I actually built most of the Ecoplates 1, 2, and 3’s. I was production for Studio Technologies. The plate was a non magnetic stainless steel alloy. The pickups were Barcus-Berry piezoelectric hot dots, that were glued to the plate with rear view mirror adhesive. I built most all of those plates, for approximately 4 years, until digital reverb finally became more affordable. If you were to dust that plate for fingerprints, mine would be all over it. The Ecoplate 1 originally used Columbia Scientific accelerometers for the pickups, but they were very expensive. Jim Cunningham, who designed the plates, experimented with various replacement pickups until he found that the hot dots would work. The slogan for them was “The Brightest And The Best”
Hi there, very cool to hear from someone involved in production of these unit. I am looking to build one of a similar design and was curious, do you remember what grade of stainless was used? As you say it was not magnetic, I suspect an austenitic alloy such as 304 or 316? I am a mechanical engineer by trade and am curious how different grades might sound on a plate, based on the speed of sound in the material. Any help would be much appreciated.
I worked in a studio in the early 80's that had a plate echo. It was the best thing going at the time. The fact that the studio had a plate echo and a Synclavier was definitely a major feature of this studio (this and twin syn locked 16 track MCI recorders) and drew lots of producers and artists. We had the Ecoplate in the basement and they had to come up with an isolation stand because the studios toilet facilities were also in the basement and if some slammed the bathroom door or walked down the wooden staircases to heavily it would vibrate the plate. Not much but enough that if you isolated the recorded tracks you could hear the vibrations. I haven't seen one of these in about 35 years. Digital reverbs with a "plate echo" setting are ok but there is nothing like the real thing that I have heard. Nice score. This is one of the great things about your channel. You dig up stuff that I have either heard about but have never seen or stuff I just never heard about but find it interesting.
I've noticed reverb qualities in every day stuff around the house like metal doors to the furnace and even the oven itself. I guess if you know what you are doing you can get scrap metal and make your own plate reverbs.
Over 50 years ago when I was fourteen I created an echo record player. I am building another and plan to put it on youtube when it's done. Nothing at all like this.
I discovered this as a kid our garage door was a one piece section of stamped steel it was fantastic! Always wondered what the studio ones looked like thanks 😃
In a former life I worked as a sound operator for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and I had access to a few plates. What a fantastic sound. Envy Envy Envy!! :D
What is so great about old technology is that it had to understand, and manipulate, and utilize the physical characteristics of matter, real stuff in the real world, in order to achieve the desired result. Now everything is virtual. Something like reverb has been reduced to a mathematical equation, encoded and compiled into a string of zeros and ones that exist only in a cloud somewhere, accessible at the click of a mouse. I miss technology that we can see and touch.
@SomeDumUsrName You missed his point. Analog, physically percussive, volumetrically or massively resonant objects played without electronic augmentation or any kind. That's the instrumentation that he's referring to. Nothing hilarious about it. You seem to assume he's somehow missed the bigger picture.... he's obviously seen the whole picture, as he is contrasting one shrinking side of that picture against the more recently predominant side of it.
there is an unpredictability in analogue stuff that purely electronic users will never understand. the same way you can never fully predict the result of a hand-spliced tape loop - and therein lies the beauty of real world studio equipment.
What a fascinating bit of kit, I love the old mechanical effects since I first took the lid off a Fender header amp and discovered a real spring reverb line.
That is so cool. I didn't know they made an at home version. I am a big spring reverb fan myself. Accutronics "assembled by beautiful women in an air conditioned environment" I think is what the labels used to say. They don't say that anymore.
This was really good. I get the dynamics of this but I can't believe people traveled with it. Do you recall the Mellotron, Moody Blues and others, Magnetic tape loops - what were we thinking - but it worked. Stop beating up youtube so much and do your great videos, they speak for themselves. You're wisdom and calmness and determination will influence those that need it. You are making a difference to girls and boys and even us old guys that remember it all. Thanks for all you do.
Wow, I saw 'plate echo' and knowing your penchant for classic electronics, I just assumed it was some sort of electron tube device. Like somehow getting reverb from the 'plate' (anode) of an old tube system. But lo and behold, actual, metal, plates! Very cool. :)
Wow, I’ve never seen one of those! My Uncle was in a band back in the mid 70’s, and he had all kinds of cool gear, like a tape echo, an early synth, and a Leslie cabinet that was almost as big as your echo plate. The fact that you know the history of the device as well as how it works, instead of just showing it off, is what makes this such a great channel. Thanks Fran!
