In the real world, reverb is created by sounds reflecting and re-reflecting from surfaces in an enclosed or partially enclosed space, and the resulting pattern of sound is infinitely complex. Artificial reverb is an integral part of music production, as it puts back the sense of space and place that's removed by close-miking voices and instruments in an acoustically dead studio. The sound of this type of reverb became so popular that it is still emulated by digital reverb units and plug-ins such as Universal Audio's Plate 140 (below). The vibrations are then picked up by a separate transducer (above) for each output channel. The main functional component is a large metal plate within a soundproof box (see header photo), which is vibrated by an output driver much like that in a loudspeaker (above centre). The reverb plate was the first really serious artificial reverberation technology, and was adopted by numerous studios before the advent of affordable digital reverb. Home recordists now have access to modern versions of all these tools, so let's look at how they compare to each other, and how best to use each. Recording engineers have been adding artificial reverberation to recordings for many years, and have developed a variety of different ways of doing this.
A classic EMT 140 Plate Reverb in hardware form.
