For anyone with suggestions about *splitting the audio signal to enable the lights to flash without using reverb* etc - here's my reply to the first comment that mentioned this: *"Yes, for a while I was thinking about just running off a tape output to it - but I think I've run out of space. When I do my HiFi reorganisation in a few weeks I want to simplify things down a tad...there's just too much plugged in at the mo."*
+audio files seems like people are still posting this same comment....please vote the top comment up and perhaps more people will read it before posting and not think I'm being ignorant and ignoring their comment.
+Techmoan This sounds perfect for a rock machine for music like (Disturbed-indestructible) or for dubstep(madcatz songs for example),this will do the job for some modern music but done in the classic way of beethoven and motzard.
KnapfordMaster98 lol I also liked the rant. I think replaying music through any device alters it's original format so there is really no way to purely listen to it unless we are only enjoying the artist with acoustic instruments once and only once
+Nostalgia Nerd It is just awesome what they created "back in the days" and how boring new hifi tech looks in comparision. That video is the reason why I bought myself a reverber/eq combo.I have a video up on my channel showing the beautiful effect.
God yes, the internet seems to have given these types a platform from which they can look down and hate upon people who do not do things as they deem should be done.
+The Anonymous Hiker I understand where they're coming from, but yeesh, he's right, the idea of music is for you to enjoy it. Plus the original use of equalization was to move the sound closer to what was intended by counteracting the acoustics of the room and making up for defects in the reproducing equipment... so these types are actually arguing against themselves
+TheChipmunk2008 Exactly. It's one thing to say "Really, you''ll enjoy it more if you get rid of those Beats headphones," but to start being anally retentive and telling people that they are not actually enjoying themselves and listening to it wrong is just sad and frankly, rather tragic.
RE not using a graphic EQ Those people don't have the first clue about sound if they think that colouration is always negative. I've done enough work as a live sound engineer to know that without a graphic EQ to compensate for the dimensions of the room you'll get a shit mix. The same goes for pre-recorded music. Compensating for the sound of a room is perfectly fine. If I bypass the EQ in my setup there's a real nasty resonance at around 500Hz because of the shape of my living room. Knock it down a bit on the EQ and my music sounds much better. Sorry for the rant, I just hate people who speak in such ridiculous absolutes
Exactly. And it also has to do with your speakers. I'm pretty sure you are not listening to the music through the same speakers as the people in the studio did, so the sound is going to be affected any way, even if you are using flat EQ. I'm not sure if it's my speakers or the room (or the combination of both), but if I don't cut at around 120Hz, everything will sound muddy. I installed a graphic EQ on my computer and now everything sounds better through my speakers (I bypass the EQ when I'm using my headphones). I'm pretty sure the original intention of the artists wasn't to sound muddy through my speakers in my room. Of course I'm not going to do extreme adjustments like boosting the bass by 10dB, but compensating for the room/the speakers you are using is just common sense.
I had one of the spring units in my car in the late 60's. Every time you hit a bump it sounded like the kitchen was falling down around you. It was fun for awhile. Keep up the good work. I look forward to your videos.
I remember wanting one of these really bad back when I was a teenager in the 80's. I never did come up with the money for it at the time, and a few years later they seem to have disappeared. So it was neat to see you demonstrate it. I'll agree that it doesn't really make the music sound any better. It's more of a novelty than anything else.
Friend of mine way back when had a spring reverb in his car and just make the music sounds so much better. I was just blown away and remember it to this day
Gotta tell ya, It's refreshing to hear your opinion on ADJUSTING the sound. NO TONE CONTROLS!!! For years I've heard that too. First, a hifi system is NEVER going to sound like the engineer and band recorded it. Room nodes, standing waves and speaker quirks all have an effect. I've been using an equalizer (ADC SS2IC) and a dynamic range processor (Pioneer RG 2) since 1982, to help my system sound better, at least to me! I agree that a reverb unit really doesn't help (I like lights too). A reverb component "just ain't my cup of tea". I did enjoy the dulcimer music at 4:40 in your video. You are a very astute man.
You should try a better reverb effect. My living room sounds kinda dead (carpets, sound absorbing tiles in ceiling, drapes), so when I'm having a party, I'll often run my computer's output through a VST reverb effect. Modern reverb sounds a lot more realistic, and in small doses, it really gives the feeling the room is a lot more open, and the party's much bigger than it is.
Not sure if you or anyone else that subscribes has thought of this, but one particular application of this reverb unit could be if you had a quadraphonic decoder (eg Sony SQD-1000); so that the front two speakers receive dry stereo sound, with the rear two speaker feeds going thru this reverb box and then thru their respective amp? thus allowing you add the reverb to the rear sound-field only...
As an "audiophile" I have to agree. I spent a decent amount of money on the most neutral cans, amp, and DAC I could find, but that's for my own taste. If you wanna listen to MP3s you found in the dumpster on and old gen 1 iPod with torn up iBuds, fucking go for it. Crank up the bass if that's what makes you happy. But personally I prefer to not mess with it at all. If it's a real shit master I might adjust something but for the most part I'd rather my equipment not get in the way of what I listen to.
4 years later . . . . RUclips suggested your videos and I’m glad about that. I’ve often toyed with thoughts 💭 of buying some vintage audio or video equipment, not quite on your scale. There were some interesting products in the past and you do an impressive job of demonstrating and providing great details and history. It’s all very addictive. Too bad there isn’t an internally adjustable pot for sensitivity of the lights on this unit. Thanks for your videos
Things like these are what makes your channel even more special! All that weird shit an eastern european/post soviet dude cannot even imagine - it existed for real!
Even a video about a pointless and redundant product like this Kenwood reverberation amplifier, is a joy to watch. I have grown practically addicted to your videos, so thank you - and (I hope!) keep ´em coming!
An EQ is a great thing to have and use as you said. Rooms are all different acoustically and muddy bass for instance can be corrected with the EQ . The parametric EQ on my bass amps should never be used according to the audio genius who criticized you for using one. I love your videos!
hilarious! well done Matt! during the 80s and early nineties "entertainment systems" were all the rage and the more buttons and lights the higher ranking the owner would be. That unit was in the line up. The best enhancement unit in the Kenwood system was the "Base enhancer" before subwoofers we needed to get all the base from the mains and the base enhancer was just the ticket. again Bravo on a hilarious episode sir!
+aKunacme no more along these lines GE-722 Digital Graphic Equalizer with "Acoustic Intelligence and Digital Soundfield Processor" but not exactly this. It's a kenwood bass enhancer only.