You'll probably still find those DIY electronic circuit projects using a cheapo earpiece with a couple of silver wire coils soldered to a pickup at the other end. That was another effect one could get from an EMS Sythi A if you tapped it.
I used "plate echo/reverb" effects for years when I had a little recording studio, but I never had any idea what an actual plate echo/reverb was. Extremely cool!
Thanks for demoing this and showing it off. I saw plans and a description for this effect in the 80s and did not understand how it could work. But work it does!
OMG. I'm so used to seeing "plate" as an option on digital effects, I had no frickin idea how big they were. And, then in the manual: "space saver". How funny. What fun. Thank you Fran.
Thank you for the demonstration, explanation, and look inside of a device we have all heard but not fully appreciated. It is nice to understand how things work around us. Now I can get that fancy reverb pedal (GAS speaking).
Thats right. Thats what Beatles Pink floyd and others at Abbey really used. An EMT Plate reverb. Dave Gilmour still owns and uses one of those, in his studio.
The Ecoplate was a knockoff of the EMT plate, when the patent rights ran out, Jim Cunningham created the Ecoplate for half the price of the EMT big plate. We eventually drove them out the big plate business. The only plate they continued to was the gold foil plate.
Technically, Ecoplate is really a misnomer, it's a plate >reverb< device, reverb is series of sounds caused by the reflection of sound waves from a surface back to the listener, anyone who has sung in the shower or has clapped their hands in a small empty room knows what reverb is. Echo is usually discrete reflections spaced more than 50ms apart, yelling in a canyon where your voice is reflected back after a longer period of time is a demonstration of an echo effect. Reverb tends to blend with the original sound and extends its length, echo is where you can discern distinct reflections.
Steven Seim Do you think so? They look a bit close to the side. I guess they must be over an resonant anti-node to get good signal response but I imagine that, since different sounds (frequency distributions) will produce different resonance patterns in the plate, the placement during the design phase took some trial and error. Are there mathematical models to predict the shape of Chladi patterns given the initial conditions? Anyway. Thanks mate, that was an interesting observation.
Reminds me of home, growing up we used to sneak into an abandoned coastal defense battery that had a similar echo. The echo there wasn't adjustable or controllable, but when a note at the right frequency was played the whole place would resonate and the sound was incredible.
I know these things look large, but they sure did save a lot of real estate. Before these we had to lacquer up a room lol. Thanks very much for the tour of your plate!! Very cool!!
Our recording studio at Syracuse U’s Newhouse School had a DIY plate reverb made using a with a large piece of sheet metal suspended from a rectangular frame made from 2” pipe. There were two transducers on one end that fed the sound into the plate and two transducers on the other end collecting the “wet” reverb signal. It certainly wasn’t the equivalent of a commercially-made plate reverb but it really sounded great, the idiosyncrasies gave the sound some character.
Wonderful sound! Back in the '90s I was asked to service a small plate reverb. I believe it was made by EMT and used a gold foil for the plate. The case was only about 3' x 3' x 14". The problem turned out to be bad pickup transducers. These were a piezoelectric and were over $100 each (there were 2). The bigger expense was going to be labor, because removing the old ones ran the risk of tearing the foil and ruining the entire unit. I was in touch with EMT and received a thick folder of documentation (service manual and how to remove and reinstall the transducers). In the end, the studio owner decided not to risk destroying the unit and still have to pay a substantial fee. The studio had a working EMT 140, so I did not get to tear apart the little gold one.
hi, i have been watching a lot of synthesizer and drone / synthwave stuff and its so funny that youtube recommends this, i realize now that there is a niche for analog/electronic music hardware and I love this stuff because of the cultural links this technology has to our society. so I am very happy to find your video. I am so happy to see you happy doing what makes you happy. Wishing you much success and happiness.
nowadays i can use my laptop and get superior sound and manage everything, just digitally. its truly amazing. i can create just about any sound and manipulate it an infinite number of ways just about. can make every genre of music or movie sounds
You could buy a "reverb" for your stereo back in the day. It was a metal box roughly 3 x 4 x 18 inches with a couple of lengthwise slightly stretched springs inside. The input drove one end of the springs and a pickup at the other end. The mechanical behavior of the springs caused the echo effect similar to the plate echo device. It was fun to shake the thing and then you got all this raucous noise of the springs thrashing about.
