#1 Sam Phillips, founder of Sun Studio in Memphis, Tennessee

January 5, 1923 – July 30, 2003

Sam Phillips records Elvis at Sun Studio in Johnny Cash biopic "Walk The Line" (2005). Incredibly basic facilities and recording gear.

Phillips famously produced:

• Elvis Presley
• Johnny Cash
• B.B. King
• Roy Orbison
• Howlin’ Wolf
• Ike Turner
• Jerry Lee Lewis

Sam Phillips was arguably the inventor of rock ‘n’ roll, producing the genre-defining “Rocket ’88″ by Jackie Brenston in 1951, and then the first songs by Elvis Presley.

Phillips founded his legendary Sun Studio in Memphis in 1950 to make records for his own label, Sun Records. He launched Elvis Presley by producing ‘That’s All Right, Mama’ and ‘Blue Moon Of Kentucky’ in 1954, but sold his recording contract to RCA two years later for a meagre $35,000.

Phillips was always seeking what he called the perfect/imperfect cut – he was most concerned with capturing the feeling of the performance, which he felt was far more important than any technical considerations.  He apparently told Elvis that the worst thing he could do was to go for technical ‘perfection’. This was probably just as well, as Phillips himself was entirely self-taught as a studio technician, and much of the distinctive sound that he developed at Sun was due to his not really being aware of ‘the rules’ of recording at the time.

Sam Phillips auditions Johnny Cash in the recording room at Sun Studio in "Walk The Line". Bottom: "If you had one song to sing before you died, you're telling me that's the song you'd sing?"

The Sun Studio Sound

Phillips used some fairly innovative techniques for the time to develop the trademark Sun sound with it’s distinctive ‘slapback’ echo effect, which was in fact achieved by running the tape through a second recorder head. This means it was effectively a rudimentary analogue delay, rather than the reverb that many still mistake the sound for even today.

This ‘slapback’ echo became a trademark of the Sun Studio sound, creating a raw and atmospheric sound that was quite revolutionary in the popular music scene of the time. When Elvis later moved to larger label RCA, the engineers were unable to recreate the distinctive Sun sound for the recording of “Heartbreak Hotel”. In an attempt to duplicate Phillips results, RCA used a large empty hallway at the studio to create an echo, but it never really matched the sound that Phillips had achieved.

Phillips’ legacy demonstrates what a producer with a vision can achieve, not just in spite of but also partly because of his lack of conventional knowledge behind the mixing desk. Without Phillips’ trailblazing productions, and his entrepreneurial spirit, Elvis and the rest might have faded into obscurity, and popular music as we know it might have taken a dramatically different path.

LISTEN:

Elvis Presley “Mystery Train” | Jackie Brenston “Rocket 88″ | Johnny Cash talking about how Sam Phillips wouldn’t let him sing Gospel…

“Mystery Train” was in fact co-written by Junior Parker and Sam Phillips. It really shows off the atmospheric ‘chugging’ echoes of the Sun Studio sound.

WATCH:

Phillips himself tells it better than I can:

Johnny Cash performing “I Walk The Line” 2005:

The unique chord progression in this song was initially inspired by an accidental backwards playback on Cash’s tape recorder while he was in the Air Force. Later, he wrote the lyrics in a backstage dressing room in Gladewater, Texas in 1955. He gave the song it’s title after a discussion with fellow performer Carl Perkins. Cash originally intended the song as a slow ballad, but producer Phillips preferred a faster arrangement, which Cash grew to like as the uptempo recording met with success.

Coming Next: Most Influential Music Producers: #2 Trent Reznor

I was thinking today about how there are some pretty basic production tips that I wish I’d taken on board earlier with my music. If you’re anything like me, sometimes you have to hear the same tips and advice repeated a few times before you start thinking, “Hang on, if I actually did this, changed my approach a bit, rather than just keep writing tracks the way I’m used to, I might actually get better.”

So make the effort to try something new or different with how you approach your productions every now and again – it may make things more difficult at first, but it’s the best way to improve.

Here are 7 such things to try – pretty simple, but often remarkably challenging to remember when you’re caught up in that moment of creative inspiration:

My favourite tool for the job, Waves Renaissance Compressor.

1. Parallel compression

Using compression effectively is fairly easy once you get your head around the principles of what it does to your signals, and it’s the simplest way to give your sounds some of that elusive pro punch.

