WTT: Echo and Reverb - really

[Wombat]

An accoustically good room or hall has very good natural reverb. Since the things that make for good reverb can also provide annoying reverb when things aren't just right, and since recording engineers want pure signals to work with, recording studios try to eliminate natural reverb completely. Adding a little reverb later gives them control over the process.

For my part, I only add enough to simulate what I would have got anyway in an accoustically friendly room. All the ordinary speaker notices is a little more warmth.

[Whistlin'Dixie]

My garage has that sound. Is this the reason for --> garage bands?

My kitchen also sounds great, and I'd "rather" play in there, thank you.

Mary

[Danner]

Reverb gives tons more overtones to a basic sound.... It is BORING to the point of annoying. Its the sound you get when you make a computer sound a note, or strike a tuning fork.

That's one of the reasons classical players do vibrato. It makes the pitch sound a lot warmer, more interesting, and can make the sound "shimmer." It also helps in tuning.

Whistles naturally have different overtones in their sound. Overtones are what make an A on a violin sound different from an A on an oboe, or flute, or a (concert) A on a clarinet, or any other instrument's A.

I really never understood why classical vibrato was so frowned upon in traditional settings. I think it really makes the instrument sound so much better. If it is done correctly, it should improve the music and make it more interesting, without being a distraction.

I suppose everyone has their own opinion as to what sounds best.

[Cynth]

Is it frowned upon because it isn't part of the tradition?

In singing, using vibrato with the voice came in at some time and I know that singers of early music are supposed to not use vibrato. It is a very beautiful pure sound. But it is difficult, I have heard, for people to retrain their voices if they have studied singing opera, just as an example. It is hard to sing without vibrato because you have to be just exactly on that tone.

[ChrisA]

I really, really dislike vibrato in voice or in flute. It certainly adds more
colour to the sound, but to my ear, it does so to the point of muddying
the sound. I should be clearer. I dislike -continuous- vibrato. As an
occassional effect, it certainly can be nice. At least, in singing it can.

Speaking mostly of flute, I think the real reason that the vibrato is frowned
on in the tradition - aside from the reflexive 'it isn't tradition' reason - is that
it displaces or mutes traditional effects. Vibrato is kinda like bending a note,
and kinda like making everything a muffled roll, but not really either. I don't
think vibrato mixes particularly well with traditional ornamentation, and is
likely to displace it if used. It also is at odds with the 'reedy' flute tone, which
creates a different kind of sound color altogether.

Of course, I've never -actually- heard someone talented in traditional music
mix it with classical-type continuous-vibrato... but... just hearing it in the
mind's ear as it were, it sounds awful to me.

PS: My favorite source of echo & reverb is a parking garage. Any parking
garage will do, generally. Since I always have a whistle in the car, I can
conveniently grab it and play a few tunes either after parking the car or
before driving away. This works best late at night when there are few cars
to interfere with the sound. Playing while walking around the garage is
especially nice because you can move through different ranges of sound
color, pausing in places that are particularly nice.

[Jerry Freeman]

Thanks for the reminder, Chris.

I have a poignant memory from when Arleen went into the hospital last summer for her heart surgery. A day or two after the operation, when I was leaving the hospital in the wee hours of the morning, I went into the parking garage. Finding it almost empty and noticing how my footsteps resonated, I tried the accoustics. Wow.

For several minutes, I walked around the garage, singing the Mahamrityunjaya mantra (prayer for victory over death). Amazing sound. Shiva was well pleased, I'm certain.

Best wishes,
Jerry

[NicoMoreno]

It also helps in tuning.

Best quote I ever read: " For three hundred years, flute players tried to play in tune. Then they invented vibrato."

(Don't remember where it is from)

Anyway, I dislike vibrato (ie in classical flute and violin) because it hides the fact that the flute/violin player can't play in tune, it is annoying, and it changes the tone of the music in a (to me) detrimental way.

Same with opera singers. I like a very very clear voice. No vibrato. None. Not even at the end. But especially not throughout and to such an extent that the vibrato is going from 1/4+ tone above to 1/4+ tone below the actual note. Ugh.

[Cynth]

But isn't it the proper style for opera, modern opera say at least from 19th century, to have singers that use vibrato? And for violin? I have never heard players of music from modern times not use vibrato for voice and for violin.

I do find it quite wearying in some voices. I have never had any difficulties with it in violin.

I don't know when vibrato was introduced in classical music and whether it came at the same time for instruments and voice. I should look that up, but not tonight!

[Wombat]

Just a point of clarification. Although I'm pretty sure that reverb involves the accentuation of certain overtones, it isn't quite what Tyghress was saying earlier—the accentuation of the overtones of a note over the pure note itself. Reverb is echo; the extra complexity you get is a note sounding with whatever you were playing just slightly earlier and the overtones of both.

