsCLNBfxE |
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David Mitchell
From:
Tyler, Texas
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Posted 14 Oct 2017 11:15 pm
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As soon as Dale Rottacker sends me another steel guitar track he recorded I want to test my new recipe on a good steel player. Dale has this plugin I'm demonstrating in this video. Here is another song using that plug. I put some of the original RCA mix at the end so you could hear the difference.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IGxr-A0ioc&feature=youtu.be |
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John Macy
From:
Rockport TX/Denver CO
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Posted 16 Oct 2017 7:51 am
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The first studio I built in the late '70's was up in the mountains outside Denver. We were on the side of a hill so the control room was extended out over an oversized garage. We kept out EMT in the garage, and it sounded completely amazing in the winter when the cold would shrink the steel plate.
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John Macy
Rockport, TX
Engineer/Producer/Steel Guitar |
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David Mitchell
From:
Tyler, Texas
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Posted 16 Oct 2017 9:08 am
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I bet it did. That sounds like my kind of studio! I never got to work in a studio with a view. Mine were all like dungeons.
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Ken Campbell
From:
Ferndale, Montana
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Posted 16 Oct 2017 9:43 am
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| John Macy wrote: |
| The first studio I built in the late '70's was up in the mountains outside Denver. We were on the side of a hill so the control room was extended out over an oversized garage. We kept out EMT in the garage, and it sounded completely amazing in the winter when the cold would shrink the steel plate. |
Hey John, where outside of Denver? I grew up in Boulder and had access to a little 8 track place in town, and then there was Caribou.... |
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John Macy
From:
Rockport TX/Denver CO
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Posted 17 Oct 2017 6:42 pm
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We were in Pine Junction-about 40 miles southwest on Hwy 285 from about 78-84 before I moved it to Denver. I worked at Caribou in the '70's, too...
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John Macy
Rockport, TX
Engineer/Producer/Steel Guitar |
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Ken Campbell
From:
Ferndale, Montana
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Posted 17 Oct 2017 9:58 pm
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| I never worked at Caribou John, just hauled some stuff in and visited. What a fun time that was though, late 70,s early 80,s. |
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