Moreover, getting punchy drums is really key in any genre these days, be it rock, techno, dubstep or drum & bass. Even in modern movie soundtracks, you really want those huge orchestral percussion hits pummeling the audience with the force of an explosion!

Parallel compression is one technique that can help here. It sounds complicated but it’s not – you simply duplicate your drum track (or any other type of track), and then heavily compress the duplicate, leaving the original uncompressed. When you play them back together, you get the powerful ‘breathing’ dynamic sound of the compressed version, whilst still retaining the detail, brightness and clarity of the uncompressed version. The best of both worlds…

Incidentally, another term for parallel compression is “Motown compression”, because part of the famous old 60’s Motown sound was created by using parallel compression with an EQ inserted right before the compressor, tweaked specifically to highlight the vocals. So whether you’re inspired by Marvin Gaye’s Motown classics, or other compression fans like Dutch drum & bass heroes Noisia (you should really be listening to both in my opinion), give parallel compression a try.

Noisia feel "What's Going On" from Marvin Gaye

2. Sidechain compression

If you’ve listened to any electronic or dance music over the past few years, you’ll recognise sidechaining immediately – it’s that pumping, breathing sound where it seems like the drums are punching rhythmic holes in all the synths and pads. Sidechaining is guaranteed to give any track more groove, as generally the more dynamic interaction you can create between the elements of your track, the greater the sense of a really tight, driving whole.

It’s achieved basically by compressing one signal with another – so for example with my tech-house track, I set up a compressor to act on the synth pad channel, but the compressor is triggered not by the synth pad sound iteslf, but by the kick drum track. So when the kick drum sounds, the compressor squashes the level of the pad right down, creating the characteristic ‘sucking’ effect.

Let me know if you’d like me to cover the specifics of this in a proper tutorial.

3. Correct and ‘incorrect’ uses of reverb

Generally speaking, you would normally set up maybe two or three different reverbs as send effects (FX Channels in Cubase, Aux Channels everywhere else) when you start a project, and as you create and mix, route some of your individual tracks to one or another of these. I believe it’s important to always leave at least one sound completely free of reverb though, to give a sense of where the ‘front’ of the mix is.

Jesper Kyd's hit soundtrack for Assassin's Creed II

However, things can get much more interesting when you use reverb plugins as inserts on your channels. My favourite trick for creating really haunting ambience pads and hit effects is to insert a reverb on a channel, bring up a huge ‘cathedral’ or ‘church’ preset and set the wet/dry balance within the reverb plugin to 100% wet. You’ll be surprised how you can turn really uninteresting source samples into cinematic gems.

Games composer Jesper Kyd is a master at combining traditional orchestral techniques with unconventional/modern sounds – have a listen to his recent score for Assassin’s Creed 2 for an idea of what a difference effective reverb can make, for free at his Myspace page here.

4. Set up your speakers correctly

You can spend all the money you have on great sounding gear, but if it isn’t set up correctly in a half-decently prepared room you may as well not have bothered. This is because you can only operate your gear effectively based on what you can hear in your particular listening space – so if your speakers are bunched up in a corner of the room, you’ll probably find the bass is boosted quite significantly. This is great, until you come to mix your music based on this bass-enhanced sound – when you play your mix back somewhere else, you’ll probably find that there’s no bass at all because you compensated for the ‘colouration’ of your room sound/speaker setup.

Make an equilateral triangle between you and the speakers

I’ll be covering how best to set up your home studio in more detail in a future article very soon – but in the meantime, get your speakers as far away from the corners and walls as you can (within reason, even a few inches can make a big difference), and try to position them so that there is an exactly equal distance between the left speaker, right speaker, and where-ever your head is when you’re listening/mixing (making an equilateral triangle). You’ll find you can make more accurate decisions about panning and respective levels across the stereo field.

5. Get minimal – Less Is More

It’s easy to get carried away when you’re inspired, and it’s great to explore every idea you get for a particular track. However, the flip side of this is you then have to know how to edit your ideas and only incorporate the best ones into the final mix.

Minimal techno superstar Richie Hawtin knows how to keep things, er, minimal

In the end this comes down partly to experience – knowing what will sound good because its worked for you before. But more fundamentally it comes down to having a clear idea of what you want the track to do, why you’re making it in the first place. Once you work this out, and it can be tough sometimes to realise what the real reason is, you’ll find it becomes obvious what should stay and what should be left on the virtual cutting room floor.

