By C Padgett

Reverb is the most commonly used spatial effect and is defined as acoustic reflections that happen AFTER 50 ms, normally lasting from a few ms to several seconds. The first type of delay ever used was before magnetic recording, used in broadcast radio. Basically it was sending a signal hundreds of miles away and then bouncing it back, which created a sort of delay from the source.

Back in the day, and well on into the 70’s, delay was created using a ramped up version of tape delay, called Echoplexing. Instead of tying two tape recorders together and having a problem every time the second tape deck ended, it used a continuous loop of tape to create a continuous delay without fear of running ot of tape. After that came Digital Delay, and Analog delay. Analog delay become widely popular because it was cheaper than your average digital delay. A lot of musicians still are partial to analog, claiming it gives a mix a fatter, warmer sound, and blithely ignoring the extra noise they are vulnerable to from other sources.

Back then, echo and reverb were created in what is known as live rooms, by recording engineers. This allowed the engineers to sort of control the kind of reverb and delay they were getting, by just moving around the mics. These reverb effects were created by recording sound in a “live room” with tons of hard, active surfaces, and then catching the echoes. Then these effects could be stored, and used later to warm up a sound that was recorded dry. Generally now a days, engineers will record everything dry from the get go, in order to get a premium signal quality. Then and only then, reverb, delay, and other effects are added into the mix one by one, to create that live sound ambiance or even psychedelic effect the engineer was looking for.