Reverber- rate or hate? - Trying out an 1980s HiFi Reverb Amp
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- Опубликовано: 27 авг 2024
- In this video I'm trying out a Reverberation amplifier to see if it's something I need in my HiFi.
You can find Reverb Amps on eBay goo.gl/9OADvu
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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?
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?
I love the purist rant at 5:25 - brilliant!
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.
I adore 1980s tech look! So streamlined and elegant! Much better than those rounded-plastic "messes" they produced in the late 90s
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.
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.
"Sounds best when turned off" was that in their ad for it ;)
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!
I just lost it at the audiophiles disclaimer 😂😂😂
+Xavier Ancarno Me too...great! :)
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!
I loved the audiophool impression at 5:25. And thanks for showing the insides; much appreciated!
As a composer, to Hell with my intentions. How you shape it is as valid as how I chose to shape it.
I spent hours watching your videos. It was a trip back in time to a wonderful period of my life. Thank you!
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!
Music should be fun
One of the best channels with some of the best content, as well as one of the most engaging personalities on RUclips!
Man I love your voice and enthusiasm, and especially these retro gear videos! Congratulations on the very nice channel!
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.
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.
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
A friend had one of these back in the early 80s. I always thought it sounded like shite, and I'm glad to see it's not just me.
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.
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.
5:25 - That is the perfect nerdish, trainspotter voice!
I built a reverb from a HeathKit back in the 1980s. Loved playing with that thing.
Loved the psychedelic effect at the end!
such a mesmerizing display :) Thanks for sharing!
I love this video! You really hit your stride balancing information and entertainment.
That swing at the people moaning about how to properly listen to music... I loved it!
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
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.
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...
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.
Love the description of what the people say about "correct" listening to music 5:23
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
The reverb sounds more like a really bad multi tap delay.
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
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.
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.
there is a reason it's called an equaliser,
Try this with "Shine On You Crazy Diamond". You'll probably get some insane reverbs :)
About to try this with my reverb amp
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.
I'm finding your videos strangely addictive, and very entertaining!
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!
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?!
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.
the reverb effect is quiet harsh, it's a sort of short fast echo. With no attenuation for various frequencies, it's hard to get decent pleasing reverberation that will make the music come alive. I agree with your final conclusion.
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. :)
Nice use of fractals at the end :)
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
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!
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
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 absolutely love it! i need one of these
I really enjoy how that display looks.
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?
Should this be called an "Echoing amplifier" . I thought reverb was different then a rapid echo...
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.
The memories this is bringing :)!!! I remember owning a reverberation device like that & married with an equalizer!!! That was awesome...
Always watch Techmoan's vids to the very end, even when it's for a Kenwood chocolate teapot :-)
As always good review even my young son hangs around for the puppet bit : ) .
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.
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.
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
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.
OMG i use this in early 90s, i completely for get this, thank God for RUclips
It's amazing how people can tell you how to listen to music, or even what music you can listen to. I was even told I was stupid for dumping vinyl decades ago, because I had the audacity to believe that digital media sounded better.
+Stephen Clementson The best quality is from live music. Sell your stereo and pay musicians to live in your lounge room. :D
+David Willanski Ha Ha...That would be an accurate rendition. But a bit difficult to store in a flash drive, or on a hard disk. As I use computers (plural) and headphones to listen to whatever I like, whenever I like, I don't consider what I do to be an intrusion.
+Stephen Clementson just get a one man band to follow you everywhere :)
+David Willanski Does he run on rechargeable batteries? Mains adapter supplied 110v/240v? An AC/DC type of guy :-)
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.
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)
Interesting device and glad you don't mind using the equaliser, is useful even with the expensive headphones!
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!
Anybody remember the 4way quadrifonic system with a single piece that you could adjust the sound!!!!
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.
There was a company that sold car speakers, the oval kind, that had springs in the back connected to the voice coil. It was a spring reverb built into the speaker itself, this was in the late 60’s. I still have one of them sitting on a shelf in the closet. It didn’t sound too bad actually.
Yeassss More Techmoan my day is complete
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.
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.
The Pioneer SR-60 Reverberation Amplifier can be set at lower levels than the Kenwood model that you reviewed. I run mine with a 10 band equilizer for Mp3 playback and they do sound better with it. At low settings it does make them sound like a live performance without going overboard.
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.
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.
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.
