What is reverb?

[selector]

David M. gave me some advice on how to improve horn volume on my Tsunami'd SD75.  I had turned the master down and then tried to get the horn back up,  He pointed out that if I had left the master up and reduced each of the individual sounds to suit my taste, the horn wouldn't be as clipped as it was.  Good point, David, and I have it sounding like I need it to.

But what's with all the instructions in the manual to do with reverb?  Does this impart an echoing or falling off effect in any one sound?  The manual doesn't really describe why I would want to fool around with this set of CV's and bits.

I'm not an audiophile so I have never felt the need to look further into the concept.

-Crandell

[richg1998]

Here is a link with a little info.

http://www.tonystrains.com/technews/soundtraxx-tsunami.htm

Some rivet counters like these features. If the sounds please you, then everything is ok. Remember, when you step from the analog age into the digital age, so much more can accomplished with software the manufactures include all kinds of features.

Since I am 69, I remember having to get up to adjust the TV sound, channels, maybe three channels, horizontal hold, vertical hold for the TV picture, some times twist the indoor antenna for better reception. Etc. Most here will think that sounds crazy.

Now a remote does everything using one thumb while laying down on the couch.

Rich

[selector]

Okay, I'll play with it.  (gulp)  Thanks for the link to Tony's explanations.  Maybe more reverb will be in keeping with all the surrounding hills on my layout.  I'll try some.

-Crandell

[mobilman44]

Good Morning,

  I noticed the word "reverb" and just had to write...........

Back in the early '60s, Motorola sold a "Reverb unit" for autos, which a lot of car/music lovers like myself just had to have.  It cost $20 (Not a small sum back then) and was a metal box about 12x4x5 that mounted in your trunk.  The rear speaker (really cool guys had 2 rear speakers) wiring went through "the box" before getting to the speakers.  The "box" retarded the signal by a bare fraction of a second, and the result was a sort of echo sound in the car.  The Beach Boys never sounded so good!!!

Sorry to divert from model railroading..........

Mobilman44

[R.O.S.]

LOL if I recall the reverb box had a couple of long "springs" in it. The transit time through those was just enough to give a barely perceptable delay

[selector]

Thanks, fellas.  The Soundtraxx people are emphatic in their Tsunami manual that it is not an echo (!), but I would be hard-pressed to come up with a better analogy.  It isn't, as they say, an echo, but a very quick series of mini-echos that makes it sound like you are in a larger room...if that makes sense.  It is an enrichment of the sound so that it seems to fade about one second longer...at most.

I played with it a bit last night, but my tanker's ears were not able to detect an appreciable difference.

-Crandell

[Hamltnblue]

richg1998

Here is a link with a little info.

http://www.tonystrains.com/technews/soundtraxx-tsunami.htm

 

Since I am 69, I remember having to get up to adjust the TV sound, channels, maybe three channels, horizontal hold, vertical hold for the TV picture, some times twist the indoor antenna for better reception. Etc. Most here will think that sounds crazy.

Now a remote does everything using one thumb while laying down on the couch.

Rich

Richg, I remember the same time period, but I was considered a remote control.  My parents told us to do the adjustments, change channels and volume etc.  Guess we were psudo voice activeated remote controls, which in some ways were superior to today's.

[wjstix]

 Reverb (short for reverberation) and Echo are similar but not the same thing. Echo is one or more distinct repeats of a sound. Reverb is a series of repeats happening so close to each other that they merge together.

Think of it this way...if you're in the mountains and look down on a valley and yell "Hello" and a second or two later hear a slightly fainter "hello" come back to you, that's echo. If you go into a gymnasium and do the same thing, you don't hear one distinct "hello" back, you hear a series of "hellos" all at the same time coming off the different walls and the ceiling of the room. That's reverberation.

 In music, many popular recordings have used reverb since the 1960's to create a full, lush sound.

Echo, particularly "slap back" echo, is generally only used in Rockabilly music and early rock and roll - Gene Vincent, Sun Record artists like Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins etc. and later Rockabilly acts like the Stray Cats etc. Here's an example of echo:

 "Rockabilly Ghost" (Bill Stix and the Revenuers)

[blownout cylinder]

I like the definition that we used way back when.

Reverb basically 'livens' up, or rather, broadens the dynamics of the sound

Echo gives you a  bunch of guitarists all chasing each other.

