Sun Studios reverb setting

[needledrop]

Hi all,
Can anybody give me a reverb type and setting that might give me the sound of the era of Sun Studios style recordings??
Thanks

[COOLCAT]

i've heard it refered to as slap-back echo. 50's.

some reverb units have a preset called slap-back.

i love it to. sometimes you can even play off it, like a Buddy Holly guitar
picking thing....sounds twice as fast and tight.

[EleKtriKaz]

They put a speaker in the bathroom at Sun and miked the speaker, using the bathroom as a reverb chamber, then mixed that wet signal in with the dry one.

[mcolling]

I don't believe it. No way did they do that!

[gullfo]

don't know if they used the bathroom as a reverb chamber but plenty of the older studios had reverb chambers where the sound would pump in via a speaker and get mic'd back - some had hanging plates to alter the sound + numerous ways of dampening as well. as people build better electronics and smaller "tanks" and place boxes, reverbs got smaller.

that said, there are many stories out there - bathrooms, stairwells, basements, kithens, just about any live room with reflections have been used for reverb tanks... somewhere i read someone used an empty garbage truck as a chamber on a live session... one is only limited by their creativity... :-)

sometimes studios recorded people in the bathroom to get the right reverb, so it is possible that Sun used a bathroom for reverb....

[blackdiscoball]

For another good example Led Zeppelin did a lot of recording in a big old mansion and used one of the big rooms to record the drums. THats were they got the HUGE sound in WHen the levee breaks. That live bit of reverb and a good recording will always beat the digital stuff.

[gullfo]

yeah, the first band i was in - we converted a stone carriage house to our "studio" - about 35' x 40' with solid walls - we added some carpets and put everying pretty much in the middle of the room... couple of sofas and the reverb was outstanding... made all the crap we played sounds so much better that people often couldn't tell...

[ssscientist]

Nobody's mentioned the obvious --- tape slap.

At 7 1/2 IPS the tape slap is about 135 ms and @ 15 IPS it's about 65 ms.

That and the 'hanging plate' someone above mentioned were the two basic tools to generate fx.

[needledrop]

Thanks guys for all the input . I'm going to try the bathroom technique, since i dont have a mansion but i do have a bathroom!!!!
Also SCIENTIST i own to 1/4" reel2 reel machines. One is a 4 track the other is a 2 track. How would i use these to get that slap back on vocals or on the entire mix??

[ssscientist]

They need to be 3 head machines - the tape slap comes from the gap between the record head and the playback head.

Most modern reel to reel machines have only 2 heads, one for record/playback and one erase head...

[jake-owa]

Originally Posted by ssscientist

They need to be 3 head machines - the tape slap comes from the gap between the record head and the playback head.

Most modern reel to reel machines have only 2 heads, one for record/playback and one erase head...

Most modern consumer tape machines.
Most if not all pro machines have three heads.

[EleKtriKaz]

Originally Posted by mcolling

I don't believe it. No way did they do that!

I believe it was Sun. I'm almost positive. One of those famous old studios was the first, or at least considered the first, to use a reverb chamber where a speaker is put into a reflective room and then miked to get a wet signal that is blended back in with the original.

If anyone has heard that Duane Eddy song "Rebel Rouser"...that was done here in Phoenix. They fed his guitar sound through a speaker into a MASSIVE water tank, and that's the crazy, bouncing around reverb that you hear on that track.

Also, the Motown house in Detroit had an attic that was used as the reverb chamber. Apparently the house wasn't symmetrical, so roof and the walls slanted in different ways that just made a great sound.

This is all information that I learned from a guy hear in Phoenix named Clarke Rigsby.

[Scrubucket7]

http://www.anti-flag.com/downloads/studio/pat.mov
theres a video of Pat Thetic from anti-flag tracking drums in a big ass auditoruim. Ive never tried anything like this, but theres a starewell where i go to school that has the craziest reverb ever and i always think about tracking drums in there with one mic on each platform. I think im gunna ask them if i can do that one of these days...

[ssscientist]

Originally Posted by jake-owa

Most modern consumer tape machines.
Most if not all pro machines have three heads.

I'm assuming this guy has consumer machines.

[Kevin Deschwazi]

The lexicon PSP 42 plug has a prettyy nice slapback preset:

http://www.pspaudioware.com/

On the subject of novel 'verb chambers, My Morning jacket use a big old grain silo. I love the verb sounds on their stuff.

[EleKtriKaz]

Originally Posted by Kevin DeSchwazi

On the subject of novel 'verb chambers, My Morning jacket use a big old grain silo. I love the verb sounds on their stuff.

I heard that as well. The reverb on Jim James' voice is awesome.

[jake-owa]

Originally Posted by ssscientist

I'm assuming this guy has consumer machines.

You know what they say about assumptions.

My first tape machine was an ATR60 1" 16 track machine.

[ssscientist]

Originally Posted by jake-owa

You know what they say about assumptions.

Is it 'they make an ass of u and me'? Or is it some other old saw that's equally pithy? Sorry all, my bad...

[ssscientist]

But I have yet to be contradicted by the original poster...

[mcolling]

Originally Posted by Kevin DeSchwazi

On the subject of novel 'verb chambers, My Morning jacket use a big old grain silo. I love the verb sounds on their stuff.

They use all kinds of things as reverb chambers, and have a bunch of old reverb units as well. those guys rule. i got their live ep, and it's great.

[COOLCAT]

Originally Posted by gullfo

don't know if they used the bathroom as a reverb chamber but plenty of the older studios had reverb chambers where the sound would pump in via a speaker and get mic'd back - some had hanging plates to alter the sound + numerous ways of dampening as well. as people build better electronics and smaller "tanks" and place boxes, reverbs got smaller.

that said, there are many stories out there - bathrooms, stairwells, basements, kithens, just about any live room with reflections have been used for reverb tanks... somewhere i read someone used an empty garbage truck as a chamber on a live session... one is only limited by their creativity... :-)

sometimes studios recorded people in the bathroom to get the right reverb, so it is possible that Sun used a bathroom for reverb....

HomeRecording magazine had an article on Gold Star Studios (Phil Spector)..
and it said the same.

speaker, ran thru like a tunnel with secret-film painted on the walls...
mic on the speaker/tunnel... whoala! big reverb.......


Bathroom Reverb??? is that where the mixing slang
"ASS SOUND" came from???
.