The Types of Reverb (with Examples!)

0:00 Music Appreciation. What's good, everybody?Let's talk about reverb, reverberation,the sound of being in a room,and the different types of reverbthat have existed throughout the ages.Some of the things that I'm really playing withon my records and on my mixesare combining different types of reverberationfrom the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, modern era into a new mix.And so to start, what even is reverb?

0:43 Reverb is all of the tiny delays that happenwhen a sound source slaps up against a surface.So for example, I record all of my music in my bedroom.My bedroom is kind of like one half of an a-frame.The ceilings are rather highbecause I'm on the top floor of this little condo complex,not like a penthouse or anything.It's probably 700 square foot condo.But it has pretty high ceilings, which

1:13 makes it good for recording because there'smore volume, not volume in terms of loudness, volumein terms of space, depth, that the sound pressureis able to propagate within.And that ends up changing the way that these slapbacks occur.When you have really, really tiny roomsand when you have parallel surfaces, these slapbacks,they aggregate.So you have two flat walls, and they're

1:42 slapping back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.It creates this thing called a flutter echo.I'm going to try and attempt a flutter echo hereso you can hear kind of what that sound is.This is not exactly it, but it's a facsimile of itbased on the computer.I'm testing a flutter echo.So that's an echo that we actually try and avoid as muchas possible, sometimes you use it for effect.

2:07 But it ends up creating really harsh resonancesin the frequencies.So what resonances are is, again, it's aggregating.It's building up.It's creating these really intense peaks.And sometimes they'll sound fine on a professional recordingsystem.But then in a second, you throw it on the car speakeror on a pair of really bad, like say,not air pods, the air buds, or even ear buds,

2:34 like that kind of stuff, then they really poke into your brain.They sound like they're stabbing you.Those little resonant frequencies really, really hurt.And so you want to avoid them in terms of the roomsthat you're recording in, and also the virtual roomsyou're placing audio into.So that was a virtual version of it.Not nearly as harsh as it is in real life.But most of this stuff, what we're doing

2:57 is we're trying to record as dry as possible.Obviously, I'm still in a room.So there's still going to be a little bit of that sound.And then in the computer, we end up adding backsome of that reverberation.This is something that got really popular in the 70s,where the dry sound, the sound of the recording studio,really, really came into fashion.And so if you listen like Fleetwood Mac, Tom Sounds,

3:20 the Doom, Doom sounds on the drum kit.It isn't like a 80s reverb-y stadium sound.Dush, it's not those big, big stadium sounds,the massive room sounds.It's almost like they're in a, like, what's the word?anechoic chamber.I remember that off the dome.I didn't even have to pause and Google it.Those are rooms that have no reflections.And it's, I think, at MIT, scientists invented it.

3:53 Or it's basically you create all these little surfaces.So there's nothing for sound to slap against each other,because all these weird little geometric surfaces,they look pretty bizarre.I would recommend you Google Images Search, anechoic chamber.And it almost messes with your headwhen you're in there, because there's no,there's a vacancy of room.We can kind of create some of that in the computer.

4:15 But then the goal is not to leave it completely dry.Most of the time, it's to createdimensionality in the box.And so there are a bunch of different ways that we can do that.So I showed you Flutter Echo.This room, I'm just going to step back from the microphoneand kind of talk loudly, and you'llbe able to hear the room.So this is my room.It kind of sounds like this.Do you hear how all of this is going?

4:37 That's my room's reverb.And then as I get closer to the mic,that sound goes away a little bit.When I want to do the stuff in the box,that's where I get to make some of these really coolcreative decisions.And the best part about doing it in the boxis then you can change your mind later,or you can stack things on top of each other.So say, for example, I want the background vocalsto be very present.