@@RijuChatterjee When I was with a company manufacturing some pretty sophisticated electronic instruments, we needed something novel and our smartest electronics engineer (a very, very smart guy) said it "can't be done". The CEO brought talked to this engineer and said "Maybe it just can't be done by you." So the CEO brought in a consultant he had experience with to further bruise that engineer's ego.. And it COULD be done. Our smart electronics engineer learned a valuable lesson that day.
I had some friends with a studio, in 1981 or so, that made their own plate echo for their studio. I never examined it in detail, but they bought a normal steel plate, hung it in springs, mounted transducers etc.
this is such an analogy for a room when viewed from above, which begs the question of transducer placement and pickup placement as well as plate shape.
Back in the 70s, I was working at a TV and music production studio. They had four of these units made by Siemens. Back then the ones they had were using tube amplifiers for processing the in and out of each. During the late 80s they invested in to solid state ones using microprocessor circuits. The pickups you are mentioning on the ones I worked on were magnetic as like used on a tape head. The amplifiers had to have proper EQ to make the sound flat.
This dude LeoMakes ...uh, made one. He used ikea shelving :] /watch?v=CZWAntOnrx4 /watch?v=5OcRMA2FNUE&t=1s Doesn't sound as good as this one. But it's far more practical/obtainable!
Not gonna lie... Watched this on my phone while working. Was wondering which "pedal" this would be... Then you pointed out the "crate" behind you and I was like... "Oooohhhh". At least I know now! LOL Awesome video!
Sound sync --- *whack* :D I really dig the post-credit scenes of your videos, Fran ^^ Anyway, awesome rig, would have loved to see how it's hooked up and stuff ^^
While it's called Ecoplate II I think it's really more of a plate reverb than an echo device. An echo device repeats a sound unchanged (for the most part) multiple times at a certain speed of repetition whereas a reverb gives the impression of being in a large room. A reverb gives the illusion of sound bouncing off walls and ceilings increasingly altering the sounds as the various waves move out from the source bouncing back and recombining with other waves bounce off of other walls. The sounds becomes more of a hum in a reverb instead instead of the staccato beat of an echo. The classic echo device was the Echoplex which used a tape/feedback loop. From my point of view echo vs reverb are not strictly interchangeable. Now a days all these effects are all done pretty well digitally. But those old plate reverbs have a certain charm. It was so great to see inside of one. Never knew how special the plate metal was. Thanks! Another much more common reverb is the spring reverb most commonly built into guitar amplifiers. They are very different sounding and have a somewhat springy sound to them. You hear them a lot on surf music songs like the ones by Dick Dale.
That was totally awsome, when you starting the solo singer channel using the plate echo? Is it possible to reproduce these sounds with modern electronics on a budget, would be an awsome multi episode vid set? Thanks for sharing.
On a budget? It's there a storm drain within a few hundred feet of your gear? Run power and line to a $5 speaker. Take line from an old tape deck listening to a few electret condensers in the pipes.
"Line level vs balanced" is a false dichotomy. Mic level, instrument level, and line level can be either balanced or unbalanced. Like she said, it is unbalanced because it was geared for prosumers. This is because they wouldn't have the equipment to utilize a balanced signal anyway, so they left out the additional components needed to send out such a signal.
