How to build a plate reverb

[mosc]

I saw a discussion on another list and I'm posting a reply here because it may be of interest to our readers, and it is OT (off topic) on the other list. Someone said they wanted to make their own plate reverb.

I made one once. It worked great. I saw a letter to the editor of an electronics experimenters magazine. I'll pass my experience along here.

I got a sheet of steel, about the size of a very large refrigerator, this was about 1 X 2 meters more or less. I built a wooden frame of 2X4s. Two holes were drilled near the top of the plate and it was suspended to hang on two wooden dowels through rubber grommets.

I took an old 12" speaker and cut the metal cage off of it and trimmed the speaker cone so as to only have about 1" from the driver. Then I built a wooden cross member across the plate but not touching it to hold this speaker and glued the shortened cone to the plate. I attached a contact microphone to the plate. I drove the plate through a 50 watt amplifier connected to the speaker (glued to the plate) and took the signal from the contact mic. The placement of the mic is determined by experimentation. I built a simple wet/dry mixer. In those days people built their own circuits. Today I'd buy the mixer.

This entire apparatus was in the basement below my studio.

This is similar in design to a spring reverb, but uses the plate instead.

Digital reverbs can emulate the sound of these devices pretty well, except when you overdrive a plate or spring you get great effects that can't be easily modeled. When I moved from California to Pennsylvania, I left the plate reverb hanging in place. I took the mixer and power amp with me. I miss that reverb because of the organic sound it made while being overdriven. I still have a spring reverb. I use it with the Moog modular, or used to. Electro/mechanical reverbs have lots of hum and noise.

One thing that might be of interest. There is a legend that in the 1930's in New York a major radio studio bought an abandoned subway tunnel and made a reverb unit out of it by placing powerful speakers at one end and a microphone at the other.

Back in the 6o's and early 70's, people made experimental "reverb" devices with plastic tubes. The flexible accordion type tubes, like dryer vent tubes, worked very well.

I'd be interested if anyone else has some thoughts or experience to share about electro/mechanical reverbs and the like.

[mosc]

From another list - pelagius pelagius wrote:

> Here is a good article about a diy plate...

> http://www.prosoundweb.com/recording/tapeop/plate/plate.shtml

This is an excellent article. My home grown plate reverb was much simpler, using wooden construction. I suspect the one described in the above article is over built. Consider that if you want something that sounds like an old expensive plate reverb, use a cheap digital reverb. I have an old Midiverb III that is fine for this purpose. If you want something that sounds really unique, build your own and don't focus on trying to recreate something else. Using the driver described in this article is a big improvement over using a butchered speaker I used, not because it will sound better, but because it is so much easier to build.

[jksuperstar]

I think i posted this somewhere else, but couldn't find it at the moment.

http://www.silophone.net/

A place that has added speakers & mics to a grain mill (the LARGE kind), and allows users to upload sounds to play through it:

[deknow]

...i have put headphones in a broken piano (with sustain on), and mic'd it as an effects send. i could see myself building a plate reverb....i could mount it right below my studio.

deknow

[bachus]

[mosc]

Bachus, the first reverb I ever used was the spring reverb you built for the Jacksonville University electronic music studio in 1967. It was excellent. You could overdrive it and it would literally scream with delight and horror.

[bachus]