5:00 So they all have almost no reverb,or maybe just a slight room around them.Or maybe I step away from the mic,and I sing my background vocals out here.I do that almost all the time.Now, my recent stuff, just to create a little bit of depthwithout having to add artificial reverb into it.I don't know, that's what I like.So that's one way, but then if you layer things,

5:24 so see I have a snare drum going into one type of reverb,and a vocal going into another type of reverb,and then a guitar going into a different type of reverb.All of that comes together in a really interesting pleasingand almost otherworldly kind of way.So let's talk about these different types.So my favorite, actually, to use is a type of reverb.It's the oldest of the old school reverbs, called Chamber.

5:49 And so what they did for Chamber reverbsis they literally had just had a room.So Capitol Chambers is an audio plugin by Universal Audio,and it's also an actual physical place that they modeled.And what they do is you record your microphone in a booth.So pretty much acoustically treated, even deader,that's the term for less reverb, less reverberant sound,deader than the room that I'm in right now.

6:15 And then you pipe it from the board,from your recording console, into a speaker.So you take the microphone, you spit it out to a speaker,and then in that room, there are more microphones.So you have the cumulative effectof transforming your voice into the microphone,and all of the things that go into that.So microphone has its diaphragm,it has its cables and things like that coming off of it

6:39 as the transformers and all of the things in the preamplifierand in the compressors, there's all these differentlittle tiny saturations and frequency modulationsfrom what my voice actually sounds likethrough the whole chain.And then it runs into an analog console.Obviously I'm not doing that right nowbecause I don't have a million dollars,but that's what they used to do,because they had a million dollars.

7:01 And they would put that into the consoleand then send that back out to a speaker,which again modulates the frequency,adds a little bit of saturation, maybe some compression,just by nature of it being a speaker,and that spits it out into a very reverberant room,a room that's designed to sound very live,not very dead, very live, the opposite of dead,and that goes into another microphone,runs back into the board.

7:28 And of course, all of this gets summed togetheron the board's compressors,the board's EQs, sometimes outboard,compressors and EQs and other effects,and then it hits tape and then it hits vinyl.So think about all of the different stagesof frequency modulations and compressionand saturation that you have throughout there.And those are one of the thingsthat I like to think about in my mixing

7:49 is like look at the source audio, the dead source audio,and then where it ended up.And if you're just doing digitaland you slap one compressor on itor one saturator on it, that is so differentthan the way that records used to be recorded.The chambers help to fix some of thatbecause these plugins have a lot of those things built inbecause they were trying to get the chamber sound,

8:15 so they actually add a little bit of saturationon the front end, a little bit of saturationon the back end, all these little things.So it gives you some of that secret saucebecause it's aggregated effects,effects on a fix effect on a fix.So here's a chamber sound.I'm just gonna do some stuff into itand you can hear that.Ha, snap, snap.So that's kind of the classic chamber.

8:46 I like that one, that's the Capitol Chambers.My favorite one is Motown Records,Hitsville Recording Studios in Detroit.That studio just got modeled by Universal Audio as well.And while it basically nukes my system,I can't run anything else on it with,I mean, obviously I probably should upgrade my systema little bit, but look at there,gotta make money to invest.And it's a very resource intensive plugin.

9:18 It's a better way to say itbecause it is doing so many different calculations.It's changing, it's modulating that input signalso much to the output.I love it because it doesn't sound likea perfect recording studio.The Capitol one sounds like Frank Sinatra or something.This one sounds like you're sticking a speaker upin your attic.It almost sounds like the A-frame roombecause I think it was an A-frame

9:41 that original studio in Detroit, Hitsville.I'm pretty sure it was an A-frameand they're doing the same thing.They've got microphones, they've got speakersand I'm running my dry-ish signal into that.And I do that on almost everything I do now.It's crazy.It's part of my sound.So if you want to capture some of my sound,this is one of the plugins.Let me demonstrate it a little bit.

