What is the difference between REVERB and ECHO?

So, what exactly is the difference between reverb and echo?

 

It can be different lingo for the same thing. Although, I tend to think of echo as more of a d-e-l-a-y and reverb as (((reverb))).

 

That's a good question. I think of echo as an acoustic event and reverb as an electric event, but I guess you can look at it different ways. Might see some interesting things in this thread.

 

How to describe tremelo?

 

I like the word reverb. For some reason it bugs me when people call it "echo". I know, life's too short to be bugged by this small stuff.

 

So, if I understand correctly, reverb is generated by being in a booth, room, church, etc.

How about echo? How do you get this on a recording? I mean back in the good ol' days of analog tape. See, I used to think that echo was generated by a chamber, and reverb was generated electronically. So I was backwards.

Could you provide some recorded examples of each (Beatles, Simon & Garfunkle, etc.)?

Thanks

 

If you want good ol' fashioned tape echo on a Beatles record, listen to "Everybody Wants To Be My Baby."

 

In the olden days echo (or delay as it's called now) was done with tape machines. It's how Sun Records got the slap echo on Elvis' voice, it's how Abbey Road made ADT (automatic double tracking) it's how they made the echos on Paper Back Writer-er-er-er.

Reverb was either done with a live chamber (like on Phil Spector records and Beatles recordings) where a speaker was placed in a reverberant room, recorded with a microphone at the other end of the room and mixed into the signal at the console or with a plate reverb (click the link for a cool site with pictures and explanations). I have two plate reverbs and they're awesome! The reverb is dense and shiny. Think of the snare drum hits on Simon & Garfunkel's song The Boxer during the "La lala... Boing!" section. That's the sound of my plates.

Now everything is done digitally. I still use a tape delay and plate reverb but digital reverbs are so good now there's no way anyone can possibly detect one from another.

 

I always looked at reverb as echo without the space. Almost an overlapping of sound with reverb vs. a definitive spacing using echo.

But what do I know...

 

I would say with reverb you generally can't hear the individual reflections and with echo you can. Obviously not everybody will agree with this definition.

 

I guess we should know this (at least I should, knowing you) but how is "compressing the echo" a good thing, exactly?

 

That's good. I like it.

 

It would make it sound longer and more dense. With enough compression you can make a bathroom sound like a gymnasium.

 

Tommy Roe's Sheila seemed to do a similar thing.

Interesting that Gold Star compressed their returns. That makes a lot of sense. I did get to go into that chamber once and it was like going back in a time machine, though you were right about it being short.

I was lucky enough to work there once in 1978 though it was just to do a transfer. None the less it was quite exciting just to be there and take in some of the history.

Btw, we used to use old EMT 140 plate reverbs at Dawnbreaker and we would sometimes compress those returns. I seem to remember that some of the plates actually had compression in the internal tube electronics but it's been a while and I could be mixing things up.

 

Yes, compression can add a lot of sustain to a sound by increasing the gain as the sound is decaying.

 

So something like Eddie Cochran would be echo and not reverb?

 

Keep in mind that some people use a straight delay before or after the reverb which can yield a very cool sound. I guess this technique has both reverb and echo depending on your definitions.

 

Well, what you and Steve are saying is that it was essentially like the "STEED" chamber echo/tape echo they had at EMI. But is that true even for a song like "Sittin' in the Balcony" with the rather exaggerated echo/reverb at the end?

 

Tremolo is itself polysemous. As a playing technique, it denotes (say) a violinist moving her bow rapidly back and forth on the same note, or alternating two different notes. As an electronic sound process, imagine a long held note (say on a guitar this time) with the sound being rapidly turned off and on repeatedly. Unlike the playing technique, it's just one note being played but it sounds sorta like it's being hit again and again. A well-known example is the guitar chords in the intro to Pink Floyd's 'Money'--after the cash register effects you get the bass line stabbed with a single guitar chords that has a fairly quick tremolo applied to it. It reiterates as it fades away.