Flanger and Reverb

[themaddog]

Is it possible to make the flanging effect on a tape like they do on old recordings on a Tascam 388? I'm talking about actually pushing down on the tape instead of purchasing a digital effect. Where would I push down, and does anyone have any advice on this or things to be weary of? I just don't want to start ruining anything on the machine or my tape.

Also, I went to Guitar Center the other day looking for a reverb box to thicken some of my mix. I want subtle reverb on the snare drum, vocals, and maybe some guitar leads. I asked a worker there if they had any "analog" reverb effects or boxes. He looked at me like I had six heads, told me no, then asked me why. I explained to him that I'm using an older machine and want to stay with an older sound. He told me that everything had to be digital now. So I asked him this... "If it were 15 years ago, and I walked into Guitar Center (even if I were only 6 years old) and tried to buy a reverb chamber, would it be digital?" His answer was no. "Then what would it be?" I don't know.

Seeing this was going nowhere, I gave up and bought an Alessis Nanoverb (24 bit in/out, but only at a 48k sampling rate) figuring I'll bring it back if I hate it too much. But it got me thinking... why the change over to digital on effects? Is there a true difference on an effect like reverb? Or is this a change just because everything digital is "cheaper" (in every way, in my own opinion).

Thanks for any insight into my questions. Everyone here has been wonderful so far in helping me out.

-MD

[The Ghost of FM]

I haven't personally ever tried the tape flanging effect, myself. I'm just happy enough I don't get the effect! Thanks to healthy, well aligned transports.

The best analog reverb is the room itself, properly mic'ed but few of us home recordists have the proper environments in our houses to capture this effect. That's what real music halls and real recording studios were supposed to be all about; Great acoustics, great microphones, great recording gear and the engineering knowhow to run it all.For the home recordist, even us analog enthusiasts, digital reverb is a true miracle product because the better ones out there simulate real environments.

[alejandra]

Originally Posted by The Ghost of FM

The best analog reverb is the room itself, properly mic'ed but few of us home recordists have the proper environments in our houses to capture this effect. That's what real music halls and real recording studios were supposed to be all about; Great acoustics, great microphones, great recording gear and the engineering knowhow to run it all.For the home recordist, even us analog enthusiasts, digital reverb is a true miracle product because the better ones out there simulate real environments.

In Argentina I used to live in an apartment that was converted from the residence of an old catholic church and it had a 3 story tiled stairwell in the back. For a while I was the only person living there so I would go in the stairwell to play my flute because it had the most beautiful reverb I had ever heard. Now I make do with my friend's Lexicon LXP-15

[Uli_the_Grasso]

Think of what "flanging" meant before tape machines were invented: Changing, pressing, fitting. So you can push down the tape at the head. You can put a finger on the left tape wheel. You can run two tape machines in parallel but slightly unsynchronized.

[boingoman]

old-style flanging requires two machines. They both play the same track or tracks, and the speed of one is modulated by touching the tape flange(reel) with your thumb or finger in a rhythmic way. The flange time is regulated by how fast you slow down and release the reel, and depth by how much you slow the reel down. You get the effect when you play both tracks at the same time.

[regebro]

Originally Posted by themaddog

I asked a worker there if they had any "analog" reverb effects or boxes. He looked at me like I had six heads, told me no, then asked me why. I explained to him that I'm using an older machine and want to stay with an older sound. He told me that everything had to be digital now. So I asked him this... "If it were 15 years ago, and I walked into Guitar Center (even if I were only 6 years old) and tried to buy a reverb chamber, would it be digital?" His answer was no. "Then what would it be?" I don't know.

There are four types af analog reverb.

1. Actual reverb. This you get my simply not close miking everything, but recording in a live room either by distance miking of having separate ambience reverbs.

This is the best reverb you can get, but it might requires you to record in a church.

2. Reverb chambers. Which you do not buy, but build. Basically small rooms, tiled, with speakers and mikes in them, and also often movable soft stuff to change the sound and reverb time. Extremely expensive of clourse. Some studios have areas that aren't used tha much such as stairwells, that get double use as reverb chambers. The second best thing from having a both a church, a concert hall and a stairwell to actually put up the instruments in.

3. Plate reverb. A big suspended plate with speker elements and contact microphones connected to it, and often a movable damper. Typically large as a bed and maybe 10 inces thick including soundproofed wooden crate, usually located somehere inconspicuos outside the control room and reote controlled.