10:04 This is the Hitsville version of a chamber.So less perfect recording studio chamber.I'm testing my favorite reverb.It's so dope and weird.Hopefully like me.All sorts of really cool things you can do with that.There's different microphones and speakersand distances and pre-delays.All these little tweaks that you can maketo the Hitsville and to the Capitol,but the Hitsville is even more particular,

10:37 including mono versus stereo,which is a super, super fun thing to play with.I think that people kind of sleep on itbecause they think mono is old.Like mono is pet sounds and Sergeant Pepper'sand that kind of stuff,but there's like an emotional response to mono reverb.It feels just differentand I recommend exploring itbecause if you have somethingthat feels old and nostalgic and imperfect,

11:06 the midst of a very modern stereoand maybe even binaural mix, it's a really cool blend.And I feel like it ends up evoking something more.So okay, going from chambers,which like think like beach boysor Frank Sinatra to Hitsville, so think Motown.Now I think pet sounds kind of beach boys.I know you're talking mono, but they use a lot of plate reverbs.And plate reverbs are super,

11:35 I got to see some of these things in real lifeand use some of them.Picture like giant ride cymbals,kind of stacked on top of each other.The sound gets spit into these big old plates.And then you actually manually changehow close the plates are togetherand kind of how they're interacting.I don't completely know how it worksbecause I've never used these big old,they're super expensive and they break all the time,

11:59 which is why I use the virtual versionsthat cost me $100 instead of the real versionsof the cost, I don't know, $10,000 and probably more.But they sound really cool, they're very bizarre.It's like yelling into a metal hall or something like that.But at the same time, you've heard iton so many records that it doesn't sound foreign.This is kind of the sound of like 60s and 70s music,they use this stuff a lot.

12:28 So here's the classic, it's the EMT 140.There are a bunch of different plate settings,things like that.I'm just gonna show you one of them, the B setting.It's a little bit in the middle.The A setting is a little brighter,the C setting is a little darker.B setting is just in the middle.I'll just give you a quick run throughof what, you know, plate reverb kind of sounds like.EMT1.Plate reverb.Plate reverb.

12:57 Now let's get into some digital reverb.So digital reverb is looking at kind of the soundin terms of delays and it's algorithmic.So it's all running through the computer.It's not really even trying to be necessarily realistic.And on that note, maybe I'll do a non-linear reverb.So you're used to reverb decaying in a linear sort of fashion.You put out a bit of audioand it propagates through the medium of air

13:25 and it slaps into thingsand it returns to you a little bit quieterand it decays in a normal, predictable way.Here is non-linear digital reverb.So you can hear kind of how the algorithms noware playing with the evolutionary senseof putting a sound out into a roomand turning it on its head.La, non-linear.Finally, let's talk about spring reverb.So spring reverb, I don't actually completely know how it works.

14:02 But it's in a bunch of guitar ampsand if you've ever hit a guitar ampwith a spring reverb in it and it goes no, no, no.It's because there's actually a spring inside of the ampand you're thwacking the spring and it's slapping against it's enclosure.So the audio is being spit into thereand it's kind of like a mini-plate reverb.It's my basic understanding of it.But it has a very unique kind of quality.

14:28 It sounds like surf guitar to me.I love it and I actually haven't founda very, very good digital replacement for itbecause I don't want to plug in my whole amp riginto all of these things.I'm just going to use the best thing that I've found for it.But it gives you the sense of it.And a bunch of my records now I, pretty much everything from KŌAN,I've been running into this Morgan RCA 35Rthat uses a spring reverb.

14:56 That's the R in the 35 in the spring reverb channel.Then I run that into a load box.But it's like, you know, it gives it a vintage GE surf rock kind of sound,which I really love because, I mean, surf rockis what I started on playing guitar.It's the reason why I did a cover of Walk Don't Runto open a moonlight beach.And also, I don't know, like the pixiesare one of my favorite bands.

15:18 And they had heavy surf rock, bad frances,heavy surf rock influence.So it's just like a through line, I think,for alternative music loving surf rock guitar.And the spring reverb sound is just crucial to that pipe.Spring reverb sounds like surfing.Sounds like surfing.And as I send you guys out, I want to talk just an honorable mentionto IR reverb.So impulse response reverb.

