History of reverberation in recording
Originally, the studio recordings were performed through the microphone quite remote from the sound source. This microphone, like the human ear, received the sound waves reflected from the walls of the studio room, and enrolled it into the recording. In the such way the natural reverb of the studio was preserved in the recording. The effect was even more pronounced, when they began to use several microphones, respectively mixed with each other, this way even better results could be achieved. In the fifties the recording studios started to increasingly equip themselves with special devices for the producing the artificial reverb, which they began to add to the recordings. These were the so-called. reverberation chambers, and spring reverb units. the new approach to the recording was born- to put the microphone close to the source, eliminating the natural reverb from the studio room and then add some artificial reverb in the process of mixing. This gave the technicians and recording engineers greater control over reverberation of their tracks. Each studio had its own technicians and its own solutions to achieve their often unique reverb.
For example, the famous label Tamla Motown studio in Detroit, recording such great soul and funk artists as Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Jackson Five, The Supremes with Diana Ross, Wilson Pickett and many others have achieved so perfect sound of the the rhythm section - the drums and bass, that the bands used to come there from all over the world just to record their rhythm section using the Tamla Motown studio. When the studio moved to California in the beginning of the seventies, they cut out the whole room, as the legend says, and took it with them along with the drum set nailed to the floor.
EMI Studios at Abbey Road in London recording the Beatles or Pink Floyd not only had its own, perfectly worked out sound but also their own reverberation chamber. Abbey Road Studio's reverb chamber was made of a cast iron pipe with the speaker and microphone on both ends. The microphone picked up the sound of this loudspeaker reverbed by the pipe, which was mixed in to the original, direct sound.
At the same time at Abbey Road the very close placement of microphones for recording instruments was introduced, which at the beginning raised great technical objections of studio management, it was feared that the placing such expensive type of microphone as the Neumann U-47 very close to the membrane of a kick drum of the Beatles is not only its desecration, but it can cause damage to the capsule by too much sound pressure levels.
The Beatles were also the only band which was allowed to do that, as mentioned by their sound engineer, Geoff Emerick, and other bands had to record using the traditional method of more distant placement of the microphones.
Close miking gave much more powerful sound to the Beatles' rhythm section, which was even an object of jealousy for the specialists from Tamla Motown, but virtually deprived the recordings of natural reverb of the room. The need for artificial reverberation has become more prominent.
In the earlier days they used two basic tricks to ob
tain the reverb in the recording session. The first was the use of reel-to-reel tape machine with more playback heads added and the looped tape, which gave the opportunity to obtain both an echo and reverb, depending on the speed of the tape, while the second was to apply tricks of additional, special microphones arranged very far from the instruments and collect an enormous amount of room reverb, which later was mixed back into the close, dry microphones signal, which gave both very powerful and naturally reverbed sound.
Over time, the first specialized tape reverbs were built, called the echo cameras with many heads offering the possibility of multiple sound and repetition to achieve the effect of reflecting the echoes. Musicians quickly used it as an additional means of expression, and even the whole compositions were sometimes based on the sound of such devices. A good example might be David Gilmour of Pink Floyd, who used the Binson plate echo effect, or Jimi Hendrix, the greatest electric guitar virtuoso of all times, using very much of artificial reverb and echo in his recordings.
Practical implementation of the reverb in the mix
Generally you can say that the reverb can be used in the mix on the basis of two approaches: either for the purpose of obtaining natural ambience in the mix, simulating a kind of live recordings, or as a special effect, used to obtain special sound textures. Both approaches are widely used and the best way of using reverberation in recording is to take advantage of both of them.
source:studiomastering.net
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