RE: qualities of reverb

["Goddard, Duncan" <goddard.duncan@mtvne.com>]

>>.....or Robin Guthrie (Cocteau Twins). Their pianos and guitars are
often drenched in a very long and dense reverb that would put the Taj
Mahal to shame - this reverb has a depth, richness, and aliveness that
is lovely to listen to, it is not the linear, cold, and boring
reverb....<<

a lot depends on the vintage of the robin guthrie/cocteaus material, but
I could probably find out from a former engineer of theirs.... chances
are, though, that it's an AMS or an early lexicon. robin was rather fond
of his effects.... on one visit to the studio (which is now occupied by
pete townshend again), I was shown a cupboard full of stomp-boxes, many
of them labelled with the names of songs by the cocteaus. sometimes
there were three or four of the same pedal, with different settings &
song-titles labelled on them.
I'm pretty sure that the AMS unit could either do (out of the box) or be
modified to do the frozen-reverb effect. 

a trick I've used to imitate this with my trusty microverb on it's "#16"
(canyon) setting, is to put it /upstream/ of a long tape delay, & so
that only the wet signal goes to the delay. feed the output (again, only
the wet, or you'll get howlround) back into the reverb. it won't go on
for ever without getting messy/unstable, but it will last long enough
for most musical purposes! 

the best technique with this effect is to avoid sending transients into
the system, & use a volume pedal in y'r main send. I prefer not to add
chorus to this effect, letting the stereo tape-delay take care of this
on it's own. if you can, incorporate a high-pass filter or otherwise
somehow roll off the bass going into the system. this will make it sound
more airy & ethereal.
nowadays, I either use the microverb or my great-british-spring (stereo
in/out), & a line6 echo-pro.

duncan.



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