Mind, all this in a psychedelic R&R band-----just be glad no one is throwing ring modulators around

[rrinker]

R.O.S.

LOL if I recall the reverb box had a couple of long "springs" in it. The transit time through those was just enough to give a barely perceptable delay

 That's exactly how they worked. And not just 'cheap' ones, they almsot all used a mechanical delay line liek that. Eventually they figured out how to do it with electronics and the electro-mechanical reverbs faded away, but they were quite common in their day. The reverb unit for the PFM sound system was such a mechanical device.

                               --Randy

 

[mobilman44]

Randy,

Yes, as I recall we took one apart and there were 4 springs suspending "something" in the middle of the box.  I am really stretching my memory here so please don't hold me to it.

Mobilman44

 

[blownout cylinder]

rrinker

R.O.S.

LOL if I recall the reverb box had a couple of long "springs" in it. The transit time through those was just enough to give a barely perceptable delay

 That's exactly how they worked. And not just 'cheap' ones, they almsot all used a mechanical delay line liek that. Eventually they figured out how to do it with electronics and the electro-mechanical reverbs faded away, but they were quite common in their day. The reverb unit for the PFM sound system was such a mechanical device.

                               --Randy

 

Basically the box was a series of baffle walls and springs. The springs were what gave the twangy 'live' effect to the sound. The PFM unit a neighbour down the street from us has one.

[Texas Zepher]

selector

But what's with all the instructions in the manual to do with reverb?  Does this impart an echoing or falling off effect in any one sound? .... I'm not an audiophile so I have never felt the need to look further into the concept.

Crandel, just curious, what generation are you from?  I thought every teenage boy who lived through the 1950's, 1960's, or 1970's knew what a reverb was.  I've never associated them with the audiophile scene. They were popular in my day with the rock star wana-be guitar players and as someone else already pointed out AM car radios.  I just missed out on them as my first "real" car had an FM stereo in it.    My first reverb came with a 1983 PFM mini-sound unit.

[selector]

TZ, I am a boomer born in '52.  Our family lived in the Andes Mountains of Peru for nine years from the time I was 5 until I turned 13.  There was no radio, only phonograph.  My mother's taste in music is what I was exposed to, and that was Latin American, Calypso, C&W, and lots of classical.  I never did find much interest in R&R, although I enjoyed The Doors' music...about as close to R&R as I would ever get.

I never played in a band, followed one, or learned about the genre, so the instrumental aspect of "reverb" has little or no meaning for me.  A sackbut has no reverb. 

-Crandell

[R.O.S.]

A guitar amp had what was then (now?) called a vibrato. It varied the amplitute of the output. Twang was induced by playing close to the bridge.

Yes in the 50's I was one of those wannabes

[rrinker]

Duane Eddy! Now there was some 'twang'

 

                  --Randy

 

[trainnut1250]

Couple of quick points about reverb:  The effect or technology, came about as an attempt to add back in natural delay encountered when playing music or hearing sounds in a space.  Anytime you hear sound you are hearing the original sound source and its reflection off of objects near and far.  Because sound travels slowly (compared to light) the reflected sounds have a slight delay.  The combination of the source and the reflections are what we hear all the time in our everyday existence. 

Recording studios create an acoustically dead space to carefully control/eliminate these reflections to offer more control of the frequencies etc.  Recordings made in these spaces sound "dry" and somewhat un-natural due to the lack of these reflected sounds.  Reverb is used to make the sound "fuller" by re-introducing the naturally occurring delays back into the sound.  Most recordings you hear today have the reverb effect on them in some form or another. The use of reverb and other time based effects, flanging, chorus, delay etc has expanded into all sorts of expressive sound manipulations ... 

There is a phrase in the trade known as "reverb poisoning" that describes what happens when you keep adding reverb to a recording. The ear gets used to hearing the reverb and you keep adding more to hear the effect.  Later, when you come back the mix you find it sounds underwater (way too much)...This might explain why it can be hard to hear the effect unless it is turned way up...I feel that it is better at a more discreet setting...

There are lots of flavors of reverb.   In the early days, plates, rooms etc were the high end and the previously mentioned "spring reverb" was the cheap end  Ever kick an amp with the reverb turned on ??what a racket if you get those springs banging into each other??  Currently digital reverb is the rage but there are the analog purists out there.

 

Guy