Michael Miller I posted a comment similar to gantmj's explaining the same thing. Can you please elaborate your point? Because I think you have no clue about what you are talking about. I'll copy and paste my comment down here so you can read it if you want to. "At 5:20 you say "it is line level rather than balanced". Which is nonsense, because a line level signal can be both balanced or unbalanced. Signal level refers to voltage across two terminals(input/output). Balanced or unbalanced are transmission methods for said voltage. Both of which depend on the number of conductors in each cable and the input and output stages of the devices the cables connect. In a balanced setup you would tipically have two conductors carrying a differential signal, opposed to a single-ended one in unbalanced. Hope this clears thing up. :)"
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
I actually built most of the Ecoplates 1, 2, and 3’s. I was production for Studio Technologies. The plate was a non magnetic stainless steel alloy. The pickups were Barcus-Berry piezoelectric hot dots, that were glued to the plate with rear view mirror adhesive. I built most all of those plates, for approximately 4 years, until digital reverb finally became more affordable. If you were to dust that plate for fingerprints, mine would be all over it. The Ecoplate 1 originally used Columbia Scientific accelerometers for the pickups, but they were very expensive. Jim Cunningham, who designed the plates, experimented with various replacement pickups until he found that the hot dots would work. The slogan for them was “The Brightest And The Best”
Hi there, very cool to hear from someone involved in production of these unit. I am looking to build one of a similar design and was curious, do you remember what grade of stainless was used? As you say it was not magnetic, I suspect an austenitic alloy such as 304 or 316? I am a mechanical engineer by trade and am curious how different grades might sound on a plate, based on the speed of sound in the material. Any help would be much appreciated.
Cool Bees! Great video! That reverb sounds frantastic!
2:30 - "...a cathedral tiled in gold - a mile long."
That is one well-turned phrase.
Please explainx, How is it turned? It seemed a pretty apt description of the sound to me.
@@jaredloveless well formed. Turned as in formed. I.e: On a lathe.
I was waiting for "NOW FALL THROUGH THE FLOOR"
That noise when she taps it is straight out of the Blade Runner scene flying over the city, love that music and this device!
I'm going to need a much bigger pedal board.
I genuinely laughed out loud
and a bigger stronger roadie 😎
you win the comments today..
@@LukeBass1000 ^^^
You need to keep the plate isolated. I am building a special closet-sized shed for my plate to live in.
A monolith? _"it's full of stars"_
I worked in a studio in the early 80's that had a plate echo. It was the best thing going at the time. The fact that the studio had a plate echo and a Synclavier was definitely a major feature of this studio (this and twin syn locked 16 track MCI recorders) and drew lots of producers and artists. We had the Ecoplate in the basement and they had to come up with an isolation stand because the studios toilet facilities were also in the basement and if some slammed the bathroom door or walked down the wooden staircases to heavily it would vibrate the plate. Not much but enough that if you isolated the recorded tracks you could hear the vibrations. I haven't seen one of these in about 35 years. Digital reverbs with a "plate echo" setting are ok but there is nothing like the real thing that I have heard. Nice score. This is one of the great things about your channel. You dig up stuff that I have either heard about but have never seen or stuff I just never heard about but find it interesting.
No, nothing compares to the real thing. That sounds awesome.
@@simontay4851 Agreed. No amount of DSP can produce that depth.
Apparently some places suspended them for that reason.
@@simontay4851 Ummm the real thing would be a canyon or cathedral -- plate echo is a cheap imitation.
@@MisterRlGHT
Yeah, let's record in a cathedral or canyon.
I've noticed reverb qualities in every day stuff around the house like metal doors to the furnace and even the oven itself. I guess if you know what you are doing you can get scrap metal and make your own plate reverbs.
Fran is definitely one unique and special person. :-)
Yes she is and has been around the music business a really long time if you know who she is.
maybe so, but she might want to get someone else to sing to demonstrate the echo, hahaha
@@davinderc - I think she has a great voice.
Really cringe to watch though.
@@davinderc She has a really nice voice.
I'm guessing improvised song just isn't for everybody!
Over 50 years ago when I was fourteen I created an echo record player. I am building another and plan to put it on youtube when it's done.
Nothing at all like this.
You definitely need to do more videos like this one!
I discovered this as a kid our garage door was a one piece section of stamped steel it was fantastic! Always wondered what the studio ones looked like thanks 😃
In a former life I worked as a sound operator for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and I had access to a few plates. What a fantastic sound. Envy Envy Envy!! :D
What is so great about old technology is that it had to understand, and manipulate, and utilize the physical characteristics of matter, real stuff in the real world, in order to achieve the desired result. Now everything is virtual. Something like reverb has been reduced to a mathematical equation, encoded and compiled into a string of zeros and ones that exist only in a cloud somewhere, accessible at the click of a mouse. I miss technology that we can see and touch.