A good rule to work by if you’re not sure then, is “if in doubt, leave it out”. Always work towards creating more space in your mix, and make the few elements that are already there even better rather than piling on more stuff. Clutter and a lack of focus is a sure-fire sign of an amateur mix. If you don’t agree, listen to your favourite music and count how many different elements there are going on at any one time. See?

6. Variation and dynamics

Amadeus knew how to build to a crescendo, then bring the crowd to its knees with a massive euphoric breakdown

Incorporate builds and drops, quiet and loud sections, even changes in tempo from slow to fast (most live bands naturally speed up very slightly in the chorus, for example, and this definitely has an effect on the soaring feel of some choruses). Maintain the listeners interest by making the track a living thing, constantly developing and morphing.

Also, the best way to make something seem really huge and loud is by contrasting it with something very quiet and intimate-sounding. This is the trick behind the best breakdowns in all forms of dance music: anticipation created by switching from hard and loud to quiet and sparse, and back again. Orchestral music and movie soundtracks are great sources of inspiration here. I mean, look how ahead of his time Mozart was.

7. Compare & contrast

Study and reference your musical heroes... but don't turn out like the guy in this movie.

If you’re like me, you’re constantly comparing how your music sounds in relation to your favourite artists.

I’ve found the best way to set this up usefully is to have a couple of my favourite artist reference tracks actually running on their own ‘Reference’ track within my sequencer, that I can solo on and off with one click – that way, I can make super-quick A/B comparisons between my mix and the ball-park sound that I’m trying to stear it towards. Remember, always start with the goal in mind…

Just make sure when you do this that you don’t inadvertently or otherwise produce a really good rip-off / cover version of your reference track instead of your own original idea… we don’t need more doppelgangers… :)

A lot of mixes stand or fall on their use of reverb – the process is used to give the impression of sounds being in a real acoustic space, providing your mix with front-to-back depth, and is often referred to as the ‘glue’ binding all the different parts of a mix into a coherent whole. Using just enough reverb to do these jobs, without overdoing it and turning your track to sonic mush, is one of the major components of the mysterious pro sound.

But, as a great writer once said, not all reverb plugins are created equal. Different types of reverbs are good for different applications, so it’s unlikely that you’ll want to use the same plugin for everything. You might want to use a plate reverb for drums, and a high-grade convolution reverb  for strings or background ambience. Often, you don’t want the most ‘natural’ sounding reverb – you want to add a particular colouration to the sound, and that’s why there are so many variations on this vital effect.

Adding to this idea, most of us have grown up listening to music processed with rather artificial-sounding spring, plate and digital reverbs, and those sounds are ingrained in our subconscious as musically appropriate – it’s what we’re used to hearing. So don’t sweat about ‘realism’ too much.

Confused yet? Read on and before I get to the Best 10, I’ll try to unpick things a little.

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Reverb: A Pocket History

Ever wondered what all the preset names on reverb plugins actually refer to?

Room / Hall / Chamber: The first reverb effects used for recorded music were created with echo chambers – a loudspeaker would play the sound back in the chamber, and a microphone would pick it up again, including the echo of the room itself. The same principle still applies for simulated ‘room’ and ‘hall’ reverbs -you’re capturing the ambience of a particularly sized and shaped space.

Plate: Next came plate reverb, used a lot in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Plate reverbs use a transducer to create vibrations across a large ‘plate’ of sheet metal. A pickup captures the vibrations as they bounce across the plate, and the result is output again as an audio signal. Plate reverb tends to be bright and clean-sounding, and it holds a special place in many producers hearts.

Spring: Uses a similar principle to that of plate reverb, but with a metal spring instead of a plate. A transducer at one end and a pickup at the other are used to create and then capture vibrations within the spring. Being compact and relatively cheap to manufacture, many guitar amp designs ended up incorporating a spring reverb unit. Spring reverb adds a distinctive metallic colouration to the sound, and in the days of classic rock ‘n’ roll it was known that you could shake the reverb cabinet while recording so that the springs clashed together for a properly unhinged sound. I wouldn’t recommend attempting this with a plugin version though :)

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Algorithm vs. Convolution

Almost all reverb plugins (as well as hardware digital reverb units) use one of these two digital processing methods.

