What In The World Is A Convolution Reverb Plug-in?
When a sound is produced in an enclosed space, a large number of echoes often results, and they can be heard after the initial sound stops. Eventually they are absorbed by the walls and the air and can no longer be heard. That persistence of sound after the original sound stops is known as reverberation, or reverb.
When recording music, reverb is often a very desirable effect – especially for vocals. You want your vocals to sound more like they naturally would in a night club or a concert hall. Without any “echo”, a voice just doesn’t sound natural. It sounds “dry” – the engineer’s term for lack of reverb.
In order to be able to simulate the natural reverb of different rooms, many different kinds of devices have been invented over the years that recreate reverberation artificially in the studio environment. The most popular have been configured around steel plates, springs, and digital electronics.
Recent advancements in technology have made it possible to actually “sample” a room’s acoustic characteristics and store it in a signal processing system. Then this stored “impulse response” can be combined mathematically within the processor to recreate the reverberation of the original room. This is called ‘convolution’, and yes, it is MAGIC! (As is all electronics.)
The great news for you is that you can purchase a Reverb Plugin that simulates different kinds of rooms. This same process has even been applied to simulate the mechanical reverb units – plates and springs!
IK Multimedia Classik Studio Reverb Plug-In
The bottom line is that even though the reverb plugins that come with your recording software are very good, there is nothing like the sound of a real room, or a plate reverb. Your recordings will suddenly have that extra ‘shine’ that sets them apart from the common recording. So, this is one plugin you may want to seriously consider as soon as your budget will allow it.