@SomeDumUsrName You missed his point. Analog, physically percussive, volumetrically or massively resonant objects played without electronic augmentation or any kind. That's the instrumentation that he's referring to. Nothing hilarious about it. You seem to assume he's somehow missed the bigger picture.... he's obviously seen the whole picture, as he is contrasting one shrinking side of that picture against the more recently predominant side of it.
there is an unpredictability in analogue stuff that purely electronic users will never understand. the same way you can never fully predict the result of a hand-spliced tape loop - and therein lies the beauty of real world studio equipment.
What a fascinating bit of kit, I love the old mechanical effects since I first took the lid off a Fender header amp and discovered a real spring reverb line.
I had the exact same model in my basement for years, it’s in Montreal now, such a nice, dense sound! 😻
Cool toy! I didn't know about that device. Thanks for setting it up.
It's very famous in the audio engineering world.
It's definitely not a toy. There are thousands of plate "emulations" out there ever since the first DSP based reverb.
I’d love to see Fran on Beato’s show. Aside from being a fascinating conversation, it would help expose her to a wider audience.
@@sirchtheworld Excellent idea!
Very Clever Fran thanks for putting it up.
I'd heard of plate reverb , but never seen one. Thanks so much for sharing and showing !
@ No, this is absolutely reverb. The delay time is way too short to be echo.
I wonder if it's different with circular, elliptic, triangular, etc plates
@@YaDingus Yes, this is reverb. Echo was done with a tape loop.
That is so cool.
I didn't know they made an at home version.
I am a big spring reverb fan myself.
Accutronics "assembled by beautiful women in an air conditioned environment" I think is what the labels used to say.
They don't say that anymore.
You have a great singing voice
This was really good. I get the dynamics of this but I can't believe people traveled with it.
Do you recall the Mellotron, Moody Blues and others, Magnetic tape loops - what were we thinking - but it worked.
Stop beating up youtube so much and do your great videos, they speak for themselves. You're wisdom and calmness and determination will influence those that need it.
You are making a difference to girls and boys and even us old guys that remember it all.
Thanks for all you do.
The coolest thing I’ve see in a long time…. Thank you for posting this! I’m now going to rethink all of the patches in my rack gear.
Best Fran Lab video EVER!!!
That is impressive! What a great effect! Thanks for hauling it out for us.
"A cathedral, tiled in gold...a mile lonnnng." Effects poetry! Thanks, Fran!
I always wondered how that haunting echo effect in 'Riders on the Storm' was done, thank you for showing it.
Wow, I saw 'plate echo' and knowing your penchant for classic electronics, I just assumed it was some sort of electron tube device. Like somehow getting reverb from the 'plate' (anode) of an old tube system. But lo and behold, actual, metal, plates! Very cool. :)
Thank you for showing this fine piece of sound equipment.
Wow, I’ve never seen one of those!
My Uncle was in a band back in the mid 70’s, and he had all kinds of cool gear, like a tape echo, an early synth, and a Leslie cabinet that was almost as big as your echo plate.
The fact that you know the history of the device as well as how it works, instead of just showing it off, is what makes this such a great channel.
Thanks Fran!
plate reverb is the best reverb although spring comes pretty close. some impulse responses would be neat
You'll probably still find those DIY electronic circuit projects using a cheapo earpiece with a couple of silver wire coils soldered to a pickup at the other end. That was another effect one could get from an EMS Sythi A if you tapped it.
No not really
This is awesome. Thanks Fran. A bit of history but also inspirational. So much left to explore.
I used "plate echo/reverb" effects for years when I had a little recording studio, but I never had any idea what an actual plate echo/reverb was. Extremely cool!
Thanks for demoing this and showing it off. I saw plans and a description for this effect in the 80s and did not understand how it could work. But work it does!
Just doing my part to help build your female viewership...! Great video too, Fran!!
OMG. I'm so used to seeing "plate" as an option on digital effects, I had no frickin idea how big they were. And, then in the manual: "space saver". How funny. What fun. Thank you Fran.
Wow, that's fascinating! It has a very distinct sound to it. I love this kind of vintage stuff.
Thank you for the demonstration, explanation, and look inside of a device we have all heard but not fully appreciated. It is nice to understand how things work around us. Now I can get that fancy reverb pedal (GAS speaking).
