Gated reverb
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Gated reverb is an audio processing technique that is applied to recordings of drums (or live sound reinforcement of drums in a Public Address system) to make the drums sound powerful and "punchy," while keeping the overall mix clean and transparent-sounding. The gated reverb effect, which was most popular in the 1980s, is made using a combination of strong reverb and a noise gate.
Unlike most reverberation or delay effects, the gated reverb effect does not try to emulate the sound of natural reverb that occurs in a large church or hall.
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[edit] History
The gated reverb effect began being used in popular music during the 1980s. Producer Mutt Lange was a pioneer at drenching the recorded drum sound in gated reverb. An early and prominent use of gated reverb was in Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins and Hugh Padgham's production of the third Peter Gabriel solo album.[1]
[edit] Methods of creation
[edit] "Classic" analogue methodThe oldest, most "natural" technique can be done with minimal electronic processing. The steps for processing are as following:
This results in a very live sounding drum that is rapidly cut off with none of the overpowering secondary reflections associated with reverb. Note that this process is generally used in studio recording environment only: it's hard to reproduce such effect when playing live. |
[edit] Modern digital methodWhen using digital reverb unit, it is possible to replicate classic scheme in much simpler steps:
Most modern digital reverb units contain several "Gated reverb" presets, thus removing the need for a separate noise gate, compessor and commutation, effectively making it possible to get gated reverb sound from just single normal close mic or drum trigger. Also note that such setup does not require "live room" with huge reverberation ambience for the drumset and can be reproduced without major difficulties at live gigs. |
[edit] Usage patterns
Most common usage of gated reverb is empowering drum sounds, particularly snare drum and bass drum. The technique became so popular and "gated reverb" sound is so recognizable, that most samplers include some sort of "gated drums". These sounds are usually referred to as "gated snare" and "gated kick", thus omitting the "reverb" word from original naming.
While General MIDI hasn't specified particular sound characteristics for its drum kits, however, it already included 2 distinct snare sounds, sometimes referred to as acoustic snare (38) and electric snare (40), later usually sounding as "gated snare". Later MIDI standards, such as GS and XG include drum kits that specify gated drum sounds: most usually, that is patch #16 (GS #17, with shifted numbering) named "Power drumkit", "Rock drumkit" or patch #24 (GS #25) named "Electronic drumkit". Thus, for example, for snare drum, distinct sounds may be referred to as power snare or rock snare.
[edit] Notable records
A good example is the Phil Collins single In The Air Tonight at the point when the real drums come in. However pretty much any Phil Collins drum track recorded after "Intruder" from Peter Gabriel's third solo record (aka "Melt") including all of his solo work uses the technique.
[edit] Audio sample
- "In the Air Tonight", from Collins' Face Value (file info) — play in browser (beta)
- Excerpt from "In the Air Tonight", demonstrating gated drums.
- Problems playing the files? See media help.
[edit] References
- ^ Robyn Flans (May 1, 2005). "Classic Tracks: Phil Collins' "In the Air Tonight"". Mix.
- White, Paul (June 1996). "Canyons of The Mind: Psycoacoustics of Reverb". Sound On Sound.
- Reverb article on Harmony Central includes information on gated reverb.