As you know, I am starting on building my own Plate Reverb. As part of my research, I am going to go find other plate reverb projects and critique them, as well as tell you what I am going to use from those projects.
We will start off with the project from Ionosonde Recordings. Overall, I really enjoyed reading about his process in making an affordable plate reverb. It is also the kind of build that I am looking to do with this project. It isn’t as high quality as some of the other examples I found, but my goal for this project is a workable reverb from which I can build on to make even better.
One of the things that I liked the most from this project is the fact that it did not use any welding. I am not going to weld on my plate because I don’t possess those skills right now and I don’t have enough time to learn a skill like that. This DIY does a great job of making a frame out of something inexpensive that you can find at any hardware store. I also liked how he went into detail on how to get just the voice coil from a speaker. This isn’t something that I am going to use because I found a transducer on its own, but could be valuable in the future.
A couple of the things that I didn’t like were that the transducer isn’t connected to the plate. It is only touching it. This isn’t a good thing because the transducer should vibrate with the plate, and if you get the transducer loud enough, it could separate from the plate itself, causing problems. If it is connected to the plate, you can drive the source even harder. I also didn’t like that he didn’t go into detail on how the pickups and speaker were connected, as well as what pre-amps he was using. From the first picture it seems that everything is wired into 1/4″ jacks, which could lead to problems because piezo’s are unbalanced mics. This is something that I will need to research more.
After reading this, I am glad that I was able to find some things that I will use in my own plate, as well as some things that I will stray away from. I feel that this reverb is a great starting point into this DIY field for anybody and I hope I can do the same for mine. Here are my pros/cons on the project for those who didn’t want to read through my explanation.
Pros:
- Able to build frame and corner support without welding
- Great detail on building the frame and connecting it
- In depth about how to free a voice coil to a speaker
Cons:
- Looks to be 1/4″ Inputs and Outputs
- No outside frame
- Transducer is not connected to plate, only touching it
- Did not go into the electronics of how everything is connected
- No amp or pre-amp information
- Only one example
franksullivansound.com 
Hello Frank, I read you’r review of my article on the D.I.Y. Plate Reverb. Thanks for sharing you”r view points, I hope I was able to spark interest in you or anybody else to build a plate reverb. I will try to apply you’r suggestions into future articles. Thanks for writing and stopping by.
Solitudes from Detroit
Rich