15:53 This is also, this is kind of the developmentthat allows us to do a lot of these cool things.Impulse response is stack on top of each other.So an impulse response is a very simple idea.You have a clean impulse and then a dirty output.And you measure the delta of the changein between the input and the output.So if I go into the Taj Mahal, I can play a sine waveand then measure how that sine wave changes

16:20 in the reverberant area of the palace of the Taj Mahal.Or if I went into the Vatican, I could shoot off a startinggun, which would definitely scare people.And that starting gun, the input is knownbecause it's just a bang.And then the way that it decays and the waythat it changes on the output is whatwould give you the impulse response for the Vatican.And like the sound of that.

16:44 I'm not saying do a starting gun in the Vatican.Obviously, that wouldn't hurt anybody,but still would scare them.But I'm just saying they actually might have,because that's how a lot of these impulse responses are done.And I'm pretty sure the Vatican is one of them.But the impulse response thing can be applied to anything.So you know how I was talking about the stacking effect

17:03 of Capitol Chambers and the thing into the thinginto the thing into the thing and all adds up.You can do that for outboard gear.And that's one of the changes that we'vehad in digital recording with analog sounding digitalis that we got better at measuring the changesfrom something going into a console and coming out.So when I talk to Phil, so definitelycheck out that part that was one of my favorites.

17:29 Phil was talking about how sometimes he'll justslap a plug-in on and not even really do anything.Just leave it on bypassed, but just on the channel stripjust to give it a little life.That's what's going on is it's actuallyfake running through the transformers.And the same way that you could just leave a console at unityand run something in and out of it.It's going to have a different vibe.

17:49 It's going to have more mojo because it'srunning through physical things thatare going to modulate the sound.And so that's what the impulse response idea is.And it can be applied to reverb in a very, very convincing way.I use that sometimes less, less often, though.But it's highly used for video games or for movie scoresthat to really put you into those places,all from the comfort of the composer's bedroom.

18:17 Hopefully, they're bigger than I am.And they have more than their bedroom to work on.But a lot of times, even composers from big TV showsare there in the same situation as I amstaring at my bed in my pillows but surrounded by gear.So thank you to my wife for letting me take over a bedroom.Anyway, that's reverb.Next time you're in an interesting space,try and listen for it.You're in an elevator.

18:42 Listen to the change that happens whenyou're having a conversation walking into an elevatorand then when the door's closed.Be present of that.Be present in that.Be aware of it.See what happens if you're by a big canyonand now you're yodeling or somebody's yellinginto the canyon the way that it's slapping back at you.Or the way that it changes when you go from a big roominto a hallway.

19:01 All of those things are tools for the music producerand whether or not you produce music,that doesn't matter.It's just an interesting thing to pay attention to.And I also advocate for listening to music and headphonesbecause that's the easiest way to get swallowed upby the environment, by the room.Because any other time, you're playing in speakersin another room, in another space, even if it's outside.

19:22 And it's harder to capture the exact intentof what the producer was going for unless you're wearing headphonesand you're just isolated from the rest of the world.And you are swallowed up into the world of music.If you enjoyed this podcast, I recommend liking and subscribingand checking out the old episodes.There's some really, really cool stuff in there.And awesome guests coming up next week.

19:44 Gonna be chatting with one of the coolestour writers in the world.I'm in a couple of weeks talkingwith a Grammy Award winner and a Tony nominated guy.I mean, some cool, cool people.I'm gonna bury the lead though.I'm gonna say their names yet.You gotta subscribe.You gotta find out who they're gonna be.Hope you enjoyed this little exploration,exploration through reverb.It's kind of a hard thing to say.

20:05 If you'd like to hear my music and my reverbs,you can check my stuff out at scoobertdoobert.pizza.scoobertdoobert.pizza.And of course, subscribe to thisso you can find out who those next guests are.They're gonna be really fun.Thanks a lot, guys.Take it easy.