Got a Sansui Reverberation device at Goodwill about 10 years ago. We took it apart and saw 1 or 2 big springs. I would turn it all the way up all the time!
Reverb can be described as adding a room to a sound.
Usually when recording in a studio you will try and record in as dead a room as possible to try and prevent any reverb from being recorded. Then once you have finished the recordings you can add reverb back in to the recording using software. This allows you to precisely control what reverb you wish to apply to the piece.
Alternatively if you know that a certain room has a nice reverb effect you can record in there. For example for a church Choir it is often customary to record them in a church in order to get the reverb that the church adds.
On a side note, when doing a vocalist recording session when they ask to hear the recording in between takes it is also often customary to put reverb on it. Since vocalists often don't enjoy listening to their voice without reverb on.
+aljowen You seem to know quite a bit about this - so can I ask what was being done to Phil Collins' voice on his 80s hits. He always sounded very processed, and electronic.
+Techmoan Going to jump on here. Listening to 'In the Air Tonight', Collins is using more delay than reverb. It's a subtle difference but one part of it is that delay allows you to feed the signal back into itself. If you hove a reverb unit that lets you feed back beyond 50%, you can get self-sustaining effects (beloved of noise artists like myself). You can really hear this after the drums come in - with the multiple delay trails.
Collins also has heavy EQ, and is double-tracking his voice (two separate recordings), probably using ADT - which automatically records the input twice. It 'thickens' the vocals.
There's also probably a subtle vocoder on there (possibly phasing), as well as the usual EQ, heavy compression and possibly even gating. There's a lot of vocoder on some of the backing vocals.
There's a Hell of a lot going on with that vocal. They just about threw the kitchen sink at it (at least the 80s kitchen sink, before we had auto-tune, etc.).
The 'real' sound of what's going on is in the backing vocals. The lead is a 'watered-down' version of the backing in terms of effects.
+Techmoan Well, with being 19 I didn't immediately know who you were talking about, but then recognised the song from the cadbury's advert :p
My guess from ear (from RUclips) it sounds like it could possibly be a Chorus/delay effect along side reverb. There will likely be some form of EQ in there as well.
Chorus is where you create a duplicate of the audio and play it ever so slightly out of time with the original and pitched slightly differently. This creates the effect of sounding like multiple people, hence chorus effect.
+Duncan Taylor Thanks for the info, it was just something that always puzzled me as I've never really heard anyone else's voice processed that way. The end result does have a sound of auto-tune before auto-tune existed.
+aljowen Now I just feel old - only know Phil Collins from the Cadbury Advert....kids today etc etc, grumpy old man moan, now where's my slippers.
good god, that is prolly the worst "reverb" unit I've ever heard; and I've heard quite a few.
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.
I love the "you should listen to everything on a perfectly flat system" crowd, because, well, no stuido is setup with a perfectly flat monitoring system.
Yes, they go to great effort with room treatments to flatten everything and, especially, remove room modes because having a consistent system for mixing is important, but the system will then be EQd to sound good with existing music, because real music is not mixed to be listened to on a flat system (the first audio systems were never flat, and music has always been mixed to sound good on the listening equipment *people have*)
A great experiment anybody can do is just to pick up and move their speakers and observe how much the audio changes. It's quite noticeable in most rooms.
This clearly isn`t suited for modern music..
I can see it working for instruments and vocals though :)
A slight adjustment for classical music in rooms with poor acoustics maybe?
maybe it can be used to make "instant dub" mixes
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
Thank you for a channel with great substance!
I remember this unit when it was new in stereo store in my area and they had it set up in a special little sound room displaying equipment demoing this and as a teenager just getting into stereo, when I heard this, at the time I thought it was amazing. I never heard anything like it and thought it brought a whole new light to music. Now I look back and think, what was I thinking! But it was new to me at the time as something different to make things sound "live" I guess. Thanks for this video, I have been trying to find what I experienced back then and finally found what I think was the gear I was hearing with your video. I remember the lights and I thought they had depth to them like 3D.
Does anyone know what song is at 4:56?
Mabott Gum - Dem
ruclips.net/video/Gm78cYqVlbk/видео.html
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
Dude. One of these and a playlist of club music bumping at full blast. Instant party without any drugs.
Reverb is very much alive, it's there in the 'hall effects' of your typical AV decoder/receiver, just not as adjustable, more of a fixed setting.