I know this is an older video and I'm quite late to the game, as it were, but here are my two cents on adding reverb. Back in the 60's, when Top 40 music radio was developing into the sound we know and love here in the States (and stations may have done this in the U.K. as well; I'm not sure), they started experimenting with adding reverb in their processing chains. Depending on the personal tastes of whoever was in charge, that ranged anywhere from some subtle, light reverb that's just barely audible when something suddenly dropped to silence... all the way to full-on slapback echoes that sounded no better than when you cranked this thing all the way up. Some of the most popular stations in major markets were somewhere on the lower end of the middle ground, and that success inspired stations across the country to match them -- a sound which lasted even through the 2000's (I even noticed the contemporary hits station in Detroit using it as late as 2006 or so), though it seems to have disappeared almost entirely by now. Part of the reason why stations did that was a misunderstanding of technology. We've all heard of the Loudness Wars? That wasn't just limited to recording, it happened in radio, too. The reason why the AM stations made themselves so big and boomy is because (and this is a correct understanding of technology) the louder an amplitude modulated signal is... well, modulated, the more powerful it is, the further it travels, and the more people can hear it; the idea being that you keep your station as loud as possible for as much of the time as possible so that you can cover as far a geographical range as possible. The misunderstanding came when adding reverb. Some engineers got it in their heads that they could back off on the compression and limiting if they added reverb to sustain the amplitude longer than the natural source material lasted. Of course, we know now that that's not how it works; you still lose loudness with reverb, the signal doesn't travel as far, and if the timings are mismatched, you end up with an audio trainwreck. Once that fact was realized, it became more about making the sound more pleasant for the listeners than anything technical. My suspicion is that these units were an attempt to give record and tape listeners the same experience with some range of options to tailor it to their own tastes, but the problem there is that the range of options is limited to what the manufacturer thinks is best. That reverb on AM radio 60 years ago was all homebrew. Sure, there may have been some consumer or even professional-grade technology at the start, but engineers tweaked it like crazy to make it do what they wanted it to do. Analog audio processing for broadcast was in its infancy; these were the mothers and fathers of what exists today, and they set the standard for even the digital methods in use now, as well. If you wanted to match that sound in the 70's and 80's, you would either have to build it yourself or open that box and change things. Of course, digital plugins make this a breeze nowadays. I use a VST reverb effect in the audio processing chain on my living room computer. It took me a long time to get the timing and room size settings exactly the way they should be, but it sounds exactly how I want it to sound every single time. It's that subtle tail end of hall sound that adds just a little realism. I would be willing to bet that I would never get that sound out of this unit.
Fascinating review. As a kid in the '80s we tended to dislike the fashionable 'reverb snare' that seemed to plague so much in the Top 40. Nowadays I cant stop adding post-production reverb to things I record. Love making big sounds even bigger.
That thing sounds terrible, but is sure does look pretty ! Also, I'm one of these people who think you shouldn't tamper with the music, but honestly graphic EQs can be really useful. I'll go back to staring angrily at my grey wall sitting on my wooden chair now.
Man, I had that exact same unit back in the late 70s/early 80s. The nostalgia... It was great for recordings of live music, not so much studio stuff. As an aside, you need more muppet in your videos. :)
I like your statement about the equalizer as I feel the same way. I joined an FB group full of audiophiles strongly "suggesting" to not use EQ to most it's members who asks about it. Apparently their solution to the different music genre that does not suite an all in one headphone is to buy multiple expensive headphones and dac/amps for different genre of music. I realize that these people enjoy buying gadgets and showing them off then actually enjoying the music.
And yes, I agree with you at 5:20 , those moron wannabe "audiophiles" who state crap about listening to music without anything that changes the levels of the audio as it changes the music away from the artist's intention is just bull. Most of the time when you hear a song on an album, it's vastly different than what the artist originally created due to the end result actually being the result of the sound engineer's work and just the nature of recording and mastering, and not at all of that of the Artist. So it's very naive to state bullsh*t about "artist intentions". And yes, I know there's a few exceptions to this, such as with electronic music artists who can essentially record the sound exactly as it was created due to everything just remaining digital from the synth/mixers directly to the CD. But even in these scenarios, unless you have the same exact output setup as that Artist; same brand/model of speakers, same output amp, etc, your home audio system or headphones will change the sound and not sound anything like the Artist's intentions. As a former session and live bassist for a few Los Angeles area bands, anytime we recorded in a studio. I can tell you that the end result did not sound anything like what we rehearsed or played live for the many months prior to and after recording. So I can definitely state that recorded medium is definitely not what the Artist intended for you to hear.. so the Artists should have zero qualms if you tweak the audio EQ to your personal listening enjoyment as regardless of what you do to the sound, EQ or not, it definitely will not sound like how we created/performed and intended it to sound. There are even instances where the recording artists are not satisfied with and hate the end result due to the recorded tracks sounding vastly different than what they had heard during creation and rehearsal for the months prior due to just the nature of recording and mastering. Some artists go as far as to wanting to destroy the album, however are not able to and are forced to release it anyways due to having to meet recording obligations/contracts and/or financial or time restrictions. However it is rare that you hear any public distaste for an album from the artist, as they will not tell their fans not to buy the album and that the new album the fans will actually enjoy is personally "sh*t" to their ears and not how they intended. One example I can think of off the top of my head where an artist did make public statements in regards to a recording not sounding as intended is a black/extreme metal band named Cradle of Filth, they made public statements about how rubbish the mix and sound of the recording was, and overall how much they hated the end result of their 3rd album "Cruelty And The Beast", the recording was so bad compared to what they originally intended to the point that one of the vocalists of the band was in tears when she first heard the finished album because the end result sounded nothing like she worked countless days in the studio recording. However there is some irony in all of this, because this album is considered by fans and reviewers as one of their greatest and best sounding albums and is even considered one of the all-time top albums of their genre (it was even ranked as the #1 album for a time by various metal music publications). This just shows that any statement about "Artist Intention" is pure rubbish as it's the listener's enjoyment that matters the most. I personally EQ the music I listen to because I want what I listen to, to sound as pleasant to my ears as possible when listening. I even EQ the music of the bands I have recorded with when playing it back because it always can sound better but no matter what, it never sounds like I intended, and regardless if I use an EQ or not, the end result of playback from the CD never sounds like the actual sound that came out of my bass guitar and into my ears during recording (and rehearsals) and never will.
+Techmoan you should check out two audio items that you may be able to pick up on ebay for cheap (under $100 each) that would make a extreme pleasurable (to your ears) difference to your music that aren't available in the general home audio market. I Wrote about em in a different comment here on your video: ruclips.net/video/aYuBU-QCd4k/видео.html&lc=z13mulkabqzxjhz3523tsd0woxr0dzfrj04
+Raven S (Hidden) You normally only see that with commercially oriented labels, metal is certainly one of the affected. I just like to listen to the music as it came produced, if it sounds like shit I'll skip it instead of trying to fix it. I direct source everything at home (knob settings bypass), EQ only in the car to make up for faults. That said, if you don't like how your speakers sound normally at home there's nothing wrong with tweaking in my view.
spookanide Metal or not, I can tell you from experience as a music performer the music you're listening to isn't as it came produced. Rather than sounding like a knob, and hoping on the "kiddie audiophile" bandwagon, you should instead listen to any and all music with the settings and EQ that work to maximize potential personal listening enjoyment and emotion.
Raven S Well my maximum enjoyment comes from my current setup, aren't you also dictating like a knob now? Can't we agree we hold differen philosophies? I was just explaining my point of view. Also EQing fucks with phase shifting in the frequency bands, I just don't want that at all if I can avoid it.
When he went off on one about people telling him how to listen to his own music in his own house, I had to praise him on that! I love Matt, good old down to earth northerner! Huge fan of techmoan, keep making great videos!
Radio Shack in the 1980's made a similar but not as cool looking reverb unit you could plug through your stereo. A lot of all-in-one Karaoke systems have this kind of microphone reverb circuit too. These analog "bucket brigade" reverb circuits always sounded cheap and muddy to me. If some company could make a new unit for home stereos with programmable digital reverb and delay it might be a worthy addition to a stereo and not just a gimmick.
+wildbilltexas reverb is still used in pro/home recording studios often. it doesnt come in these big box hi-fi units anymore though, mostly rack mount configurations and half rack space boxes. (also guitar "stomp-boxes")
As you probably know, bucket brigade devices are basically long clocked chains of capacitors, combining the worst of digital and analog. You get aliasing, so you need to low pass filter the input, but they're also a long low pass filter themselves, so they roll off the higher frequencies as they pass through the delay chain. They also have terrible clock bleedthrough, which is less noticeable in a reverb but incredibly noticeable in a chorus or flanger where you're modulating the clock. Both lead to an unpleasant effect unless you're explicitly going for "lo-fi" and means that in modern usage, BBDs are relegated to guitar effects.
Don't some of the newer DSP receivers offer variations of reverb? There was one unit I tinkered with that had hall, bright hall and other settings as part of its cinema decoder.
