"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in
message
In article ,
Iain Churches wrote:
No. It's not a room, but a *very* contrived tape
repeat with reverb added to it. This became part of
the very distinctive Bostic R+B sound.

Using a tape delay to feed a reverb plate was common
practice in TV in the '60s and '70s before digital
reverb units become the norm.

The track being discussed here, Earl Bostic's recording
of Flamingo was made in 1951, there were no reverb
plates then.

Perhaps then you would explained where the 'reverb' came
from?

Before plates, the common way was an 'echo room' with
speaker and microphone. But you've stated it was not a
room.

I doubt that Iain actually knows for sure. He's hardly a credible source
when it comes to recording technique, modern or ancient.

I listened to the Flamingo clip, which is way too short (12 seconds) to
analyze well. The usual standard for posting clips like this is more like
30 seconds.

The most remarkable thing about the Flamingo clip is the timbre of Bostic's
Sax about which there has been some informed writing. The consensus seems to
be that the Sax tone of Earl Bostic was a creation of Earl Bostic, and not
the result of some obscure or advanced recording technique.

I can find nothing credible about actual recording technique that was used.
Others with relevant independent facts are invited to contribute them.

One thing that Iain probably has right is the idea that there was no such
thing as a plate reverb in 1951. The innovation of the plate reverb is
credited to EMT in 1957.

Tape echo is a little harder to pin down. It was first implemented using
ordinary studio tape recorders. One source credits the invention of tape
reverb to Les Paul in 1950. Dedicated hardware for this purpose includes
the Echosonic which was introduced in 1952. I don't think that many people
other than Les Paul himself were using tape delay in 1951.

What I hear (which is dubious because of the flawed sample) on the Flamingo
MP3 is a room that would be the size of a small recording studio or a night
club or smaller. The micing was probably close or medium. The room is
basically harsh, without a lot of absorbtive material in it. So it probably
wasn't a recording studio. I think I can come pretty close to duplicating
this kind of reverb including the harshness at church with fairly close
micing - the room is that bad.

Dave's suggestion that if any artificial reverb was used at all, an echo
chamber was used seems like the most reasonble speculation. The use of echo
chambers dates back to the innovation of so-called electric recordings - no
later than the middle 1920s according to the credible sources that I have
found.