The 'effect' that goes with accentuating particular overtones (or none) is known as equalisation. It isn't used to get extra warmth; it's effect is to get rid of muddiness in certain areas of a mix. Suppose you have two guitars playing in the baritone range of a mix. Things can get mighty muddy down there. You can get good separation by panning differently in a stereo mix and by accentuating some overtones on one guitar and others on another. Small tonal and directional differences achieved in this way make for huge improvements in the clarity of an overall mix.

Exactly what the connection is between reverb and overtones I'm not sure without consulting textbooks on this stuff.

[Wombat]

But isn't it the proper style for opera, modern opera say at least from 19th century, to have singers that use vibrato? And for violin? I have never heard players of music from modern times not use vibrato for voice and for violin.

I do find it quite wearying in some voices. I have never had any difficulties with it in violin.

I don't know when vibrato was introduced in classical music and whether it came at the same time for instruments and voice. I should look that up, but not tonight!

I have some wonderful string quartet recordings from the 1930s by the Busch Quartet. The most conspicuous difference between the way they play and a modern quartet would play lies I think in their relative restraint with vibrato. They simply play with no vibrato at all except where the composer explicitly demands it.

[kdwhistler]

One thing to consider in the vibrato discussion is that not all vibrato is alike. Some is produced through variation of pitch and some is produced from variation of intensity, but most vibrato on most instruments (including voice) is a combination of both, though not equally proportioned. I prefer listening to vibrato that is more heavily weighted to a variation of intensity.

I think that whether or not vibrato is needed is dependent on the style of music being played. There are some string quartets for which little vibrato is appropriate and some that require more. This isn't really something that composers bother to specify, it is more dictated by the historical period of when the piece was written and what was fashionable at the time. It wouldn't sound right to hear Gregorian Chant with a vibrato you could drive a truck through, nor would a Wagner opera sound right with a straight tone.

That being opined, let me ask a question: I have seen and heard whistlers acheive vibrato in two ways, one with the breath intensity and the other using the piper's style of finger vibrato. Given the choice between the two, which do you think sounds better on the whistle and which do you think is more appropriate for a slow air?

[Wombat]

That being opined, let me ask a question: I have seen and heard whistlers acheive vibrato in two ways, one with the breath intensity and the other using the piper's style of finger vibrato. Given the choice between the two, which do you think sounds better on the whistle and which do you think is more appropriate for a slow air?

For ITM, the only kind of acceptable vibrato seems to be finger vibrato. I find it interesting listening to solo guitarists playing celtic music. I've heard guitarists who sound fine to me employing a heavy blues-style vibrato on the flattened seventh in mixolydian tunes whilst others flat pick tunes with no vibrato at all. Since guitar isn't a traditional melody (or rhythm) instrument in ITM, one can't really appeal to precedent here.

As for whistle in other styles, just use whatever form of vibrato sounds best for that style. I came to whistle from sax and had to consciously work at not producing vibrato.

[peeplj]

Vibrato is an effect, one of many which a player can produce.

In any setting, in any style, an out-of-control vibrato is not a lovely thing. An omnipresent, over-indulged vibrato is one reason I don't really care for vocal music in the operatic style, even though I love choral music.

We've all heard the flutists who use the same vibrato rather they are playing a series of slow tones, or a fast run of rapid notes. I've even heard flutists use vibrato when trying to tune, which seems to be a lost cause.

When vibrato is used properly, as an effect, I think its best use is on long, sustained tones, to add interest to the sound.

In Irish dance music, long sustained tones for flute or whistle do not exist. Reels, jigs, and hornpipes move at much too rapid a clip for using vibrato, with the possible rare exception of fingered vibrato (flattment) as an ornament.

When playing slow airs, I have heard trad flutists use flattment as well as breath vibrato, although not really the same sort as James Galway might use, and never ever both at the same time or on the same note. But it's again more of an ornament than an effect, used very sparingly and certainly not on every longer note.

On whistle, Joannie Madden makes lovely use of flattment or fingered vibrato. Sometimes in her recordings it almost sounds like a breath vibrato, but I've seen her play, and it seems to be done entirely with her fingers.

--James

[Jerry Freeman]

An omnipresent, over-indulged vibrato is one reason I don't really care for vocal music in the operatic style, even though I love choral music.

Amen to that.

Best wishes,
Jerry

[Cayden]

In Irish dance music, long sustained tones for flute or whistle do not exist. Reels, jigs, and hornpipes move at much too rapid a clip for using vibrato, with the possible rare exception of fingered vibrato (flattment) as an ornament.


--James

I would disagree both with the non existence of long notes in irish music and the non use of vibrato (on flute/whistle/pipes)

'The Long Note' is certainly a great effect and is much in use with good players. Bits of vibrato (or flatment as James calls it) are interspersed all over the place, if you listen carefully to good players.