Reverb and ambience

[Mark Hammer]

Maybe best tacked on to Vivek's thread about plate, spring, room, and hall, but I'm really aiming at a rethink here.

The history of ambience has taken many twists and turns.  From recording in tiled bathrooms or hallways, to  cinder-block stairwells and indoor parking lots, to huge oil-drums, to springs, to even the Taj Mahal (see Paul Horn's recording).  Concert halls are designed by acousticians to yield a form of ambience that will complement the type of performances anticipated at the venue, and some churches and cathedrals are cherished because of their idiosyncratic audible ambience.  Part of the use of domes in buildings is to produce an ambient reverberation.

At the gear level, we have used a variety of technologies to produce ambience, including - but not limited to - springs, bucket-brigade devices, and more recently digital algorithms.

But what is it we are trying to do?  Yes, part of it is attempting to emulate actual natural spaces.  That's why we have settings on gear for "room", "chamber", "hall", etc.  Some of it is attempting to emulate the technology we use to imperfectly emulate.  A "spring" setting on a digital reverb unit is precisely that - an emulation of something we historically used to emulate a physical space.

As I was driving back from dropping my son off, I heard a tune on the radio that had the guitar playing a very distinct "plink".  It didn't sound like any particular kind of space, but nor did it sound like one has stuck the amp speaker right up to you ear.  I gather it was spring reverb on the amp (or emulation thereof), but it was NOT used in a way that mimicked or sought to mimic, a preconceived space.  It was simply to add some ambience to the guitar.

Reverberation and delay have gone well past the point of emulating physical spaces, and these days allow one to think about ambience in the most abstract ways.  Perfect case in point is "shimmer" reverb.  There is no natural space in the real world that will yield such an audible transformation, nor does it lead one to imagine the space that might produce it.  It produces not original+trail, but something entirely different.  Same with modulated delay.  Straight echo starts to feel like a physical space when the delay time, regeneration, regeneration tone, and mix level is set right.  But when the repeats start to wiggle a bit, it can go beyond mere bad-pinch-roller emulation to something different.  Not a space, but a feel.  Gated reverb, à la Phil Collins drumming, is another example.  It's not an emulation of a physical space, because no physical space DOES that.  It's a different ambience and character.

And I guess that's the point.  How do we use, and how CAN we use, time-based effects to produce "ambience" - a mood, feel, a personality, that transcends the original source?  I guess this points us somewhat in the direction of modulated delays and reverb engines.  Not just modulated in the sense of a simple LFO, but rather more articulate use of envelope generators and other forms of manipulating the "replica" of the original signal.

[iainpunk]

very interesting write-up! well done Mark

i have a TC electronic digital studio reverb / multi fx unit, and it has the reverse reverb sound, i can't immagine a real space where that would be produced, but my strong imagination leads me to a magic castle. i also like creating a feedback loop with the EHX Pitchfork oct up mode to turn it into a reverse shimmer, awesome!

cheers

[Rob Strand]

Other than historical motives I don't look at spring and plate reverbs as emulators of real spaces.     They have become an effect in their own right.

Similarly for echo.   Its used for effect more than room emulation.   For example doubling with yourself on guitar or delays in vocal which have a dying repeat at 1 to 2 seconds.   No room is going to do that.

As for Digital reverb they can do rooms and some sound quite convincing.   However they can also do the above "effects". 

The goal behind to getting the holy grail of spring reverb emulation is to emulate a real spring - the concept of any room or environment no longer enters into the model or thought process.

I think you can say flangers and phaser are also effects in their own right.   It would hard to find any of those claiming to emulate a tape.   On the other hand devices emulating a Leslie pretty much have to say that - there's no other way to say it!

[Ripthorn]

Humans need a sense of space. A small percentage have ever been in an anechoic environment and even fewer spend enough time there to be used to the sound of it. I've logged gazillion hours in one, but a lot of people actually find them disorienting. It doesn't even need to be a real space, just a sense of something helps.

I think the reverb and time based effects field is for for more experimentation. Now, some sounds are not what we currently think of as musical, but that again comes down to experience. There are lots of sounds that we now consider musical that wouldn't have been 100 years ago. However, it requires guitarists and music listeners to be open minded about what is musical. My brother is a professor of composition specializing in experimental classical, especially micro tonal and other intonation. Some of it requires several listening sessions to begin to appreciate it and not just say "that doesn't sound like music to me". Both composition and effects are that way.

[Mark Hammer]

I'm sure your brother can tell you all about Iannis Xenakis, who was an architect before he became one of the more forward-thinking 20th century composers.  Xenakis was all about creating "spaces" - a musical architect.  You'll find this "thing" interesting:  http://architectuul.com/architecture/philips-pavilion

Forty-five years ago, I attended a concert of one of his pieces that laid out six percussionists equidistantly in a circle around the audience, 60 degrees apart.  They each had the same set of percussion instruments, including snares, tympany,  and other.  The music was scored so that the percussionists directly across from each other (i.e., 12:00 and 6:00, 2:00 and 8:00, 4:00 and 10:00), were always playing the same instrument. The score was constructed so that, at times, it moved like a propeller, as each pair of percussionists would quickly switch to a drum or instrument of different "sonic density".

