DIY plates?

Has anyone ever built their own plate. I thought it would be a cool project, they can't be very complex. And you could do all sorts of weird tricks with them.

Any ideas?

Plate reverb?
There is a site on a diy plate.
I think Keef knows where.
Most of the work is mig welding the frame and tricking bubba to help carry the plates upstairs!
:razz:

The guys that did the article in Tape op
are in PA but the web site has been down over a year.
Someone find these guys. Please

The online Plate article:

There web address was http://www.errico-associates.com/
But it is broken.

I have helped carry an EMT plate reverb up and down stairs. It is NO fun. Have you heard a plate? It's not for everyone. You should make sure you really want one before you go through the hassle of building one. You should also be sure that you're going to be in your space for a long time, because moving them is NO fun.

:guinness: :sam:

The Tape Op artical was pretty good, but did not give sources for parts, other then through him, not even enough information on the parts so I could figure out what I could use on my own. But still alot of good information. If you know the old address of that website just puch it in at www.archive.org and enjoy. If not I think I still have the link buried in my bookmarks file still.

adam

Yeah, I now remember reading that article a while back, I guess It got planted in my subliminal because I remember that blue frame. I was hoping some one here would have tried it, but I guess it is a pretty big (literally) endeavor.

[quote author="kubi"]And you should be sure you have a VERY quiet place for them. They pick up every piece of noise from outside - it's much worse than with spring reverbs.[/quote]

I was thinking it might be cool just to build it on the wall in my tracking room after all, the room is quiet while I?m mixing. I could also use it as a weird room mic when tracking stuff. It might be neat to build a smaller one and put it out doors somewhere like on the exterior side of the studio so you would get the outside world on your recordings.
I guess it?s just the Stockhausen side of me talking now. :guinness: :guinness: :guinness:

I?ve always wanted to dig up my yard and build echo chambers underground like Capitol has.

A cheap and easy lo-fi way!

Get a sheet of metal & make a couple of holes.

Suspend from something (rafters, couple of mic stands, whatever!).

Now you need a PZM style mic and a sound-bug....



...do a web search for a supplier. They're about £25 over here in blighty.

Stick the soundbug and the PZM to the plate. Send a signal to the bug, return the PZM to your aux input. Move them around until you're happy with the sound.

That's it!

:green:

I tried it with 3 plates connected by a welded rod! - It was something I found in a skip.

It works well, and sounds like a fairly metallic plate reverb, as you might expect. Needed some generous eq. Worked well on percussion & acoustic guitar. Actually, if anyone cares, there's an MP3 of a track we did with it here. All the reverb on this track is with the DIY plate.

http://www.pinned.org/gwyn/mp3/darklight/energyintennessee.mp3

it's a funny little lo-fi song - just a 1940's acoustic guitar, vocals and shaker. 2.2Mb so beware.

Actually I never looked at this track on a frequency analyser but I know what you're referring to. We did it quickly for fun - which is how we always work! I recall that we used high and low pass eq, but probably not much else.

I think a lot of the resonance is from the three plates.

The guitar is also a primitive wooden resonator guitar (an Emile Grimshaw Revalation) so some could be from that.

Cheers!

Hi Kubi,

here's a crappy sketch:



I'm guessing here because I'm away from the studio: the plates are about 50cm x 50 cm, and about 30 cm apart. The plates and rods that hold them together are stainless steel. We used some gaffer-tape to dampen the plates a bit, and stuck the bug and pzm to other ends. The whole rig was suspended from the ceiling beams tied up using old microphone cables! It is very good fun.

I pulled the plates out of a skip - they were previously used as shelves in a high-corrosion chemical lab!

I guess some of the resonances comes from the 3-plate arrangement. I'm sure a single plate would work well - possibly even better and more like a 'conventional' plate verb.

Cheers! :thumb: z50

since all the commercial units use piezos:

http://www.musiklab.dk/stringamp/techdiy.html

the diy $1 piezo pickup. :guinness:

Good link! Thanks.
I have a couple of those elements kicking around somewhere - time to find them.
:thumb:

[quote author="nacho459"]Has anyone ever built their own plate. I thought it would be a cool project, they can't be very complex. And you could do all sorts of weird tricks with them.

Any ideas?[/quote]

I have an article from a 1982 Audio amateur showing how to build a plate reverb.

Somebody please chase the guys down in PA
Look up his name on the internet.
Contact Tape op. Do something.
I am working now and need someone to chase this.

Build the real think it is worth it.
His kit looks good and just like what I have seen built before.
Yes they are a pain to set up but nothing and I mean nothing
(plugins do not count because they all sound poor)
sounds like the sound of a dense plate reverb.
We do not yet have the processing power to do the reverb calculations
and if we did it would not count because it is not analog.
Analog and only analog reverb is where it is.

[quote author="kiira"]
I have an article from a 1982 Audio amateur showing how to build a plate reverb.[/quote]

Would it be possible to scan it?

[quote author="rafafredd"][quote author="kiira"]
I have an article from a 1982 Audio amateur showing how to build a plate reverb.[/quote]

Would it be possible to scan it?[/quote]

I have to set up a scanner at work first, then I could put it on my website so you could download it. It looks like a complete article. email me 'k.

please make 2 so I can have one. :roll:

I would also like to see the Audio Amature article.

Did you ever scan that article? If you did I would love to get one!

Here are some postst that I found on other forums (not structured):


The pickup suggested by the article is made by Shadow (general transducer at http://www.shadow-pickups.com/transducers.html). They paired this with a preamp a la
(http://www.shadow-pickups.com/pre_elec.html).

You could use whatever you want though. This is just a standard transducer running through a preamp designed to be fitted in an acoustic guitar. Better equipment is available.

The hardware they enumerate on their parts page, so you could take the list to a hardware store and have them get you the nuts & bolts. The fiberglass clevis yokes are harder to find though; your average Home Depot doesn't have them. I was thinking to look maybe in marine supply or plumbing supply.

As for tuning, guess we'll have to go to a local studio and record their setup.


thanks for the info acrossen. you may be in luck. Odyssey pro sound has a driver made by martinsound....
http://www.odysseyprosound.com/accessories.html

They also have some other accesories there to thast may be of some use although i will say the prices are bit steep for my tastes.

As far as pickups go. I guess i realize that there are many manufacture's making items that will do i am mainly just wondering which one will work great.

Especially since i have no real means of testing them first.

What I do recommend is for the plate outlined in Bob's article is to use Stainless Steel of the following specifications:
Type 304 with a #2B finish - Cold rolled on polished rolls, annealed, pickled, and skin passed on polished rolls.
The dimensions should be 36 inches by 72 inches 26 gauge thickness.


Article:
Effect Design - Part 1: Reverberator and Other Filters By Jon Dattorro, Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, Vol.45, No. 9, 1997, p. 660-684
An article that includes a graphical plate reverb recipe.

Seth,

I agree, it is no fun to moving them and it is also hard to find a silent place to carry them in.

But if you have heard a well tuned and maintenance EMT 140TS or a Studio Technologies ECOPLATE 1 or 2 (made by Jim Cunningham) use on percussion or brass, there are no way back.

I grow up with springs and plates, so I have be force to maintenance and handle them (there was no digital reverbs in 1970`s) and I still love them.

--Bo

I have the jim cunningham instruction & the Bob buontepo plate building articles in pdf format. If you need them PM me your email address.