Plate Reverb Plugins — How Do They Work?
Plate reverb plugins are used by audio engineers, recording artists, music producers, and sound artists to add effects and details to their music that may not have been present in the original recording.
Audio engineering can be complex, but we’re here to help you understand how reverb works, and how a plate reverb plugin could be your next best tool in your audio engineering arsenal.
What is Reverb?
For the uninitiated, reverb is the noise a sound continues to make after it has been produced and includes reflections containing information about the physical space where the sound originated from. Imagine you slam a car door in a large concrete parking garage. The sound from the door doesn’t stop suddenly after you close it ; rather, it continues to reverberate throughout the environment until the noise fades away.
But sounds don’t happen in a vacuum. Chamber, Hall, Room: these are all reverb terms and environments used in the studio, and the effects they produce are easy to imagine. In fact, audio engineers and recording artists use a combination of natural and digital reverbs to modify their mixes. Some studios build their own reverb rooms, and some use plugins to emulate the sound of specific rooms and environments.
On the other hand, plate reverb is a bit harder to imagine. The name doesn’t refer to an existing space; moreover, it does refer to a specific process, technology, and artificial environment for generating reverb without the need to involve an existing space’s reverberations.
What is Plate Reverb?
Courtesy of Sound on Sound
One of the first synthetic reverbs, plate reverbs are essentially a sheet of steel suspended in a large case. When a sound is played into a plate reverb unit, the vibrations inside the case create the illusion of reverb.
Inside the case, there’s a transducer which allows the incoming electrical audio signal to interact with the metal plate. This causes the metal sheet to vibrate. Pickups or microphones then translate these vibrations back into an electrical signal and the resulting audio output has a lush, dense texture.
Before plates, a more common technology was spring reverb. Fundamentally, these spring reverbs functioned similarly to plate reverbs. Sound would pass through the spring, creating a twangy, percussive audio signal. However, spring reverbs tend to be more restrictive, as their capabilities are more limited than plates.
Some of the most famous plate reverbs include the Ecoplate and the EMT-140.
What Are Reverb Plugins?
Reverb plugins allow recording artists and audio engineers to access reverb environments from the comfort of their studio. No longer do studios need to build massive reverb rooms, nor do they need to invest in costly plate reverbs to get that same rich reverb sound.
Reverb plugins are complex pieces of software that emulate all sorts of reverbs, from massive spaces to tiny rooms. With the right mixing, you can create a virtualized environment that sounds strikingly similar to the real thing.
If you’re just starting out or exploring your DAW, consider looking deeper into the stock reverbs included in your software. No matter your DAW, there are a few different free reverbs with their own qualities and traits that are worth examining before you commit to a dedicated reverb plugin.
How Do Plate Reverb Plugins Work?
Courtesy of Point Blank Music School
As a plate reverb plugin is a digital replica of something in the real world, people have been coming up with different ways to emulate them with code for a long time. Some approaches are considered “algorithmic”, in that they use digital algorithms crafted specifically to generate echo or ringing sounds. Many use a series of all-pass delays, comb filters, and other subcomponents to create the effect. To this day, people are still dreaming up new ways to create reverberation digitally.
Other approaches can loosely be categorized as “modeled”. Modeling plugins involves creating digital models of the real world device/space/thing. For reverbs, a common modeling technique is convolution, in which an impulse response (think of an acoustic fingerprint) of the “space” can be captured and reproduced through a method called convolution.
With our plate reverb plugin, Ecoplate, we took great care to make sure we exhaustively recreated the original using a multitude of different techniques and approaches, while also adding modern features that today’s audio engineers would benefit from and commonly use in conjunction with reverbs.
With a simple download, the Ecoplate reverb plugin brings the massive physical Ecoplate into any studio, for an affordable cost. New software-only features include pre-delay with tempo sync, low- and high-pass filters, and even an analog model that includes Ecoplate’s original noise floor, offering a vintage vibe and added color (the actual hardware noise and hum) to your recordings.
True to its roots, the controls for Ecoplate are modeled after the original model, including the famous lever system. There’s even a settings menu, where you can further manipulate tone, analog noise level, analog saturation, and stereo width. Fatten up your bottom end, or fine tune your stereo image to match the personality of your session. Try Ecoplate for free here.
Why Use a Plate Reverb Plugin?
There are many instances in which an audio engineer might reach for a plate reverb. Overall, they are a versatile addition to your toolkit, which can add beautiful depth and texture to any mix. But, as with any tool, you must use discretion and be sure not to overuse it.
Here are some examples of when and why to use a plate reverb plugin.
To create a distinct space for your lead vocal, background vocals, or solo instruments
To make your tracks sound fuller without adding more instruments
To give a spatial quality to your instruments
To widen vocals and strings
To create lush resonances
To create a vintage sound or vibe
To spice up your sound design, foley, or SFX work
To use in combination with other techniques to create a wall of sound
To differentiate one instrument from all the rest
If you’re still looking for a great plate reverb plugin, check out our list of the 7 best reverb plugins. And try a free demo of Ecoplate over at The Department of Sound. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram for more news!