The original was made by EMT in Germany in the late 50's. So that was the studio sound we all got used to.
Thats right. Thats what Beatles Pink floyd and others at Abbey really used. An EMT Plate reverb. Dave Gilmour still owns and uses one of those, in his studio.
bruce swedien used the ekoplate on the thriller album
The Ecoplate was a knockoff of the EMT plate, when the patent rights ran out, Jim Cunningham created the Ecoplate for half the price of the EMT big plate. We eventually drove them out the big plate business. The only plate they continued to was the gold foil plate.
You have the perfect voice for this stuff. I enjoyed listening to you. Thank you for posting.
*[ Fran Blanche Plate Echo ASMR ]*
Oh yes, please !
If she talked about the magic of AM and shortwave radio in the delivery of asmr, i would fall asleep with my heart full and a smile every night. ahhh
Technically, Ecoplate is really a misnomer, it's a plate >reverb< device, reverb is series of sounds caused by the reflection of sound waves from a surface back to the listener, anyone who has sung in the shower or has clapped their hands in a small empty room knows what reverb is. Echo is usually discrete reflections spaced more than 50ms apart, yelling in a canyon where your voice is reflected back after a longer period of time is a demonstration of an echo effect. Reverb tends to blend with the original sound and extends its length, echo is where you can discern distinct reflections.
The transducers appear mounted in accordance to the golden mean. (1:.618)
Steven Seim Do you think so? They look a bit close to the side. I guess they must be over an resonant anti-node to get good signal response but I imagine that, since different sounds (frequency distributions) will produce different resonance patterns in the plate, the placement during the design phase took some trial and error. Are there mathematical models to predict the shape of Chladi patterns given the initial conditions? Anyway. Thanks mate, that was an interesting observation.
brilliant. knew a lot about music of the 70s and recording desks but was totally unaware about this device . So thanks so much for this vlog.
This is awesome! :) Also the singing was awesome!
Sounding like Laurie Anderson ... which is a good thing !
Reminds me of home, growing up we used to sneak into an abandoned coastal defense battery that had a similar echo. The echo there wasn't adjustable or controllable, but when a note at the right frequency was played the whole place would resonate and the sound was incredible.
Nice video, they have four of these in a special room at the legendary Abbey Road Studios in London.
AND a walker brothers shout out! You so cool Fran!
I know these things look large, but they sure did save a lot of real estate. Before these we had to lacquer up a room lol. Thanks very much for the tour of your plate!! Very cool!!
Todays digital reverb take up even less room.
@@duaneantor9157 Ya, a lil bit! Modern software verbs are almost imaginary lol Cheers!
@@glenesis OK you got me there. I totally forgot about Plug-Ins for digital consoles.
@@duaneantor9157 Plugs make a 480L look totally massive by comparison
Our recording studio at Syracuse U’s Newhouse School had a DIY plate reverb made using a with a large piece of sheet metal suspended from a rectangular frame made from 2” pipe. There were two transducers on one end that fed the sound into the plate and two transducers on the other end collecting the “wet” reverb signal. It certainly wasn’t the equivalent of a commercially-made plate reverb but it really sounded great, the idiosyncrasies gave the sound some character.
I work in professional audio... These things have become a rare sight indeed. Excellent!
They've been disappearing since digital reverb arrived in the early 80s.
Bring it back
Wonderful sound!
Back in the '90s I was asked to service a small plate reverb. I believe it was made by EMT and used a gold foil for the plate. The case was only about 3' x 3' x 14". The problem turned out to be bad pickup transducers. These were a piezoelectric and were over $100 each (there were 2). The bigger expense was going to be labor, because removing the old ones ran the risk of tearing the foil and ruining the entire unit. I was in touch with EMT and received a thick folder of documentation (service manual and how to remove and reinstall the transducers). In the end, the studio owner decided not to risk destroying the unit and still have to pay a substantial fee. The studio had a working EMT 140, so I did not get to tear apart the little gold one.
Hadn't a clue about this... truly brilliant! I love audio Fran :-)
Thank you for sharing your knowledge! Your singing at there end sounded so beautiful.