SIGNIFICANTLY smaller and cheaper than a proper acoustic chamber. Still typically will cost you several thousand dollars second hand. Supposedly a very nice reverb sound. Nice enough for most reverb units to try hard to emulate it. Also comes on the "foil" variety, where the plate is replaced with foil (typically of the gold variety). As expensive, but much smaller. We are now talking a floor stand unit you can actually have in the studio.

4. Spring reverb. Very cheap, can be made in rackmountable sizes. Comes with many guitar amps. Sounds "plooiiing". Mostly nice as a "spring reverb effect" but nothing you want to put on a mix.

Seeing this was going nowhere, I gave up and bought an Alessis Nanoverb (24 bit in/out, but only at a 48k sampling rate) figuring I'll bring it back if I hate it too much.

Haven't used it. The old Microverbs I have works, but have no settings which sucks. I have ordered a TC Electronics M300, which is supposed to be good and easy to use. Ah well.

But it got me thinking... why the change over to digital on effects? Is there a true difference on an effect like reverb?

Reverb is tricky to do, so good reverb is hard, and good analog reverbs seriously expensive. And even good digital reverb is expensive. The Lexicon 224 series, created at the end of the 70s and the reverb you'll hear on most 80's recording, still, 20 years later, will set you back $2000...

So, everybody on some kind of reasonable budget goes digital. You have little option.

[Uli_the_Grasso]

Originally Posted by boingoman

The flange time is regulated by how fast you slow down and release the reel, and depth by how much you slow the reel down.

One machine must run slightly faster to provide a reserve for slowing it down.

When mixing both sounds, a 1 : 1 ratio will have the greatest amplitude effect, i.e. total amplitude cancellations on some frequencies in a comb filter manner.

Choruses (for instance that bucket-chain Boss stuff) and phasers (allpasses with opto-couplers) basically do the same as two-machine-flanging.

[boingoman]

Actually they play at the same speed. You alternate slowing down one machine then the other to bring them back into sync.

[Outlaws]

Couldn't you just use the pitch control on one of the machines?

[Uli_the_Grasso]

You have better control with the hands on the reel. And when flanging was invented in the late fifeties (Spector, Fowley, Zappa?) tape machines did not have pitch control.

[boingoman]

Les Paul did flanging in the '40s. Put it on a record in 1946. Not having tape decks he did it on vinyl with two turntables!

[Beck]

Sounds like the music store salesman was not much older than you.
15 years ago you would have more digital reverb choices than you could count. Even 20 years ago you had the Yamaha REV7 and right on its heals the Yamaha SPX90 (1985) and the original Alesis Midiverb (1986), not to mention the pricier Lexicon stuff, which had been around for some time.

Before that though if you walked into a music store looking for a budget rackmount reverb you'd be looking at spring reverbs from Tascam, Fostex and Furman.

It's interesting to note that these spring reverbs had a high frequency response of only 7 or 8 kHz. Early digital reverbs topped out at 10 to 12 kHz. Some of the most celebrated reverbs, such as the Lexicon PCM 60 (10 kHz) and the PCM 70 (15 kHz) looked less than stellar on paper by today's "standards." This should be an important clue on the hunt for Vintage sound.

Modern digital reverbs are much too bright to sound natural. And the ones that digitize the dry as well as the effect signal - well God help those who are trying to make serious music with these.

Natural reverberation doesn't contain super high frequencies. Even in a room tiled with mirrors 15 kHz is going to be absorbed. So a spec of 20 to 20 kHz for the processed signal is just sales hype as far as reverb is concerned. Today people expect to see "20 Hz to 20 kHz" in every spec they read, so that's what they give you. People equate that spec with "professional quality." (Of course you want the dry signal to be unaffected, and all the old digital reverbs had a dry spec of 20 kHz).

As for other effects some of the nicest echo/delay units on the planet were analog with comparatively low frequency response. And one of the sweetest choruses ever made, the Rockman Stereo Chorus did it all with analog, with a high frequency response of only 8 kHz.

If I were in the market for something I'd grab an old Alesis Midiverb III or a Lexicon LXP-1, or Reflex (all made in the USA) off of ebay rather than waste time with their current budget lines (all made in China and Taiwan).

Good hunting

[regebro]

Originally Posted by Beck

Modern digital reverbs are much too bright to sound natural. And the ones that digitize the dry as well as the effect signal - well God help those who are trying to make serious music with these.

Always interesting to see a bit of fanatic religion thrown in, thereby completely undermining the credibility of the post.

[Beck]

Originally Posted by regebro

Always interesting to see a bit of fanatic religion thrown in, thereby completely undermining the credibility of the post.