The Eminent 310 Unique which was the the key sound in Jean Michel Jarre's early works was a normal Home Organ which incorporated a very good reverberation unit (the first one to do so). Of course it helped that he could adjust the reverb on that without affecting the drums etc.
Another great review, thanks. Back in the late 70s I had a reverb amp, I think it was a kenwood, that had a large coiled spring inside with a transducer at one end, and to change the reverb time you turned a knob that would contract or stretch the spring. If you could find one of these and do a review I think a lot of people, including me would find it very interesting. Thanks.
I love your opinions on music enjoyment. If you want or need to"adjust" your music so you can enjoy it, the music is doing its intended purpose. But, everyone's an expert...
US. Military Japan 1983,,,, You always knew who just came back from Japan. We came back with These and other. Four feet tall of Stereo equipment. I think my parents stuck it in the basement 30 years ago. By the 90's all that stereo was looking out of date .. Fun Times
Ha ha love your comments. My old NAIM NAC12 preamp previously belonged to a hi-fi purist; not content with it not having any tone controls, he also had NAIM take the balance potentiometer out of circuit too. I have to admit though that, even though it's getting on for 50 years old, it does sound fantastic and has tremendously detailed stereo soundstage.
That reverb is based on the old Bucket Brigade Device chips sold by Reticon, Panasonic, Philips and other manufacturers of the time. Compared to a good old spring reverb, I think they sound kind of "choppy" and not very pleasing at all...
Yes this is a Bucket Brigade Device (BBD). They were used in a variety of applications. Some of which included voice scramblers, but most commonly for reverb/echo processors. The BBD was a cross between a digital and an analogue device. It would take small samples of the input signal (analogue samples, not a digital) and pass them through a long chain of MOSFETs. These MOSFETs acted like capacitors that would hold the charge for a small length of time, then pass them to the next cell. It had to pass through a large number of MOSFET based cells before it would be spit out at the end. A portion of this delayed output signal would then be mixed back with input signal to produce a reverb-ish effect. The entire process was moderated by a clock. Increasing the clock speed would make the charges pass through the BBD much faster, thus reducing one's delay time. Decreasing the clock speed would increase the delay time. Strictly speaking, these devices did not introduce sufficient convolution to truly be classed as reverb units. They were actually echo units. But the distinction between echo and reverb was, and to a great extent still is lost on many people. BTW, they sounded TERRIBLE!
David Courtney Thanks for the great explanation! I always wondered how those worked. That explains the poor sound quality, and why moving the delay knob makes such a strange pitch bending effect. Back in the day this was pretty cool, but by today's standards, the sound is pretty hard to listen to.
The comment about the graphic equalizer was absolutely hilarious!!! 🤣🤣🤣 Thanks for testing this unit that rised much curiosity in the eighties; I had to pass for economic reasons but I regret it much less now!
It seems to me that it's using Bucket Brigade Delay ICs to generate the reverberation effect. Those kind of reverbs are so bad that not even guitarists wanted to revisit it unlike BBD based delays and choruses (which are pretty good sounding).
yes, I think it's exactly was that. They came packaged on an IC and there were a little bunch of gadgets that sounded like this. I had some silver box thing that I've forgotten the name of. Cute and sounds like a quick delay space echo too.
Actually one use for an equalizer is to help compensate for the room's acoustics or speaker placement limitations. So actually making the music more like the artist intended.
This sort of reverb effect is still available and used in modern mixing desks. The church I am part of used an effects unit for our vocalists for quite a while as it adds more depth to the sound. On our current digital desk it has it built in which makes it even easier.
The reverberation amplifier seems so unnecessary. It just muddles up the otherwise pure and pristine audio signal. It just seems like a novelty or even worse, a sales gimmick. The colors and lights are pretty to look at, though.
Great review. Here's a few thoughts from a musician who's spent years dealing with artificial reverb. - This thing sounds a lot more like a muddy delay effect than a reverb to me, at least from how it sounds in the video. That slight pitch-shifting sound you hear when adjusting the reverb time is a dead giveaway. - It blows my mind that there's no wet/dry control on this thing, as that's pretty much the key to dialling in a pleasant reverb tone, and then pushing it back in the mix so that it sits comfortably in the background. - Reverb applied to an entire mix rather than individual stems would do well to have its own EQ, as rolling a bit off the high end will help it sit in the mix, and rolling off most of the low end will prevent bass notes from blurring into one another creating a muddy mess. - Anyone nowadays who wants to hear what their music collection would sound like with more reverb can just download Audacity for free and try messing around with it for themselves. Chances are, you'll get better results with that than you would with this thing.
I love your 'Hi-Fi Purist' rant in this video. I have encountered beige drones who were EXACTLY like that. I reckon Dub Reggae would sound great through that reverb - but played at bowel loosening volume. As you can tell, I'm not a purist. Great content yet again!
The spring reverbs definitely sounded better, and the majority of these units were sold in the 1960's and 1970's with spring devices. Digital reverb just never worked as well, they just lost the "warmth" and "sense of space" that analog spring reverbs had. Also quadraphonic sound, which of course was a product of the 1970's, reduced the desire to own one of these as the ambient affect was derived from the actual source material. Today we know that as surround sound. So really consider an old reverb as an attempt at music surround modes of a modern system.
+Alan Maier I don't think it a was a digital reverb; it's more like an analog delay circuit trying to do reverb. An affordable digital circuit from the mid 80s would probably be even more horrendous.
+Tburkulowsys Ahh - good call! I bet the unit was a bucket brigade based unit. Dang that goes back in time. I built one with Radio Shack parts, and yes - it sounded that bad. But I've restored older stereo reverbs as well as more recent guitar amps with spring reverbs and they just seemed to sound respectable if use with caution.
Alan Maier I had a Radio Shack reverb that sounded exactly like the one in the video. When I was a kid I liked to change the delay while playing my keyboard through it. It probably sounded like a dying cat. I like to think that I have better taste in music now.
In audio engineering, there are usually multiple instruments on multiple channels. Then there's a master channel. Effects don't usually belong in the master channel. Reverb is an effect and quite a heavy one, too. This might be why you don't like it much. It doesn't belong there. Subtle reverb effects can be used on a synths, where there isn't a microphone in play that would have added naturally occurring reverb.
Depends, for fully synth tracks or very dry studio recordings that imitate jazz or band, applying a global send/return reverb is actually completely par for the course, it helps unite sound as a whole, as a performance in a room rather than individual instruments floating in space, and a bit of ensuing mud is actually helpful to hide some issues, which is probably why every single Super Nintendo game overdoes it terribly. The reason it's not on the master is merely to apply a slight variation in the wet amount depending on placement (more near walls, less for instruments with very direct assumed radiation) and try to dodge the ensuing mud, but on the whole, the difference between send/return use and master use shouldn't be all that huge for casual listener. I wouldn't know what use it is as a consumer device though. I mean, fully mixed and mastered recordings probably already sound the best they're going to with the amount of reverb they have. Non-studio amateur recordings on the other hand, are usually naturally too reverberant. So eh?
Siana Gearz I still don't think it belongs in the master channel. Usually at least one instrument is recorded with natural reverb in it. Adding reverb to that just muddies it up.
manictiger In the meanwhile, i actually came up with a reasonable use for this. Not for music recordings, but for synth music sources which don't have a built in reverb. SEGA MegaDrive which came out a year later comes to mind. Considering it's a Japanese device, i'm sure owners of Sharp X68000 home computers really appreciated it in their chain, especially with its normally clean sound compared to the MegaDrive.