I'm old enough to know about these but never thought I would see one in use! Wow, cool is not a strong enough concept.
hi, i have been watching a lot of synthesizer and drone / synthwave stuff and its so funny that youtube recommends this, i realize now that there is a niche for analog/electronic music hardware and I love this stuff because of the cultural links this technology has to our society. so I am very happy to find your video. I am so happy to see you happy doing what makes you happy. Wishing you much success and happiness.
That's neat as heck , Thanks for showing us this Fran :)
Never seen one of these up close - thanks! You have a good voice, Fran!
Wow, I need this, didn't even know it existed. Thanks for this vlog
Hi Piper! Nice to see you here! Fran has some pretty amazing trinkets, doesn't she?
Totally @@mikecowen6507
Piper follows Fran. How awesome for them both!
nowadays i can use my laptop and get superior sound and manage everything, just digitally. its truly amazing. i can create just about any sound and manipulate it an infinite number of ways just about. can make every genre of music or movie sounds
Unfortunately too much "music" is made on nothing more than a computer nowadays.
You are just the sweetest person Fran ! Love your videos !!
Wow! I thought this kind of effect had always been done electronically.
The real thing will ALWAYS sound better. Computer emulation can never match this.
Dave likes music, who knew? xD
You could buy a "reverb" for your stereo back in the day. It was a metal box roughly 3 x 4 x 18 inches with a couple of lengthwise slightly stretched springs inside. The input drove one end of the springs and a pickup at the other end. The mechanical behavior of the springs caused the echo effect similar to the plate echo device. It was fun to shake the thing and then you got all this raucous noise of the springs thrashing about.
Can't be done with analog electronics
@@RijuChatterjee When I was with a company manufacturing some pretty sophisticated electronic instruments, we needed something novel and our smartest electronics engineer (a very, very smart guy) said it "can't be done". The CEO brought talked to this engineer and said "Maybe it just can't be done by you." So the CEO brought in a consultant he had experience with to further bruise that engineer's ego.. And it COULD be done. Our smart electronics engineer learned a valuable lesson that day.
almost better than a Leslie speaker ,love these vintage doodads ,thanx for sharing
Our three piece rock band recorded in 1971 and a plate echo was used. This is the first time I've seen one. THANKS Fran!
I had some friends with a studio, in 1981 or so, that made their own plate echo for their studio. I never examined it in detail, but they bought a normal steel plate, hung it in springs, mounted transducers etc.
When you knocked on the plate, it reminded me of V'Ger's sounds at the end of Star Trek I
Also Vangelis used that noise in Blade Runner soundtrack
So cool - thanks for sharing and singing. This reminds me of the sound experiences standing in my favorite French Cathedral.
Riders on the Storm .... Riders on the Storm .... :)
This is a wonderful demo of the plate. This was the deciding factor for us getting our Ecoplate!
You always have the most interesting stuff, Fran :)
Agreed!
this is such an analogy for a room when viewed from above, which begs the question of transducer placement and pickup placement as well as plate shape.
Fran, you are way out there. So Frikkin cool. :)
Back in the 70s, I was working at a TV and music production studio. They had four of these units made by Siemens. Back then the ones they had were using tube amplifiers for processing the in and out of each. During the late 80s they invested in to solid state ones using microprocessor circuits.
The pickups you are mentioning on the ones I worked on were magnetic as like used on a tape head. The amplifiers had to have proper EQ to make the sound flat.
That plus a vocoder would be interesting
Ok. Now that's friggin' cool. You've outdone yourself just having the foresight to own such a thing. Bravo.
You should speak to Rick Beato im sure hed love to talk more about the ecoplate and possibly do an episode on it...
This dude LeoMakes ...uh, made one. He used ikea shelving :]
/watch?v=CZWAntOnrx4
/watch?v=5OcRMA2FNUE&t=1s
Doesn't sound as good as this one. But it's far more practical/obtainable!
Beato already has a full sized one...of course.
Very amazing piece of tech. Thanks for showing this to us!
Brought to mind Todd Rundgren's "Sounds of the Studio" track. More please!
5 of us so far know this track!
ISS is the OUND of AD editing
Definitely one of the coolest videos I’ve seen on YT.
It sounds beautiful.
Wow, that's really awesome! (some, some, some some ...)
hahahahaha, nice one !
