The History of Reverb
One of the great things about capturing a musical performance is how uniquely different spaces can sound. Capturing the sound of a lap steel guitar recorded in a wooden room deadened with carpets sounds completely different from the same performance recorded in a parking garage or a 2,000-seat theatre.
There's an inherent warmth to certain environments that enhances not only the sound of a performance but, in extreme cases, the performance itself, as a performer may improvise on an echoed phrase.
If you're plugging an instrument directly into a mixer, the recording will sound dry and almost otherworldly, because there is no context for where that sound is coming from. Other than the sound of the room the recording plays back in, it's unnatural to the ears.
This is where reverb steps in, bridging the gap between a sound and its sense of place.
Early Reverb Using Springs, Plates, and Tape
Long before digital processing existed, engineers found creative mechanical ways to simulate space.
Spring reverbs and plate reverbs were among the earliest innovations. These devices used coiled springs or sheets of metal, combined with transducers, to induce vibrations that mimicked the reflections in real rooms. The result wasn’t exactly “natural,” but it added life and dimension to otherwise flat recordings.
Tape echo followed, using a short loop of magnetic tape to produce repeating echoes that decayed over time. While clearly artificial, it still felt organic to the ear.
These early approaches shaped the sonic identity of entire decades. Many classic recordings owe their signature depth to these mechanical reverb systems.
The Rise of Analog and Digital Delay
The next leap forward came with analog delay circuits, specifically bucket brigade devices (BBDs). Early analog delays used primitive BBD circuits to produce repeated echoes. Each repetition, however, would lose some clarity, which is the kind of audio erosion that gave these units their distinctive, grainy charm.
Later, digital delays improved bandwidth quality to a degree. Still, early digital tech suffered from low sample bit depth, resulting in a certain grainy sound that, ironically, has become fairly fashionable again these days.
As digital technology advanced, digital delays emerged with cleaner, more precise sound. Early digital reverb units, though, still suffered from limited bit depth and sample rates, producing that familiar crunchy, lo-fi character. Ironically, that particular grainy sound has become fashionable again in modern production.
Understanding How Reverb Works
Most reverb processors—whether analog or digital—simulate the way sound reflects and decays within a space. They do this by blending multiple delay lines using complex algorithms that mimic how sound waves bounce off surfaces such as concrete, wood, glass, or metal.
Sound echoes quite differently in a small room, say, than in a large hall or auditorium. The different components that echo and wash out in some circumstances result in what we come to think of as the 'sound' of a space. Every space has a distinct character shaped by its size, shape, and materials. That character is what we recognize as “the sound of a room.”
As technology improved, realism became the goal. Brands like Eventide became legends in the reverb world, thanks to the depth and musicality of their algorithms. Since then, many of these brands have evolved into modern plugin form.
The Birth of Convolution Reverb
Eventually, reverb design took a revolutionary turn with the development of convolution reverb, in which a space can be sampled rather than synthesized from the ground up. Instead of relying solely on synthetic algorithms, convolution reverb uses real-world recordings to recreate the exact acoustic fingerprint of a location. Here’s how it works:
Place microphones around a space in the same places you'd put them if you were recording a live performance. Then play a short burst of pink noise near where the recording source would be. Record the noise and subsequent reverberations. Put that entire recording into a convolving algorithm, and then voila, you've just created what's called an Impulse Response (IR).
When the IR is loaded into a convolution reverb plugin, any sound passed through it will take on the acoustic properties of that exact space. In other words, when the deconvolving software is used as a plugin, everything played through it will sound as though it were being played in the space that you just sampled.
Ok, so what kind of sorcery is this, and how does it work?
A Quick History of Convolution Reverb
The first hardware convolution reverb was created by Sony in 1999, and just two years later, AudioEase released Altiverb, the first convolution reverb plugin.
Today, convolution technology is everywhere. Many modern DAWs (digital audio workstations) include built-in convolution reverbs, and there’s a thriving community of engineers who share or sell custom Impulse Responses.
Interestingly, IRs are no longer limited to reverb. They’re also used to simulate the tonal characteristics of guitar cabinets, microphones, and even entire signal chains. The technology that started as a way to emulate rooms has evolved into a core component of modern sound design.
The Modern Day Reverb Continues
What started as a quest to bring realism to recordings has turned into an art form of its own. Reverb isn’t just about emulating physical space anymore; it’s a creative tool. Producers and engineers shape emotion, tension, and texture through how they use reverb. Reverb tells the story of where sound lives by connecting music to space, grounding performances in an audible environment that the human ear understands.
At Long & McQuade, you’ll find everything from hardware reverb processors to digital plugins that capture decades of reverb evolution. Visit your local Long & McQuade store or browse our online catalogue for everything you need to bring your sound to life.