My grandfather actually had one of these and put it to good use. It was an interesting older unit with a single loop of spliced magnetic tape and two tape heads. I would assume one was a reader and the other was a recorder. What I found most interesting was that to adjust the timing it used mechanical linkages to physically move the one head closer or further from the other head. His use for it was quite unique. He used it in conjunction with microphones, and some movie theater speakers to real time record and replay his theater pipe organ in his home. The acoustics of the house were not favorable to the sound of the pipe organ he had squeezed in there. With this method he was able to reproduce a echo/hall effect to make for a much more pleasant listening experience.
I have to say that of all the equipment I've been through with my hi-fi (and it changes quite a lot) the only thing I've kept and intend to keep is the Pioneer SR-303. The reverberation units were produced mostly (I think) to re-create the experience of a live performance. However, I set it up to sound more like a double tracking. Both dials facing 10 to 12. Double tracking vocals in a production sense can give more depth and phase to the vocals arguably delivering more character. Place this effect on the whole track and I find it delivers more layers and I pretty much always have it bleeding into the signal, subtlety is key! However, I do run two amps with at least four speakers. Only one amp runs the reverb so it's always a careful mix between wet and dry. I really enjoyed the comment about 100% dry signal. It's ridiculous. You should always enjoy music to taste, every-bodies ears are different and if you think you're listening to music how the artist intended, fully dry, you're very mistaken. You are listening to music how the producer and mastering team ended up outputting. Sure some times the artist and producer are the same person but some of these mixes are absolute crap and I don't subscribe to it being character or an authenticity. Besides, EQ's were created to balance the music within the environment. What if you want to hear your music to your taste in two different environments? There was a time when I moved house quite a bit and the EQ was dialled in to cope with carpeted floors vs wooden floors. Oh, but the artist intended you to listen to their music in a studio environment, instead of your 1987 Ford fiesta. So you better hire the same studio the album was recorded in before you press play.
5:25 - 5:48 is EVERY audio snob EVER boiled down to less than 1 min. I used to get criticized for listening to Ewwww, Tape! (instead of "vinyl") by audio snobs who fail to realize that most of their "precious vinyl" records are in the end....Copies of studio TAPES. EQs are used to make the audio match the room. Listen to your music, DON'T listen to snobs.
you should not listen to the music though any device you should go to the band that made the song and listen to it directly from them playing it live because thats the musicians intention (sarcasm not serious)
Absolutely spot on with your assessment of the supposed "proper way" we should all listen to music Techmoan! You made me chuckle anyway. Music is supposed to be fun. Why do we all need to take it all so seriously all the time?
Hmm. If you really like to just have the lights, could you just hook it up on only the input and put it on max? And if someone comes over and asks what that pretty machine does, you can just tell that it is to degauss and align the audio signal or something like that. Then you turn the knob and ask if they can hear the difference.
+Techmoan hope you get gigabyte minidisc to talk about. all i got is 8 sony portable recorders from lp and netmd era. I got the li ion one but the battery died or killed the whole thing coz i forgot the switch.
I used a reverb box when listening to concerts and other live recordings. Listening to the Yes 90125 Live Concert with a little reverb thrown in was amazing... at the time. Of course this was a VHS being played through a mid80's technology HiFi so that probably makes a huge difference.
I have a Yamaha SPX90 in the loft. We used this when recording a band to add all kinds of effects to various channels in a mix. The SPX90 allows one to produce about 30 different digital effects, including pitch shifting, that could then be blended into the mix. Its far more fun than your domestic device; with endless permutations which can be customised and saved. Back in the early 80s this was an expensive bit of kit. The first of the digital effects boxes that ordinary bands could afford. You do need a mixer to blend the effects in, but it might be fun to play with again sometime.
For anyone with suggestions about *splitting the audio signal to enable the lights to flash without using reverb* etc - here's my reply to the first comment that mentioned this:
*"Yes, for a while I was thinking about just running off a tape output to it - but I think I've run out of space. When I do my HiFi reorganisation in a few weeks I want to simplify things down a tad...there's just too much plugged in at the mo."*
+Techmoan haha, just wanted to suggest. Regards!
+audio files seems like people are still posting this same comment....please vote the top comment up and perhaps more people will read it before posting and not think I'm being ignorant and ignoring their comment.
+Techmoan This sounds perfect for a rock machine for music like (Disturbed-indestructible) or for dubstep(madcatz songs for example),this will do the job for some modern music but done in the classic way of beethoven and motzard.
+Techmoan will you record parts of your HiFi reorganization, because I'm always quite astonished by the pure quantity of your equipment?
+Techmoan Patchbay?
5:26 made my day. I love the "cry as much as possible part".
KnapfordMaster98
lol I also liked the rant. I think replaying music through any device alters it's original format so there is really no way to purely listen to it unless we are only enjoying the artist with acoustic instruments once and only once
Wasn't that the puppet talking?
That light display is bloody beautiful.
+Nostalgia Nerd It is just awesome what they created "back in the days" and how boring new hifi tech looks in comparision. That video is the reason why I bought myself a reverber/eq combo.I have a video up on my channel showing the beautiful effect.
LMAO High five for the rant about the 'listen to music without any equaliztion' crowd
God yes, the internet seems to have given these types a platform from which they can look down and hate upon people who do not do things as they deem should be done.
+The Anonymous Hiker I understand where they're coming from, but yeesh, he's right, the idea of music is for you to enjoy it. Plus the original use of equalization was to move the sound closer to what was intended by counteracting the acoustics of the room and making up for defects in the reproducing equipment... so these types are actually arguing against themselves
+TheChipmunk2008 Exactly. It's one thing to say "Really, you''ll enjoy it more if you get rid of those Beats headphones," but to start being anally retentive and telling people that they are not actually enjoying themselves and listening to it wrong is just sad and frankly, rather tragic.
+TheChipmunk2008 It was perfect... and so precisely British in both subject and presentation. Like a polite Jeremy Clarkson.
A proper moaning.
I love the purist rant at 5:25 - brilliant!
I adore 1980s tech look! So streamlined and elegant! Much better than those rounded-plastic "messes" they produced in the late 90s
Just in case anyone asks... No, it's not for sale, I'm not in the selling game, I just make videos.
if you just want it for it's fancy lights you could splice the input and not feed it back into your amp. all the sound quality + no distortion
I thought you sold reverb and reverb accesories..
+Techmoan 5:25 I am missing the grumpy puppet :(
But still great! :D
brilliant channel. watch your videos avidly.
+Techmoan Id like to buy your blue shirt if thats for sale?
You forgot that you need to blindfold yourself and sit in a sensory deprivation pool to truly appreciate the music.
+Jesse why would you need to be blind folded in a sensory deprivation tank?
mipmipmipmipmip lol
Blindfolded, AND in a sensory deprivation chamber? That's a bit redundant. lol
Hunter Skowron and Lisa Zoria
Why blindfold and sensory deprivation tank? For double blind listening of course ;-)
Jesse And take a psychedelic like LSD.
While floating in lotus position in the chamber/pool.
you shouldnt wear glasses. that distorts the visual presentation intended by nature.
+shomonercy True - and as for clothes and shoes.....
Techmoan LMFAO!
@@Techmoan Yeah, take em' off please.
I have a Pioneer SR303 reverb. The ONLY thing I like about it, is the graphic spectrum!
@@_g7085 Come to think of it, I think my new gender is: Clothing Impaired!
"Sounds best when turned off" was that in their ad for it ;)
I loved the audiophool impression at 5:25. And thanks for showing the insides; much appreciated!
That is the best use of the Green Muppet I've seen so far.
With the arrival of green screen, it ain't easy being green!
RE not using a graphic EQ
Those people don't have the first clue about sound if they think that colouration is always negative. I've done enough work as a live sound engineer to know that without a graphic EQ to compensate for the dimensions of the room you'll get a shit mix. The same goes for pre-recorded music. Compensating for the sound of a room is perfectly fine. If I bypass the EQ in my setup there's a real nasty resonance at around 500Hz because of the shape of my living room. Knock it down a bit on the EQ and my music sounds much better.
