Plate Reverb Build: The Result!

Posted on by ftsullivan

Earlier this week I completely finished my plate reverb. The final things that I needed to do after hanging my plate was hooking up all the electronics and testing to make sure they worked. I started off by drilling some holes in the middle of the plate to bolt my transducer directly to the plate. Here are a couple pictures of that process. I ended up using rubber washers for the backside so I could isolate the metal on metal contact as much as possible.

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After hooking that up, I had to wire my transducers to some speaker wire. I ended up soldering them together to get a firm connection.

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After hooking these up, I connected my speaker wire to the 1/4″ mono input jacks, so I could get a signal from the piezo mics. I made sure that I was connecting the right wire to the positive terminal of the 1/4″ jack.

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After completing all of these tasks, I was done with wiring all my electronics and tested everything to make sure that it worked. To power my transducer, I tried using the headphone amp from my Apogee Quartet to see if it would work. I did get a signal, though it wasn’t as powerful as I wanted it. I made the mistake of not double checking the power requirements of my transducer, and when I hooked up a bigger amp that I thought would work, it ended up blowing the whole thing.

That means that I did not get all the tests and samples that I wanted to get and had to order another transducer that will hopefully get here next week. I did however get one test done and below it shows a dry vocal, one with my plate reverb on it and one with the reverb that I had on in my mix.

That concludes everything that I wanted to get done with this project! I am pretty happy with how everything turned out and I know what I need to do to make a better version in the future. I will have a full analysis of this plate reverb in a couple of weeks when I get my transducer and I find a better amp to power it.

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Plate Reverb Build: Hang Plate from Frame

Posted on by ftsullivan

Now that I have my frame complete, it is time to hang the plate by the frame. The way that I did this is by strengthening the corners with a sheet of aluminum. I cut out the corners off the sheet (pretty badly) with a grinder and started to use my sheet metal puncher to make two 9/32″ holes and three 1/8″ holes for the rivets. I also put three 1/8″ holes in my plate to adhere the triangles to the plate.

plate1         plate2

After making all the rivet holes, I started riveting the corners to the plate, and when I was complete with this, I punched through the plate to create the 9/32″ holes to hang by the links.

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Here is a completed look at my plate after the rivets were put in.

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After the rivets were put in, I turned it over to see how the other side of the plate looked. On the side you saw before, I had to sand off the rust because I am using cold-rolled steel, which rusts when oxygen comes in contact with it. This side needed to be sanded down too because there was rust. Here are some before and after pictures of my sanding the plate.

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plate8       plate9

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After I sanded down my plate, I brought it over to the frame and set it on it to see how it would look and where I needed my links and eye bolts to be.

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After putting the eye bolts and links where I wanted them, I started connecting the links to the frame and tightening them to tension the frame a little bit, here is a close up of that as well as a video describing what I just did.

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After hanging the plate and tensioning it so it is off the frame, I went and did an initial tuning of my plate. The way you do this is exactly the same as a drum and I demonstrate that in this video.

Since tuning the plate tight made my entire frame less rigid and cockeyed, I will probably just leave it flat so it can keep the structure how I wanted it. I also added some oil to my plate so that the rust does not return as fast. Here is a video demonstrating that.

Up next, I will mount my transducer and piezo mics to the frame as well as wire everything up and test the reverb to make sure it works.

Plate Reverb Build: Steel Choices

Posted on by ftsullivan

For plate reverbs, there are pretty much two different kinds of steel that you can use for your plate. The first would be cold-rolled, which is what EMT used in the past to make their 140’s. Those are known as one of the best physical plate reverb’s to this day. It is hard to find information on why they used cold-rolled steel for their reverbs. Bob Buontempo has heard from others that cold-rolled has a more natural sound to it as well as a less metallic decay.

Jim Cunningham of JCC and Associates used the other option, stainless steel. In this article, he says that during his research, he found that stainless steel had a better high frequency response than cold-rolled. This is more suited for rock music. He also said the cold-rolled is more like a concert hall, which suits classical music. Bob has also heard people using stainless because it is more consistent, as well as it being tarnish proof.

It is a very subjective subject on what you should use since both options have worked in the past. Because of this, I will have to make a reverb with both cold-rolled and stainless to hear the differences for myself and come to a conclusion.

 

Plate Reverb Build: Frame Construction

Posted on by ftsullivan

This week, I constructed the entire frame together for my plate reverb. From my needed materials post, you can see that I needed two pieces of 1 1/2″ x 60″ Zinc Plated Slotted Angle and six pieces of 1 1/2″ x 36″ Zinc Plated Slotted Angle to build the entire frame. After picking these up, they needed to be cut to the size that I designed in my blueprint.

However, after inspection of all my parts, I underestimated the length that my eye hooks and links would take up, so I extended my frame by one inch on all sides.

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After cutting them to size, I needed to file down the edges that were just cut.

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After getting these filed down the best that they could, I started by bolting down the corners through the slots that matched up to create my outside frame.

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After getting this complete, I began to make the frame more rigid by adding four joints on the “outside” of the frame (the plate will go on the opposite end).

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Here is the frame with the joint support:

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After putting everything together, we brought out a square to make sure that all the corners were exactly square. After doing this, we tightened everything down and added support for the corners to make them more stable.

