Glass plate reverb

[harky]

Had anyone seen or heard of anyone making a plate reverb out of a glass pane?

I know they used to pump sound into empty rooms with movable glass walls to create verb (back in the early days) but ive found no other mention.

Keen to try it.

Anyone?

[resistorman]

Never heard of anyone doing it, but the principles and transducer placements would be the same I suppose. I would use tempered glass

[ManFromGlass]

Did this at university and played taped music back through this glass loudspeaker as part of an experimental sound installation. The glass sheet was 5’ x 6’ with a transducer in the corner. The glass filtered the sound in very cool ways but it didn’t add a reverb quality and no frequencies rang out longer than others from what I recall. It was just a cool filter.

I believe the sheet was suspended at the nodal points (similar to how a marimba bar is suspended so it’s fundamental frequency is the loudest)

[forumuser840717]

Had anyone seen or heard of anyone making a plate reverb out of a glass pane?

I know they used to pump sound into empty rooms with movable glass walls to create verb (back in the early days) but ive found no other mention.

Keen to try it.

Anyone?

Generally, sheets of glass make a pretty poor 'reverb plate'.

Glass is a special type of amorphous solid which lacks the uniform long form crystaline structure of metal plates so they don't 'ring' or resonate in the same way as similar metal structures. The internal structure of glass tends to damp the kinds of resonant behaviour found in metal.

It's possible to make glass objects which do ring, e.g lead crystal bowls or drinks glasses, or even glass "bells" such as those used in a glass harmonica but not in a way that would work like a reverb plate. Resonant glass objects tend to have a very narrow bandwith within which they resonate - more of a ping or whistle than a woosh - and sheets of glass generally damp all but a very few frequencies carried though them. As ManFromGlass said, they make more effective filters than resonators.

The use of glass plates in reverb chambers wasn't to exploit their own resonance, rather it was their ready availability and efficiency as wide bandwidth and relatively inert reflectors with very low absorption co-efficients which kept the sound energy bouncing around in the space with minimal losses. By adjusting the number and geometries of the reflectors within the chamber, the character and duration of the reverb in the chamber could to an extent be varied and controlled.

[Hugh Robjohns]

Excellent post!

But I'm loving the idea of a 'Shatter-verb' as a perpetual sales device.

"You played a snare hit into your glass-plate reverb and now it's gone quiet? No problem Sir, read me your credit card number and I'll get a new plate sent out this afternoon...."

[ManFromGlass]

“..and try the quartz crystal this time, it’s pricier but you will love it! All the top mixers are endorsing it”

Kaching kaching!

[Zukan]

I believe glass was used to house Hip Hop producers' egos back in '90.

[Music Wolf]

As somebody who used to work in marketing for a leading glass manufacturer I've had to 'sex up' the following;

Sheets of glass make for a unique type of 'reverb plate'.

Glass is a special type of amorphous solid which is free from the type of uniform long form crystalline structures which lead to excessive 'ringing' in metal plates. As a Super Cooled liquid glass is able to all but eliminate the kinds of unwanted resonant behaviours exhibited by metals.

It's all in the spin dear boy (or girl)

[Hugh Robjohns]

[IvanSC]

Back in the seventies, at Rockfield, there was an echo/reverb room in a converted cowshed (I think) which consisted of glass plates mounted on swivel posts, running floor to ceiling. By adjusting the path through the glass plates, you could lengthen or shorten the echo/reverb you were looking at using. Very lifelike, needless to say, and impressed the hell out of me at the time. So if you have a few thou tucked away and an unused cowshed...
If you want to hear what it sounded like, hunt out the bootleg of the album I recorded with The Soft Boys at the time. It`s all over that.

[ManFromGlass]

It doesn’t get more analogue than that!

We have a concrete cistern buried in the lawn for our water. It’s about 10 feet square. When it’s almost empty the sound is amazing and I’ve been tempted to use it as an echo chamber.
Drilling a well is too expensive so a cistern it will remain.

[resistorman]

It doesn’t get more analogue than that!

We have a concrete cistern buried in the lawn for our water. It’s about 10 feet square. When it’s almost empty the sound is amazing and I’ve been tempted to use it as an echo chamber.
Drilling a well is too expensive so a cistern it will remain.

We had a massive cistern and since I was the skinniest one I was nominated to go down in there and clean it out. That’s when I discovered I was claustrophobic. But it did have interesting acoustic properties for swearing.