Sorry for the rant, I just hate people who speak in such ridiculous absolutes
It's always destructive to the signal
+simex909 no one gives a shit.
+simex909 totally meaningless statement
Exactly. And it also has to do with your speakers. I'm pretty sure you are not listening to the music through the same speakers as the people in the studio did, so the sound is going to be affected any way, even if you are using flat EQ.
I'm not sure if it's my speakers or the room (or the combination of both), but if I don't cut at around 120Hz, everything will sound muddy. I installed a graphic EQ on my computer and now everything sounds better through my speakers (I bypass the EQ when I'm using my headphones). I'm pretty sure the original intention of the artists wasn't to sound muddy through my speakers in my room. Of course I'm not going to do extreme adjustments like boosting the bass by 10dB, but compensating for the room/the speakers you are using is just common sense.
There is absolutely no such thing as absolutes in life. EVER.
I had one of the spring units in my car in the late 60's. Every time you hit a bump it sounded like the kitchen was falling down around you. It was fun for awhile. Keep up the good work. I look forward to your videos.
I just lost it at the audiophiles disclaimer 😂😂😂
+Xavier Ancarno Me too...great! :)
I spent hours watching your videos. It was a trip back in time to a wonderful period of my life. Thank you!
Music should be fun
I appreciate your dry sense of humour as much as the immense effort you put into making these retro vids. Keep on keeping on!
Meri Lundström I've been scrolling through the comments, and yours seems to be the only positive one. Compliments to you!
One of the best channels with some of the best content, as well as one of the most engaging personalities on RUclips!
As a composer, to Hell with my intentions. How you shape it is as valid as how I chose to shape it.
I remember wanting one of these really bad back when I was a teenager in the 80's. I never did come up with the money for it at the time, and a few years later they seem to have disappeared. So it was neat to see you demonstrate it. I'll agree that it doesn't really make the music sound any better. It's more of a novelty than anything else.
Man I love your voice and enthusiasm, and especially these retro gear videos! Congratulations on the very nice channel!
Thanks for giving 'it' to those sanctimonious audio so-and-sos.
Friend of mine way back when had a spring reverb in his car and just make the music sounds so much better. I was just blown away and remember it to this day
This sounds more like a slapdelay than a reverb.
I have 1 of these and it is a slapdelay
NatFlaps and it sounds like massive shit!
delay and reverb are the same thing. its a spring reverb which also sounds like delay a bit.
@@KreapOfficial they are not the same thing
@@stick_mack wow you really are a stupid fuck. Reverb is like 1000 delays. Do your homework fuckwit.
Gotta tell ya, It's refreshing to hear your opinion on ADJUSTING the sound. NO TONE CONTROLS!!! For years I've heard that too. First, a hifi system is NEVER going to sound like the engineer and band recorded it. Room nodes, standing waves and speaker quirks all have an effect.
I've been using an equalizer (ADC SS2IC) and a dynamic range processor (Pioneer RG 2) since 1982, to help my system sound better, at least to me! I agree that a reverb unit really doesn't help (I like lights too). A reverb component "just ain't my cup of tea".
I did enjoy the dulcimer music at 4:40 in your video. You are a very astute man.
The reverb sounds more like a really bad multi tap delay.
Love the description of what the people say about "correct" listening to music 5:23
You should try a better reverb effect. My living room sounds kinda dead (carpets, sound absorbing tiles in ceiling, drapes), so when I'm having a party, I'll often run my computer's output through a VST reverb effect. Modern reverb sounds a lot more realistic, and in small doses, it really gives the feeling the room is a lot more open, and the party's much bigger than it is.
+ThoolooExpress Good point.
I built a reverb from a HeathKit back in the 1980s. Loved playing with that thing.
Loved the psychedelic effect at the end!
Not sure if you or anyone else that subscribes has thought of this, but one particular application of this reverb unit could be if you had a quadraphonic decoder (eg Sony SQD-1000); so that the front two speakers receive dry stereo sound, with the rear two speaker feeds going thru this reverb box and then thru their respective amp? thus allowing you add the reverb to the rear sound-field only...
Stevie C with good reverb, that might sound pretty good
your videos got my dad into youtube . thanks for your time mister !
+corsegerspwnd Perhaps we need an old chaps section.
+Bearded Gamer speak up, I'm an old chap
+Bearded Gamer Oooer, I'm keeping my 'old chap' well under cover, thank you very much ;)
+Bearded Gamer Old chaps? I'm 17 haha
5:25 - That is the perfect nerdish, trainspotter voice!
That was pretty much every audiophile on the internet to the 'T' TechMoan. 5:20
In the Head-Fi scene it's another story due to the various sound signatures of different headphones.
For some fun, tell an audiophile that music sounds just fine from an MP3 over your Bose headphones.
I died laughing here
As an "audiophile" I have to agree. I spent a decent amount of money on the most neutral cans, amp, and DAC I could find, but that's for my own taste. If you wanna listen to MP3s you found in the dumpster on and old gen 1 iPod with torn up iBuds, fucking go for it. Crank up the bass if that's what makes you happy. But personally I prefer to not mess with it at all. If it's a real shit master I might adjust something but for the most part I'd rather my equipment not get in the way of what I listen to.
Yeah there is always something else you could do to make your sound better which is true in its own right but in the end highly subjective.
4 years later . . . . RUclips suggested your videos and I’m glad about that. I’ve often toyed with thoughts 💭 of buying some vintage audio or video equipment, not quite on your scale. There were some interesting products in the past and you do an impressive job of demonstrating and providing great details and history. It’s all very addictive. Too bad there isn’t an internally adjustable pot for sensitivity of the lights on this unit. Thanks for your videos
such a mesmerizing display :) Thanks for sharing!
That rant just before 6:00 was awesome.
I love how English this man is....he called it 'Reverberation' every single time...never once was 'reverb' even on offer for a proper gentlemen...
Things like these are what makes your channel even more special! All that weird shit an eastern european/post soviet dude cannot even imagine - it existed for real!
there is a reason it's called an equaliser,
That swing at the people moaning about how to properly listen to music... I loved it!
Ha ha ha ! laughed loud at the puppet ... well done !
Yep, I watched to the end too! Trippy man. (I felt like that at the Elephant Faire in the mid 80's......)
Ditto, as I was wondering when I'd see the puppets' being used for their green-screen colour!
MrWombatty Yes, I knew I recognized his green skin tone. It's Chroma Key!
Even a video about a pointless and redundant product like this Kenwood reverberation amplifier, is a joy to watch. I have grown practically addicted to your videos, so thank you - and (I hope!) keep ´em coming!
does that unit smell as smoky as it looks?
+Albion Laster I have no idea - I can't smell.
What?
@@adamziolkowski2549 Techmoan has anosmia, he literally can't smell, he talked about it in some videos
An EQ is a great thing to have and use as you said. Rooms are all different acoustically and muddy bass for instance can be corrected with the EQ . The parametric EQ on my bass amps should never be used according to the audio genius who criticized you for using one. I love your videos!
hilarious! well done Matt! during the 80s and early nineties "entertainment systems" were all the rage and the more buttons and lights the higher ranking the owner would be. That unit was in the line up. The best enhancement unit in the Kenwood system was the "Base enhancer" before subwoofers we needed to get all the base from the mains and the base enhancer was just the ticket. again Bravo on a hilarious episode sir!
+Randy Pullman Would that not be BASS enhancer?
+aKunacme no, I wouldn't think so
Randy Pullman You sure? www.google.co.uk/search?q=bass+enhancer
+aKunacme no more along these lines GE-722 Digital Graphic Equalizer with "Acoustic Intelligence and Digital Soundfield Processor" but not exactly this. It's a kenwood bass enhancer only.