OMG THIS PLATE ECHO IS AWESOME!!! And you sound FANTASIC
Excellent score Fran. A major piece of music history. Not familiar with that brand, But I know EMT well.
That Was AWSOME Thank you Miss!
Not gonna lie... Watched this on my phone while working. Was wondering which "pedal" this would be... Then you pointed out the "crate" behind you and I was like... "Oooohhhh". At least I know now! LOL
Awesome video!
Very nice peace of gear!
Fun fact: The Simon & Garfunkel - The Boxer is actually a snare drum recorded inside an elevator shaft.
Elvis ' Heartbreak Hotel ' was Elvis with some long cords going down the hall from the studio to a ' nice sounding ' stairwell.
Sound sync --- *whack* :D
I really dig the post-credit scenes of your videos, Fran ^^
Anyway, awesome rig, would have loved to see how it's hooked up and stuff ^^
I've seen cheap-o DIY plate echo setups that sound good and get the job done, but holy hot damn that is one beautiful sound.
I feel like everytime you sign off, you should always end it with this effect while shouting "IN THE FUTURE!"
While it's called Ecoplate II I think it's really more of a plate reverb than an echo device. An echo device repeats a sound unchanged (for the most part) multiple times at a certain speed of repetition whereas a reverb gives the impression of being in a large room. A reverb gives the illusion of sound bouncing off walls and ceilings increasingly altering the sounds as the various waves move out from the source bouncing back and recombining with other waves bounce off of other walls. The sounds becomes more of a hum in a reverb instead instead of the staccato beat of an echo. The classic echo device was the Echoplex which used a tape/feedback loop. From my point of view echo vs reverb are not strictly interchangeable. Now a days all these effects are all done pretty well digitally. But those old plate reverbs have a certain charm. It was so great to see inside of one. Never knew how special the plate metal was. Thanks!
Another much more common reverb is the spring reverb most commonly built into guitar amplifiers. They are very different sounding and have a somewhat springy sound to them. You hear them a lot on surf music songs like the ones by Dick Dale.
That was totally awsome, when you starting the solo singer channel using the plate echo?
Is it possible to reproduce these sounds with modern electronics on a budget, would be an awsome multi episode vid set?
Thanks for sharing.
On a budget? It's there a storm drain within a few hundred feet of your gear? Run power and line to a $5 speaker. Take line from an old tape deck listening to a few electret condensers in the pipes.
I completely agree. I worked at a studio in the 80's that had a home made plate and it was wonderful!
It's reverb, actually.
I used to have a HUGE plate echo from an old studio in md. Was a bit larger than 4x8 feet. Sounded very nice.
Ah! Possibly my favourite Fran video yet! I've used one of these before, but never seen the inner workings. Thanks, that was fun!
Thanks Fran once again. Growing up listening to Phil Spector this little toy has blown me away. You love your toys....and so do i. Keep it coming.
You should be teaching at MIT or Harvard.
Or both!
......i mean that's flattering and cute but I'd rather a more realistic and sense nautical response
This is the reason I've subscribed to this channel! Absolutely best and unique content!
What an amazing artefact of that era of music! Great video Fran thank you
I had an EMT 140 (tube driven) in my studio back in the day. Sounded wonderful.
"Line level vs balanced" is a false dichotomy.
Mic level, instrument level, and line level can be either balanced or unbalanced.
Like she said, it is unbalanced because it was geared for prosumers. This is because they wouldn't have the equipment to utilize a balanced signal anyway, so they left out the additional components needed to send out such a signal.
Michael Miller I posted a comment similar to gantmj's explaining the same thing. Can you please elaborate your point? Because I think you have no clue about what you are talking about. I'll copy and paste my comment down here so you can read it if you want to.
"At 5:20 you say "it is line level rather than balanced". Which is nonsense, because a line level signal can be both balanced or unbalanced. Signal level refers to voltage across two terminals(input/output). Balanced or unbalanced are transmission methods for said voltage. Both of which depend on the number of conductors in each cable and the input and output stages of the devices the cables connect. In a balanced setup you would tipically have two conductors carrying a differential signal, opposed to a single-ended one in unbalanced.
Hope this clears thing up.
:)"
FranSMR! Keep being awesome.