The reverberation effect is produced by reverberation itself. This notion, otherwise known as reverb, is the persistence of a sound after it has been produced. It occurs when a signal reflects, which causes in turn several reflections to build up. When this happens, the signal decays as the different surfaces within a space absorb the sound.
Reverberation itself is frequency-dependent. Naturally, it occurs when people talk, sing, or play a musical instrument inside a sound-reflective area. Producers typically add the sound of reverb to vocals and musical instruments in an artificial way. These experts usually do this for live sound systems and sound recordings. Reverb can add a sense of space, but it can also reduce speech intelligibility when unwanted noise is present.
Measuring Reverb Times
There are several techniques that measure reverb times. The most common one is the Schroeder method. It involves impulse excitation that uses interrupted noise with either a built-in noise generator, a balloon, or a pistol burst.
The Reverberation Effect Itself
You can create a reverberation effect—or, better yet, several ones. Both performers and producers use reverb in live or recorded music. There are several methods to produce or mimic the reverberation effect. Some examples are chamber, plate, spring, and digital reverberators.
Chamber reverberators were one of the first reverb effects methods. However, people don’t typically use it nowadays because it requires a soundproofed room. As another instance, plate reverberators involve an electromechanical transducer to create vibrations in a large plate of sheet metal. In addition, spring ones use a transducer at one end of the spring and a pickup at the other end. When this assembles, vibrations emerge and the metal spring captions them. Finally, digital reverberators use signal processing algorithms to create the reverb effect. In particular, advanced digital reverbs are capable of mimicking the time and frequency domain response of a particular space.