Randy Pullman "higher ranking the owner would be?" wtf are you talking about?!
The memories this is bringing :)!!! I remember owning a reverberation device like that & married with an equalizer!!! That was awesome...
I know this is an older video and I'm quite late to the game, as it were, but here are my two cents on adding reverb. Back in the 60's, when Top 40 music radio was developing into the sound we know and love here in the States (and stations may have done this in the U.K. as well; I'm not sure), they started experimenting with adding reverb in their processing chains. Depending on the personal tastes of whoever was in charge, that ranged anywhere from some subtle, light reverb that's just barely audible when something suddenly dropped to silence... all the way to full-on slapback echoes that sounded no better than when you cranked this thing all the way up. Some of the most popular stations in major markets were somewhere on the lower end of the middle ground, and that success inspired stations across the country to match them -- a sound which lasted even through the 2000's (I even noticed the contemporary hits station in Detroit using it as late as 2006 or so), though it seems to have disappeared almost entirely by now.
Part of the reason why stations did that was a misunderstanding of technology. We've all heard of the Loudness Wars? That wasn't just limited to recording, it happened in radio, too. The reason why the AM stations made themselves so big and boomy is because (and this is a correct understanding of technology) the louder an amplitude modulated signal is... well, modulated, the more powerful it is, the further it travels, and the more people can hear it; the idea being that you keep your station as loud as possible for as much of the time as possible so that you can cover as far a geographical range as possible. The misunderstanding came when adding reverb. Some engineers got it in their heads that they could back off on the compression and limiting if they added reverb to sustain the amplitude longer than the natural source material lasted. Of course, we know now that that's not how it works; you still lose loudness with reverb, the signal doesn't travel as far, and if the timings are mismatched, you end up with an audio trainwreck. Once that fact was realized, it became more about making the sound more pleasant for the listeners than anything technical.
My suspicion is that these units were an attempt to give record and tape listeners the same experience with some range of options to tailor it to their own tastes, but the problem there is that the range of options is limited to what the manufacturer thinks is best. That reverb on AM radio 60 years ago was all homebrew. Sure, there may have been some consumer or even professional-grade technology at the start, but engineers tweaked it like crazy to make it do what they wanted it to do. Analog audio processing for broadcast was in its infancy; these were the mothers and fathers of what exists today, and they set the standard for even the digital methods in use now, as well. If you wanted to match that sound in the 70's and 80's, you would either have to build it yourself or open that box and change things.
Of course, digital plugins make this a breeze nowadays. I use a VST reverb effect in the audio processing chain on my living room computer. It took me a long time to get the timing and room size settings exactly the way they should be, but it sounds exactly how I want it to sound every single time. It's that subtle tail end of hall sound that adds just a little realism. I would be willing to bet that I would never get that sound out of this unit.
Unless I'm mistaken, wasn't ABBAs trademark "sparkling" sound due to adding reverb to their voices?
Fascinating review.
As a kid in the '80s we tended to dislike the fashionable 'reverb snare' that seemed to plague so much in the Top 40. Nowadays I cant stop adding post-production reverb to things I record. Love making big sounds even bigger.
That thing sounds terrible, but is sure does look pretty ! Also, I'm one of these people who think you shouldn't tamper with the music, but honestly graphic EQs can be really useful. I'll go back to staring angrily at my grey wall sitting on my wooden chair now.
I'm finding your videos strangely addictive, and very entertaining!
Try this with "Shine On You Crazy Diamond". You'll probably get some insane reverbs :)
About to try this with my reverb amp
I love this video! You really hit your stride balancing information and entertainment.
Man, I had that exact same unit back in the late 70s/early 80s. The nostalgia... It was great for recordings of live music, not so much studio stuff.
As an aside, you need more muppet in your videos. :)
A classic effects unit. I've only ever had Alessis for effects, and some guitar pedals of various brands. This old things looks and sounds lovely
Should this be called an "Echoing amplifier" . I thought reverb was different then a rapid echo...
I like your statement about the equalizer as I feel the same way. I joined an FB group full of audiophiles strongly "suggesting" to not use EQ to most it's members who asks about it. Apparently their solution to the different music genre that does not suite an all in one headphone is to buy multiple expensive headphones and dac/amps for different genre of music. I realize that these people enjoy buying gadgets and showing them off then actually enjoying the music.
And yes, I agree with you at 5:20 , those moron wannabe "audiophiles" who state crap about listening to music without anything that changes the levels of the audio as it changes the music away from the artist's intention is just bull.
Most of the time when you hear a song on an album, it's vastly different than what the artist originally created due to the end result actually being the result of the sound engineer's work and just the nature of recording and mastering, and not at all of that of the Artist. So it's very naive to state bullsh*t about "artist intentions". And yes, I know there's a few exceptions to this, such as with electronic music artists who can essentially record the sound exactly as it was created due to everything just remaining digital from the synth/mixers directly to the CD. But even in these scenarios, unless you have the same exact output setup as that Artist; same brand/model of speakers, same output amp, etc, your home audio system or headphones will change the sound and not sound anything like the Artist's intentions.
As a former session and live bassist for a few Los Angeles area bands, anytime we recorded in a studio. I can tell you that the end result did not sound anything like what we rehearsed or played live for the many months prior to and after recording. So I can definitely state that recorded medium is definitely not what the Artist intended for you to hear.. so the Artists should have zero qualms if you tweak the audio EQ to your personal listening enjoyment as regardless of what you do to the sound, EQ or not, it definitely will not sound like how we created/performed and intended it to sound.
There are even instances where the recording artists are not satisfied with and hate the end result due to the recorded tracks sounding vastly different than what they had heard during creation and rehearsal for the months prior due to just the nature of recording and mastering. Some artists go as far as to wanting to destroy the album, however are not able to and are forced to release it anyways due to having to meet recording obligations/contracts and/or financial or time restrictions. However it is rare that you hear any public distaste for an album from the artist, as they will not tell their fans not to buy the album and that the new album the fans will actually enjoy is personally "sh*t" to their ears and not how they intended.
One example I can think of off the top of my head where an artist did make public statements in regards to a recording not sounding as intended is a black/extreme metal band named Cradle of Filth, they made public statements about how rubbish the mix and sound of the recording was, and overall how much they hated the end result of their 3rd album "Cruelty And The Beast", the recording was so bad compared to what they originally intended to the point that one of the vocalists of the band was in tears when she first heard the finished album because the end result sounded nothing like she worked countless days in the studio recording. However there is some irony in all of this, because this album is considered by fans and reviewers as one of their greatest and best sounding albums and is even considered one of the all-time top albums of their genre (it was even ranked as the #1 album for a time by various metal music publications). This just shows that any statement about "Artist Intention" is pure rubbish as it's the listener's enjoyment that matters the most.
I personally EQ the music I listen to because I want what I listen to, to sound as pleasant to my ears as possible when listening. I even EQ the music of the bands I have recorded with when playing it back because it always can sound better but no matter what, it never sounds like I intended, and regardless if I use an EQ or not, the end result of playback from the CD never sounds like the actual sound that came out of my bass guitar and into my ears during recording (and rehearsals) and never will.
+Raven S (Hidden) it's really great to hear a point of view from a musician directly, thank you for taking the time.