"Modern digital reverbs are much too bright to sound natural." That's the essence of my post -- the whole core of the message!

Ok regebro, what is it, drugs, psychosis, alcohol abuse, you're 12 years old, your 92 years old, you work with chemicals in your job, you work 2 jobs and only sleep 4 hours a day, english is your second language, you attended public schools within the last 20 years, all of the above, what? I just gots to know! You can tell me... really. My lips are sealed.

[The Ghost of FM]

"Insane Genius" was all the explanation I ever needed, myself.

Don't let it get to you, Tim.

Cheers!

[regebro]

Insane GeniOus, thank you very much!

[regebro]

Originally Posted by Beck

"Modern digital reverbs are much too bright to sound natural." That's the essence of my post -- the whole core of the message!

I obviously quoted more than I should since you got confused about what I ment. What I'm referring to is this:

And the ones that digitize the dry as well as the effect signal - well God help those who are trying to make serious music with these.

I guess God likes digital.

[Beck]

Originally Posted by regebro

I guess God likes digital.

Ok,

To clarify - When I was referring to, "The ones" I meant the digital reverb units that convert both the effect and the dry signal into digital before passing it to the output. I wasn't referring to people who record digitally, although they do need some serious prayer as well.

It doesn't appear He's been answering any digital prayer lately. Could be He's too busy with the end of the world and all - You know, all the groundwork being laid in the Middle East for the nations of the world to surround Israel - Armageddon... stuff like that. I imagine it takes all His time.

[Beck]

Originally Posted by The Ghost of FM

"Insane Genius" was all the explanation I ever needed, myself.

Don't let it get to you, Tim.

Cheers!

Yeah, but I'll just have to take his word for it on the genious part.

[boingoman]

Actually the converters on my MPX500 sound pretty good, God's help or not.

[Beck]

Originally Posted by boingoman

Actually the converters on my MPX500 sound pretty good, God's help or not.

God stopped helping Lexicon when they started outsourcing overseas. Used to be all made in the good ole USA. They may have managed a hit with the MPX500. Even the lowly MPX100 is said to have good converters, but these units pass the dry signal as analog unless you select digital to use it as a converter.

So few people really understand how to transport the listener to another place these days. Everyone and their grandmothers can now setup home studios. However, people often don't understand the equipment, or acoustics, or music for that matter.

A lot of the factory programs in newer reverbs are overly bright just because they can be. That totally screws up the frequency cues that the brain picks up on to interpret the sound stage. You're not going to convince the listener that they're in a large hall if the reverb or echoes are as bright as or brighter than the initial sound. I've watched people misuse their reverbs to brighten up dull sound for years. It's a bass ackwards way of doing it.

In the old days you couldn't use plate or spring reverbs to brighten things up because they didn't brighten. Same with some early digital reverbs. Some describe the Lexicon PCM70 and LXP-1 as not bright enough. Could be they emulate a more natural sound.

[regebro]

Originally Posted by Beck

Ok,

To clarify - When I was referring to, "The ones" I meant the digital reverb units that convert both the effect and the dry signal into digital before passing it to the output. I wasn't referring to people who record digitally, although they do need some serious prayer as well.

But of course, that digitization is no different from any other digitization. Hence, it MUST refer to everybody who records digitally as well.

It doesn't appear He's been answering any digital prayer lately.

No of course not. I mean, nobody serious uses ProTools today for example.


Come on Beck. When you claim that something is impossible to do, although it is clearly done all over the world on a daily basis, don't you think this kinda distracts from your credibility just a little bit?

[Uli_the_Grasso]

Another possibility not yet mentioned is that: Record a track on a multitrack machine, and then play it back by the record head and record it to another track of the machine! While doing that, put a finger on the reel! You can hear that effect on John Lennon´s "Mother" album.

[ausrock]

The almost universal but misdirected habit of accentuating the higher frequencies in reverbs is possibly a result of people misunderstanding natural reverbs on those occasions that they have heard them.

If you are in a church or hall, etc., the lower frequencies nearly always have less perceived impact than the higher frequencies as sound reverberates around the room. This phenonema can lead to people to mistakenly presume or interpret that those longer reverbs are at a much higher frequency than they really are.


And Regebro...........just because you think something is right doesn't make it right for anyone apart from yourself.

[regebro]

Originally Posted by ausrock

And Regebro...........just because you think something is right doesn't make it right for anyone apart from yourself.

Of course. What decides if something is correct is reality. Was that what you were trying to say?