But, to the topic at hand, "space" and creating imagined space, is not the exact same thing as ambience.  They certainly CAN be; but they just aren't always one in the same.

[PRR]

Our forefathers partied in caves. Reverb enhances loudness, and to a point, intelligibility (most caves and hard plaster go too far for most speech).

FWIW: the woods of Maine have a reverb and it is strange.

[Vivek]

I was one of the official photographers for Phil Collins' THE LAST FINAL FAREWELL TOUR in Dubai.

Even got to ask him a question during the Press Conference.

Great gentleman !

Only press conference of the stars that I attended which started exactly on time and ended exactly on time.

Underlining the fact that time is so important for a musician!

[Rob Strand]

I was one of the official photographers for Phil Collins' THE LAST FINAL FAREWELL TOUR in Dubai.

Even got to ask him a question during the Press Conference.

Great gentleman !

Only press conference of the stars that I attended which started exactly on time and ended exactly on time.

Underlining the fact that time is so important for a musician!

He also has a professional mindset.

[anotherjim]

Some deliberate acoustic design occurred in ancient architecture.
https://paranormalpeopleonline.com/the-sounds-of-history-acoustic-significance-in-ancient-architecture/

They also had some cures for over-reverberant spaces we might call Helmholtz resonators. Large earthenware jars (Amphora?) part filled with sand as portable absorbers. Slotted cavity walls part filled with sand.

[Mark Hammer]

There is a subway stop in downtown Montreal with a parabolic ceiling in one of the entrances to that stop.  One would occasionally see a psychotic indigent accidentally walking through the centre of the space below the parabolic ceiling, where all reflections are returned, making even a whisper or mumble seem quite loud.  They'd stop and get this look on their face that said "Sure, I hear voices, but THIS?  This is just plain nuts.".

[snk]

I'm glad to read about Xenakis on this forum

[iainpunk]

FWIW: the woods of Maine have a reverb and it is strange.

the heather fields north of Arnhem have absolutely no echo or reflections at all. even if you shoot a gun, there is no echo for about 20 seconds when you can hear a faint echo, but if someone breathes to loud, you wouldn't hear it.

i like sitting there, on a bench next to the bike path, with my Mercedes acoustic hubcap guitar and a joint

cheers

[Mark Hammer]

One of the nice aspects of winter is when the street and houses are so covered with light-but-deep snow, that all reverberation is killed.  You can stand in the middle of the street, listen to your own voice, and it sounds like you're in a closet full of clothes, talking to yourself.

[Digital Larry]

and it sounds like you're in a closet full of clothes, talking to yourself.

In other words, just a normal day...

[Elektrojänis]

For example doubling with yourself on guitar or delays in vocal which have a dying repeat at 1 to 2 seconds.   No room is going to do that.

And there always has to be an exception: https://www.instagram.com/p/CLFWU-QAfi4/ (Be sure to turn on the sound... Instagram has it disabled by default)

He doesn't really double himself for the most part, but it sure would be possible.

[Rob Strand]

And there always has to be an exception: https://www.instagram.com/p/CLFWU-QAfi4/ (Be sure to turn on the sound... Instagram has it disabled by default)

He doesn't really double himself for the most part, but it sure would be possible.

Indeed,  not really a natural space but valid under the laws of physics!

The coolest thing to me to have a real example of the sound quality you get with such a set-up.   There's some temporal spread but the frequency response of the reflection is pretty even.

BTW, how the hell did you find that ?!?!?!

His, Youtube channel,
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBr2R3wpHS3d8hS38NVHU1w

This one is really cool,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZ3uu7eWwvg


and this,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7yzbxnDBxI

[snk]

Nice,
It reminds me of Pauline Oliveros' Deep Listening, recorded in the Dan Harpole Cistern at Fort Worden State Park :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U__lpPDTUS4
https://nmbx.newmusicusa.org/cistern-chapel/

[Rob Strand]

It reminds me of Pauline Oliveros' Deep Listening, recorded in the Dan Harpole Cistern at Fort Worden State Park

I'm a big fan of trombone.

[Ripthorn]

When I was doing acoustic consulting and large scale sound system design in Berlin, we would go around to churches and museums on the weekends. I would always want to really hear the space but felt awkward clasping or similar. I was so thrilled when my then one year old daughter would go "AH" really loud and quick, because it meant I got to hear the space. The Berlinerdome is pretty great. All my graduate work was in room acoustics, so I still love hearing spaces.

[noisette]

Beautiful ambience, very subtle, but I have never reproduced something like it with a digital reverb.
(Though SC algorythm messes somehow with the sound)
This is no self promotion, I don´t so self promotion, just uploaded for this thread
"Recorded under the bridge...you can hear trains going by ca. 2:22, 2:45
My good friend Solotom strumming the steel strings and me dabbling around with his wonderful early 80´s Hurricane strat through my Roland Bass Cube (with a lttle chorus). Listen to the wonderful reverb with our voices at the end..."
https://tinyurl.com/7783nxpt