+Techmoan you should check out two audio items that you may be able to pick up on ebay for cheap (under $100 each) that would make a extreme pleasurable (to your ears) difference to your music that aren't available in the general home audio market. I Wrote about em in a different comment here on your video: ruclips.net/video/aYuBU-QCd4k/видео.html&lc=z13mulkabqzxjhz3523tsd0woxr0dzfrj04
+Raven S (Hidden) You normally only see that with commercially oriented labels, metal is certainly one of the affected. I just like to listen to the music as it came produced, if it sounds like shit I'll skip it instead of trying to fix it. I direct source everything at home (knob settings bypass), EQ only in the car to make up for faults. That said, if you don't like how your speakers sound normally at home there's nothing wrong with tweaking in my view.
spookanide Metal or not, I can tell you from experience as a music performer the music you're listening to isn't as it came produced. Rather than sounding like a knob, and hoping on the "kiddie audiophile" bandwagon, you should instead listen to any and all music with the settings and EQ that work to maximize potential personal listening enjoyment and emotion.
Raven S
Well my maximum enjoyment comes from my current setup, aren't you also dictating like a knob now? Can't we agree we hold differen philosophies? I was just explaining my point of view. Also EQing fucks with phase shifting in the frequency bands, I just don't want that at all if I can avoid it.
When he went off on one about people telling him how to listen to his own music in his own house, I had to praise him on that! I love Matt, good old down to earth northerner! Huge fan of techmoan, keep making great videos!
Radio Shack in the 1980's made a similar but not as cool looking reverb unit you could plug through your stereo. A lot of all-in-one Karaoke systems have this kind of microphone reverb circuit too. These analog "bucket brigade" reverb circuits always sounded cheap and muddy to me. If some company could make a new unit for home stereos with programmable digital reverb and delay it might be a worthy addition to a stereo and not just a gimmick.
+wildbilltexas reverb is still used in pro/home recording studios often. it doesnt come in these big box hi-fi units anymore though, mostly rack mount configurations and half rack space boxes. (also guitar "stomp-boxes")
As you probably know, bucket brigade devices are basically long clocked chains of capacitors, combining the worst of digital and analog. You get aliasing, so you need to low pass filter the input, but they're also a long low pass filter themselves, so they roll off the higher frequencies as they pass through the delay chain. They also have terrible clock bleedthrough, which is less noticeable in a reverb but incredibly noticeable in a chorus or flanger where you're modulating the clock. Both lead to an unpleasant effect unless you're explicitly going for "lo-fi" and means that in modern usage, BBDs are relegated to guitar effects.
Don't some of the newer DSP receivers offer variations of reverb? There was one unit I tinkered with that had hall, bright hall and other settings as part of its cinema decoder.
+vwestlife Nice to see you here!
Bucket Brigade like a IC TDA1022 use much more in the 70's late 80's
The Eminent 310 Unique which was the the key sound in Jean Michel Jarre's early works was a normal Home Organ which incorporated a very good reverberation unit (the first one to do so). Of course it helped that he could adjust the reverb on that without affecting the drums etc.
Another great review, thanks. Back in the late 70s I had a reverb amp, I think it was a kenwood, that had a large coiled spring inside with a transducer at one end, and to change the reverb time you turned a knob that would contract or stretch the spring. If you could find one of these and do a review I think a lot of people, including me would find it very interesting. Thanks.
I love your opinions on music enjoyment. If you want or need to"adjust" your music so you can enjoy it, the music is doing its intended purpose. But, everyone's an expert...
US. Military Japan 1983,,,, You always knew who just came back from Japan. We came back with These and other. Four feet tall of Stereo equipment. I think my parents stuck it in the basement 30 years ago. By the 90's all that stereo was looking out of date .. Fun Times
I have been subbed to this channel for about 2 years and I dont think I can recall a time I have ever seen your face.
+x9x9x9x9x9 You've missed about 20 videos where I show my face.
As always good review even my young son hangs around for the puppet bit : ) .
You absolutely are the David Attenborough of retro tech. I really enjoy your videos. Keep it up!
For me he is the John Peel of tech :)
Always watch Techmoan's vids to the very end, even when it's for a Kenwood chocolate teapot :-)
Ha ha love your comments. My old NAIM NAC12 preamp previously belonged to a hi-fi purist; not content with it not having any tone controls, he also had NAIM take the balance potentiometer out of circuit too. I have to admit though that, even though it's getting on for 50 years old, it does sound fantastic and has tremendously detailed stereo soundstage.
That reverb is based on the old Bucket Brigade Device chips sold by Reticon, Panasonic, Philips and other manufacturers of the time. Compared to a good old spring reverb, I think they sound kind of "choppy" and not very pleasing at all...
Yes this is a Bucket Brigade Device (BBD). They were used in a variety of applications. Some of which included voice scramblers, but most commonly for reverb/echo processors.
The BBD was a cross between a digital and an analogue device. It would take small samples of the input signal (analogue samples, not a digital) and pass them through a long chain of MOSFETs. These MOSFETs acted like capacitors that would hold the charge for a small length of time, then pass them to the next cell. It had to pass through a large number of MOSFET based cells before it would be spit out at the end. A portion of this delayed output signal would then be mixed back with input signal to produce a reverb-ish effect.
The entire process was moderated by a clock. Increasing the clock speed would make the charges pass through the BBD much faster, thus reducing one's delay time. Decreasing the clock speed would increase the delay time.
Strictly speaking, these devices did not introduce sufficient convolution to truly be classed as reverb units. They were actually echo units. But the distinction between echo and reverb was, and to a great extent still is lost on many people.
BTW, they sounded TERRIBLE!
David Courtney Thanks for the great explanation! I always wondered how those worked. That explains the poor sound quality, and why moving the delay knob makes such a strange pitch bending effect. Back in the day this was pretty cool, but by today's standards, the sound is pretty hard to listen to.
The comment about the graphic equalizer was absolutely hilarious!!! 🤣🤣🤣 Thanks for testing this unit that rised much curiosity in the eighties; I had to pass for economic reasons but I regret it much less now!
It seems to me that it's using Bucket Brigade Delay ICs to generate the reverberation effect. Those kind of reverbs are so bad that not even guitarists wanted to revisit it unlike BBD based delays and choruses (which are pretty good sounding).
+László Szerémi Apparently that's what is used in my old Realistic Reverb Control Desk.
yes, I think it's exactly was that. They came packaged on an IC and there were a little bunch of gadgets that sounded like this. I had some silver box thing that I've forgotten the name of. Cute and sounds like a quick delay space echo too.
Actually one use for an equalizer is to help compensate for the room's acoustics or speaker placement limitations. So actually making the music more like the artist intended.
Nice use of fractals at the end :)
This sort of reverb effect is still available and used in modern mixing desks.
The church I am part of used an effects unit for our vocalists for quite a while as it adds more depth to the sound. On our current digital desk it has it built in which makes it even easier.
The reverberation amplifier seems so unnecessary. It just muddles up the otherwise pure and pristine audio signal. It just seems like a novelty or even worse, a sales gimmick. The colors and lights are pretty to look at, though.
Great review.
Here's a few thoughts from a musician who's spent years dealing with artificial reverb.
- This thing sounds a lot more like a muddy delay effect than a reverb to me, at least from how it sounds in the video. That slight pitch-shifting sound you hear when adjusting the reverb time is a dead giveaway.
- It blows my mind that there's no wet/dry control on this thing, as that's pretty much the key to dialling in a pleasant reverb tone, and then pushing it back in the mix so that it sits comfortably in the background.
- Reverb applied to an entire mix rather than individual stems would do well to have its own EQ, as rolling a bit off the high end will help it sit in the mix, and rolling off most of the low end will prevent bass notes from blurring into one another creating a muddy mess.
- Anyone nowadays who wants to hear what their music collection would sound like with more reverb can just download Audacity for free and try messing around with it for themselves. Chances are, you'll get better results with that than you would with this thing.
What is the name of the song played at 4:36 ? I'm looking for it for a while now.
