Back in the 60s there was a song by a group Simon and Garfunkle (Paul Simon and Art Garfunkle) named the Sounds of Silence. It had a huge very distinctive snare drum sound because the snare was recorded in the stair well and it was gated (not as obviously as Phil Colins, but predating his use of that technique by a couple decades). So the concept isn't new, but putting it on vocals is certainly less common.

Check out Led Zeppelins first ablum, as well as Physical Graffiti. Both albums used natural reverb. Physical Graffiti in particular is an outstanding example of the ethereal qualities of natural verb. Love that album!

This isn't really anything new, just the same old principal done in a different way.

Older studios have reverb chambers that are specially designed treated and painted for generating reverberation. They are basically a room with a speaker and a microphone. You pump in the sound you want to add reverb to and you record that reverb.

I guess unless someone is exposed to such a thing they don't know about it. New people coming into the industry may never even see a real chamber.

well i never said that its something new...i mentioned this rite in the biggining of my msg...just as i tried it on vocals. and it turned out to be good... other wise i do know that its an old technique still.. like the very first plate reveb devices which use to be big size of generators...and they pass the sound through them and sound resonate in nit and then they record that sound...so i think i know a bit too.... but still i just like to psot here wht i m doing so that i can get more ideas regarding wht i m doing and by the time next time i will be doing it i could add some more flavour in it..
:)
thanx guys

I set up a reverb chamber once with an SRM-450 and a long hallway once. Worked well.

Sunn studios litterally had a chamber didn't they? Like a long empty hallway going nowhere?

I read in an interview where Frank Zappa said his house had a big weird shaped concrete room, i.e. narrow, very long, and very tall with an angled wall on the back-- which he loved to use for reverb. The Motown guys had a reverb chamber up in the attic.

The Echo Chamber
Before the age of synthesizers and computer-aided recording, Motown engineers created special sound effects by ingenious means. A rich piece of Motown’s history is relived, when visitors clap and sing into Motown’s innovative echo chamber (a hole cut in the ceiling), and experience early reverb. When “Studio A” was in use, the effects created by the echo chamber were relayed to the recording studio; they can be heard on recordings such as “Where Did Our Love Go, ” “Dancing In The Streets” and “Make Me The Woman You Go Home To.”

http://www.motownmuseum.com/mtmpages/began2.html

Anyone can do it really:
http://www.mixthis.com/livechambers.html

I read once that the drum reverb on When The Levee Breaks (Jon Bonham) was miced from a stairwall down the hall. :D

Many studios had reverb chambers of all different shapes and sizes.

sorry...when I was writing it I didn't want to sound like an ass...but in reading it, I see I completely failed in that endeavor.

I just found the notion interesting that people just coming into recording may never see or hear a real chamber or plate reverb.

I posted this a while back, now that you mention one,

build your own plate reverb

(dead link removed)

SI

A guy I know actually dug a large tunnel in his garden as a vintage style echo chamber. I have no idea if it sounds good, but if there's ever an air raid it might come in handy.

here is a cool link to an online natural reverb processor:
http://tank-fx.satos.de/blueshoes-4.5/javascript/components/checkbox/examples/slider.html

Those guys are using an old railway watertank to apply reverb to any material that you upload.

Currently the site is available in german only, but there are some cool pics describing their aproach:
http://tank-fx.satos.de/aufbau.html

have fun!
Thomas

I once shot video of a an acoustic guitar player in a concrete handball court. I deadened one lower three dimensional corner with rugs on the walls and floor, and sat him in a chair in it. I put one mic right in front of him positioned to catch his voice and guitar in balance, and I put another mic dead center of the court for reverb, and I mixed the two down to mono for the video. It sounded great!

Didn't Pink Floyd once play on the Giza Plain (in Egypt) once and use the interior of one of the pyramids for reverb?

hey thma! that Tank FX in Oberhausen is awesome! I'm definitely gonna upload some samples and see what happens, what a cool idea. I think the dude might have spent a bit too much time alone in that spooky old tower though...

I´m sleep here alone and its every day a special event for my brain, when all of the gosts walk arround me when i´m dreaming.

Eeeek!

ggun, could it be Pink Floyd "Live at Pompeii" you are thinking of? They played in the ruins of an ancient amphitheatre (as well as a studio in Paris). But I'm not sure how much natural reverb from that amphitheatre was injected into the actual recording.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000DBJDM/?tag=r06fa-20

Calgary wrote: ggun, could it be Pink Floyd "Live at Pompeii" you are thinking of? They played in the ruins of an ancient amphitheatre (as well as a studio in Paris). But I'm not sure how much natural reverb from that amphitheatre was injected into the actual recording.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000DBJDM/?tag=r06fa-20

No; after googling, I believe that it was supposed to happen but didn't.

http://utopia.knoware.nl/users/ptr/pfloyd/news/m.html

That was in a nearby arena, not inside a pyramid. There would have been no unique reverb to speak of. 8-)

Various people have used the ambience of the king's burial chamber in the great pyramid at Giza - Killing Joke & Nik Turner of Hawkwind actually recorded in there. Apparently the reverb is nice.

A guy called Ernest Cholakis (some of you nerds will know who he is I'm sure), a serious reverb boffin who creates reverb convolutions from "impulse responses" (i.e. records & copies reverb qualities of specific locations and makes them into reverberation impulses), has also been in there fooling around and created a verb you can use with the Waves IR-1 and in Nuendo. Now you don't need to battle the Egyptian authorities to have some pyramid reverb, cool! He sells CD's.

I hope the ol' dead king doesn't mind all this messing about with his ambience or the reverb may well be cursed...

Interesting. I didn't know that, thanks for the heads up. 8-)

hey thma/anyone!

Well, we did it, we sent a 20-second mini-song to the reverb tank at Tank FX - it came back straight away! I reckon it just gets played thru the tank automatically or something - he has a server in the tower. Hope the dude wasn't sleeping...he isn't now!

Basically it means our music got blasted thru a huge metal tank in a station water-tower in Oberhausen, Germany at 12.30 (GMT) at night! Sounds awesome too.

I still can't get over what a cool/crazy idea that is...awesome.

once again,

http://tank-fx.satos.de/

Tip: translate the page into english, "much fun thereby"!

Thanks thma, you've made my night dude!

That is one of the coolest internet services I've ever seen. Period. 8-) 8-) 8-) 8-) 8-)