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Here is the completed frame:

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If the corner supports don’t work as well, I can always take them off and go back to the metal triangles to add rigidness to this frame. Next up, I will be installing the plate to this frame, which you should see done this coming week.

Plate Reverb Build: Researching Electronics, Part 2

Posted on by ftsullivan

On my last post: Researching the Electronics, Part 1. I talked about the piezo mics and what I would need to do to get them to have a balanced output. For this research, I will be talking about the transducer that I am using, as well as my input/output scenario.

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For my transducer, I have decided on the Vidsonix Ghost Transducer. In my researching and looking at other DIY projects, including this Tape Op thread on them, I have found this to be what other people have started to use and are great for the money. I also have a couple of old speakers that I can dismantle and try out those voice coils to see how they sound, which will probably happen in future iterations of my plate reverbs.

My input/output will be all 1/4″ TS in and out. My recorded tracks will output from my Apogee Quartet into the 1/4″ TS input to the Vidsonix Ghost. Then, it will be picked up through my Piezo discs back through a 1/4 TS connector. I will have DI boxes to convert into a balanced mic level input, which will go back to the inputs of my Apogee Quartet’s pre-amps and into Pro Tools. I have decided on the 1/4″ TS because my piezo mics are unbalanced, so TRS connectors would be unnecessary.

Here is a diagram of that setup:

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Overall, I think this combination will be a good starting point for these reverbs and I can always upgrade my components at a later date.

Plate Reverb Build: Schedule

Posted on by ftsullivan

Now I am at a point in this project where all I have left to do is to build the reverb itself. I have done almost all the research, which I will be finishing up this week. I am treating week 9 as a flex week. If there are any difficulties that come up before that, there is a week where I can make it up.  I am still not sure if I will be making a damping plate and wooden frame for this reverb or if I will wait until later in the summer to do so.

Here is my whole build schedule for the rest of this project.

This week (6):

  • Build Steel Frame
  • Research Electronics, Part 2
  • Research Steel Acoustics

Week 7 (5/17-5/23):

  • Hang Plate By Frame
  • Build and wire all Electronics

Week 8 (5/24-5/30):

  • Mount Piezo Mics
  • Mount Transducer
  • Test Reverb to see if it works

Week 9 (5/31-6/6):

  • Analyze results of test
  • Damping Plate ???
  • Wooden Frame ???

Week 10 (6/7-6/13):

  • Tweak final product
  • Make samples to put on website
  • Take professional pictures

Plate Reverb Build: Damping Plate Research

Posted on by ftsullivan

With plate reverbs, a damping plate will effect the overall time of the reverb. The ones that EMT used could vary the reverb time from 2-5 seconds long. There are also several different ways to add one of these to a plate reverb. On the Ecoplate blueprints, they state that you should use Shasta ceiling tile (or any Owns Corning pinperf) cut into a lightweight steel frame. There are other reverbs that use regular fiberglass mounted to a plywood board, but according to Crossen Streams, who restored an ecoplate, doing that does not properly absorb the sound. I am guessing this is because it is fairly thin and the sound would go through it and come back without fully absorbing the sound.

Here are two pictures of the back of an old damping plate (Left) and a restored Ecoplate damping plate from Crossen Streams (Right):

fiber new

I have also seen DIY projects with fiberglass inside a wider frame and not mounted to anything. I am not sure on the effects of that and I might have to try it when it comes to the damping pate of my project.

A damping plate seems pretty simple to put on my reverb. The only thing I would have to figure out is how to make it adjustable so I can use it for my needs. I will probably figure something out after this project for my class is done. My overall plan would be to have a motor for it so it can be adjusted very easily. Idealy what the Pluto plate reverb does with an application controlling the damper is what I would want to do if I make these for commercial use.

Plate Reverb Build: Needed Materials

Posted on by ftsullivan

Building this plate reverb will not be without some costs. I have come up with everything that will be needed to complete this project.

1x Cold Rolled Steel Plate – ($26)
2x 1-1/2 in. x 60 in. Zinc-Plated Slotted Angle ($28)
2x 1-1/2 in. x 14-Gauge x 36 in. Zinc-Plated Slotted Angle ($52)
1x 12-pack 20mm Piezoelectric Elements/Contact Pickups with 2″ Leads ($17)
1x Vidsonix Ghost Transducer ($20)
1x GLS Audio 1/4″ Jacks Female TS Mono Panel Mount Jack – 4 PACK ($12)
8x 880 lb. x 1/4 in. Zinc-Plated Quick Link ($18)
8x 1/4 in. x 2 in. Zinc-Plated Steel Eye Bolts with Nut ($5)
1x TEKTON 6555 Rivet Gun with 40-pc. Rivets ($14)
1x Neiko Hand Held Power Punch, Sheet Metal Hole Punch Kit($31)
16x Stanley-National Hardware 1-in Metallic Corner Brace ($25)

Overall, the entire cost of this project will be $248 if I don’t include the wooden frame and damping plate, which are both optional at this point. This doesn’t include the extra nuts, bolts and screws that I will need to keep everything together. It also leaves me with some extra supplies for my second attempt at it, and I won’t have to buy the tools again.

Next up is buying all of these materials, as well as researching the acoustics of metals and damping plates, which will come later this weekend.