Mabott Gum - Dem
Just watch a 15+ times blah blah blah video
I love your 'Hi-Fi Purist' rant in this video. I have encountered beige drones who were EXACTLY like that. I reckon Dub Reggae would sound great through that reverb - but played at bowel loosening volume. As you can tell, I'm not a purist. Great content yet again!
The spring reverbs definitely sounded better, and the majority of these units were sold in the 1960's and 1970's with spring devices. Digital reverb just never worked as well, they just lost the "warmth" and "sense of space" that analog spring reverbs had. Also quadraphonic sound, which of course was a product of the 1970's, reduced the desire to own one of these as the ambient affect was derived from the actual source material. Today we know that as surround sound. So really consider an old reverb as an attempt at music surround modes of a modern system.
+Alan Maier I don't think it a was a digital reverb; it's more like an analog delay circuit trying to do reverb. An affordable digital circuit from the mid 80s would probably be even more horrendous.
+Tburkulowsys Ahh - good call! I bet the unit was a bucket brigade based unit. Dang that goes back in time. I built one with Radio Shack parts, and yes - it sounded that bad. But I've restored older stereo reverbs as well as more recent guitar amps with spring reverbs and they just seemed to sound respectable if use with caution.
Alan Maier I had a Radio Shack reverb that sounded exactly like the one in the video. When I was a kid I liked to change the delay while playing my keyboard through it. It probably sounded like a dying cat. I like to think that I have better taste in music now.
This is the ultimate slap to the face of a competent sound engineer x)
In audio engineering, there are usually multiple instruments on multiple channels.
Then there's a master channel.
Effects don't usually belong in the master channel.
Reverb is an effect and quite a heavy one, too.
This might be why you don't like it much. It doesn't belong there.
Subtle reverb effects can be used on a synths, where there isn't a microphone in play that would have added naturally occurring reverb.
Depends, for fully synth tracks or very dry studio recordings that imitate jazz or band, applying a global send/return reverb is actually completely par for the course, it helps unite sound as a whole, as a performance in a room rather than individual instruments floating in space, and a bit of ensuing mud is actually helpful to hide some issues, which is probably why every single Super Nintendo game overdoes it terribly. The reason it's not on the master is merely to apply a slight variation in the wet amount depending on placement (more near walls, less for instruments with very direct assumed radiation) and try to dodge the ensuing mud, but on the whole, the difference between send/return use and master use shouldn't be all that huge for casual listener.
I wouldn't know what use it is as a consumer device though. I mean, fully mixed and mastered recordings probably already sound the best they're going to with the amount of reverb they have. Non-studio amateur recordings on the other hand, are usually naturally too reverberant. So eh?
Siana Gearz
I still don't think it belongs in the master channel.
Usually at least one instrument is recorded with natural reverb in it.
Adding reverb to that just muddies it up.
manictiger In the meanwhile, i actually came up with a reasonable use for this. Not for music recordings, but for synth music sources which don't have a built in reverb. SEGA MegaDrive which came out a year later comes to mind. Considering it's a Japanese device, i'm sure owners of Sharp X68000 home computers really appreciated it in their chain, especially with its normally clean sound compared to the MegaDrive.
Siana Gearz
I suppose that works.
I guess I'm thinking more like an engineer than a consumer.
My grandfather actually had one of these and put it to good use. It was an interesting older unit with a single loop of spliced magnetic tape and two tape heads. I would assume one was a reader and the other was a recorder. What I found most interesting was that to adjust the timing it used mechanical linkages to physically move the one head closer or further from the other head. His use for it was quite unique. He used it in conjunction with microphones, and some movie theater speakers to real time record and replay his theater pipe organ in his home. The acoustics of the house were not favorable to the sound of the pipe organ he had squeezed in there. With this method he was able to reproduce a echo/hall effect to make for a much more pleasant listening experience.
I have to say that of all the equipment I've been through with my hi-fi (and it changes quite a lot) the only thing I've kept and intend to keep is the Pioneer SR-303. The reverberation units were produced mostly (I think) to re-create the experience of a live performance. However, I set it up to sound more like a double tracking. Both dials facing 10 to 12. Double tracking vocals in a production sense can give more depth and phase to the vocals arguably delivering more character. Place this effect on the whole track and I find it delivers more layers and I pretty much always have it bleeding into the signal, subtlety is key!
However, I do run two amps with at least four speakers. Only one amp runs the reverb so it's always a careful mix between wet and dry.
I really enjoyed the comment about 100% dry signal. It's ridiculous. You should always enjoy music to taste, every-bodies ears are different and if you think you're listening to music how the artist intended, fully dry, you're very mistaken. You are listening to music how the producer and mastering team ended up outputting. Sure some times the artist and producer are the same person but some of these mixes are absolute crap and I don't subscribe to it being character or an authenticity. Besides, EQ's were created to balance the music within the environment. What if you want to hear your music to your taste in two different environments? There was a time when I moved house quite a bit and the EQ was dialled in to cope with carpeted floors vs wooden floors. Oh, but the artist intended you to listen to their music in a studio environment, instead of your 1987 Ford fiesta. So you better hire the same studio the album was recorded in before you press play.
5:25 - 5:48 is EVERY audio snob EVER boiled down to less than 1 min. I used to get criticized for listening to Ewwww, Tape! (instead of "vinyl") by audio snobs who fail to realize that most of their "precious vinyl" records are in the end....Copies of studio TAPES. EQs are used to make the audio match the room. Listen to your music, DON'T listen to snobs.
you should not listen to the music though any device you should go to the band that made the song and listen to it directly from them playing it live because thats the musicians intention (sarcasm not serious)
OMG i use this in early 90s, i completely for get this, thank God for RUclips
Does anyone know what song is at 4:56?
Mabott Gum - Dem
ruclips.net/video/Gm78cYqVlbk/видео.html
Absolutely spot on with your assessment of the supposed "proper way" we should all listen to music Techmoan! You made me chuckle anyway. Music is supposed to be fun. Why do we all need to take it all so seriously all the time?
Hmm. If you really like to just have the lights, could you just hook it up on only the input and put it on max?
And if someone comes over and asks what that pretty machine does, you can just tell that it is to degauss and align the audio signal or something like that.
Then you turn the knob and ask if they can hear the difference.
And the more you turn it up the better it sounds.
you could Use one of the Tape-Out Outputs from your Reciver. just to have the lights flashing✌
Excellent video as always. Do you like minidisc? when will you make a review of minidisc equipment? Thanks!
www.techmoan.com/blog/2016/7/18/minidisc.html
+Techmoan hope you get gigabyte minidisc to talk about. all i got is 8 sony portable recorders from lp and netmd era. I got the li ion one but the battery died or killed the whole thing coz i forgot the switch.
Hi, what is the name of the music at 4:37
Yeassss More Techmoan my day is complete
The reverb sounds INCREDIBLY basic by today's standards. Not smooth or realistic at all.
I used a reverb box when listening to concerts and other live recordings. Listening to the Yes 90125 Live Concert with a little reverb thrown in was amazing... at the time. Of course this was a VHS being played through a mid80's technology HiFi so that probably makes a huge difference.
good god, that is prolly the worst "reverb" unit I've ever heard; and I've heard quite a few.
5:49 This is the reason I subscribed to you, besides loving the look of retro tech. Bravo!
Anybody remember the 4way quadrifonic system with a single piece that you could adjust the sound!!!!
I have a Yamaha SPX90 in the loft. We used this when recording a band to add all kinds of effects to various channels in a mix. The SPX90 allows one to produce about 30 different digital effects, including pitch shifting, that could then be blended into the mix. Its far more fun than your domestic device; with endless permutations which can be customised and saved.
Back in the early 80s this was an expensive bit of kit. The first of the digital effects boxes that ordinary bands could afford. You do need a mixer to blend the effects in, but it might be fun to play with again sometime.