Gated reverb

Gated reverb is an audio processing technique that is applied to recordings of drums (or live sound reinforcement of drums in a PA system) to make the drums sound powerful and "punchy," while keeping the overall mix clean and transparent-sounding. The gated reverb effect, which was most popular in the 1980s, is made using a combination of strong reverb and a noise gate.

Unlike most reverberation or delay effects, the gated reverb effect does not try to emulate any kind of reverb that occurs in nature.

History

The first known use of this technique was by recording engineer Rudy Van Gelder on the 1976 album Velvet Darkness by jazz/rock guitarist Allan Holdsworth. The drummer on this recording was Narada Michael Walden.

The most copied first use of this technique was on the 1977 David Bowie album, Low.

The gated reverb effect began being used in popular music during the 1980s. Producer Mutt Lange was a pioneer at drenching the recorded drum sound in gated reverb. An early and prominent use of gated reverb was in Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins and Hugh Padgham's production of the third Peter Gabriel solo album. [cite journal
title = Classic Tracks: Phil Collins' "In the Air Tonight"
author = Robyn Flans
url = http://mixonline.com/mag/audio_phil_collins_air/index.html
journal = Mix
date = May 1, 2005]

Methods of creation

Usage patterns

Most common usage of gated reverb is empowering drum sounds, particularly snare drum and bass drum. The technique became so popular and "gated reverb" sound is so recognizable, that many drum machines and samplers include some sort of "gated drums". These sounds are usually referred to as "gated snare" and "gated kick", thus omitting the "reverb" word from original naming.

While General MIDI hasn't specified particular sound characteristics for its drum kits, however, it already included 2 distinct snare sounds, sometimes referred to as acoustic snare (38) and electric snare (40), later usually sounding as "gated snare". Later MIDI standards, such as GS and XG include drum kits that specify gated drum sounds: most usually, that is patch #16 (GS #17, with shifted numbering) named "Power drumkit", "Rock drumkit" or patch #24 (GS #25) named "Electronic drumkit". Thus, for example, for snare drum, distinct sounds may be referred to as power snare or rock snare.

Notable records

Gated reverb as an effect was used on countless drum tracks during the 1980s, to the point that such a sound became a defining characteristic of that decade's popular music. Prominent examples are the Phil Collins single In the Air Tonight (specifically at the point when the live drums enter into the arrangement) and the Genesis song Mama. However, Phil Collins continued to utilise this technique on several of his hits released after the recording of Peter Gabriel's song "Intruder" (from Gabriel's third solo album).

Audio sample

multi-listen item
filename = Intheairtonight.ogg
title = "In the Air Tonight", from Collins' "Face Value"
description = Excerpt from "In the Air Tonight", demonstrating gated drums.|

References

* cite journal
first = Paul
last = White
title = Canyons of The Mind: Psycoacoustics of Reverb
journal = Sound On Sound
year = 1996
month = June
url = http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1996_articles/jun96/reverbeffects.html
* [http://www.harmony-central.com/Effects/Articles/Reverb/ Reverb article] on Harmony Central includes information on gated reverb.