Algorithmic reverbs use calculations based on hypothetical rooms and other spaces to generate their reverb sounds. Generally this gives a sharper, more artificial sound, typified by most hardware digital reverbs of the last 30 years. This is not necessarily a bad thing though – as mentioned above, musically we’re not always after the most ‘natural’ sound, but the one that has the right ‘character’ for the track. Algorithmic reverbs are also far lighter on the computer’s CPU than…

Convolution reverbs use pre-recorded samples of real rooms and spaces to build Impulse Response (IR) files of those spaces. The impulse response is then ‘convolved’ with the incoming audio signal you want to process, hence the name.

Convolution reverbs then, are generally far better at simulating real spaces than algorithmic reverbs – the only major downside is that they also require significantly more CPU processing power to work, so you are more limited in terms of the number of instances of the plugin you can run simultaneously.

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The 10 Best Reverb Plugins – The List

So now we know that choosing the right plugins for each job is crucial, and we’ve covered the basic differences between the types. Now I’ve compiled a rundown of what I consider to be the very best reverb plugins, whatever your price range.

I should add that in the end, ‘best’ is highly subjective when it comes to reverb – there is a lot of choice out there, and picking a personal favourite is literally a lot like choosing a favourite colour. You’ll notice I’ve included some ‘Honourable Mentions’ alongside the best 10 below, mainly because I couldn’t bear not to include some excellent reverbs like Waves Trueverb and Magnus’ Ambience that might not otherwise have been accounted for.

Anyway, here’s my two-pennies worth…

1) Best Free Convolution Reverb:

Knufinke SIR1

SIR1 is a freeware convolution reverb, using impulse response (IR) files to achieve a great variety of excellent sounds.

(By the way, you can get free IR files from places all over the internet, such as Voxengo and NoiseVault. With these you can quickly build up a library of your favourite ’spaces’ to apply to your mixes.)

So, get the right IR file, and SIR1 can do a pretty decent job of sounding like just about any reverb you want.

Like all convolution reverbs, SIR1 is still a fairly heavy load on the CPU – but at least it’s light on the wallet eh?

More info & download here.

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2) Most Flexible Reverb:

112dB Redline Reverb

Developed by Martijn Zwartjes, who used to work at Native Instruments, the Redline Reverb’s first incarnations were the Rev-6 and Space Master ensembles for NI’s Reaktor. Both of those are still favourites among many producers, and the Redline just builds on their sound, performance and musicality even further. A future classic.

I gather this plugin scored 10/10 in a Computer Music review recently, and also won their Best Plugin of the Year (of any type), so it’s obviously worth checking out.

More info here.

Honourable Mention:

Wave Arts MasterVerb 5

I couldn’t not mention MasterVerb. It sounds great, is very versatile and has a very cool and clear interface, so it’s quick and easy to tweak settings.

It would compete pretty well against most convolution reverbs, but being of the algorithmic variety MasterVerb uses about half the processing power of most convolution plugins.

More info here.

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3) Best Convolution Reverb:

Audio Ease Altiverb 6

The established daddy of all reverb plugins, and something of an industry standard. No, it’s not cheap, yes you need a powerful computer to run it… but the sound and flexibility it affords is generally well worth it. The XL version also includes surround reverb and a TDM version for Pro Tools.

More info here.

Honourable mention:

Waves IR1

The IR1’s presets are based on many famous venues and spaces from around the world. So if you want to hear what your music would sound like in the Sydney Opera House or at legendary NY punk rock club CBGBs, this is the reverb for you.

As far as I know, the IR1 is also unique for it’s parametric controls, whereby you can plot your settings on the interface display in the same way as you would on a parametric EQ.

More info here.

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4) Best Surround Reverb:

M-Audio Wizooverb W5

Surround mixing can get very complicated very quickly, but I think this reverb handles it with ease due to its sleek and clear interface. Obviously the sound quality is top of the line as well! It features HDIR (High Definition Impulse Response), and can be run in stand-alone mode or inside your host application.

Incidentally, the W5’s slimmer stereo-version sibling Wizooverb W2 is also a strong contender for best reverb overall.

More info here.

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5) Best Bundled / Series Reverb:

Waves Renaissance Reverb

Some of the most useful reverbs are parts of bundles or series of plugins that work really well together.  The Renaissance Reverb is my  personal go-to reverb, as are many of the Waves plugins, especially the Renaissance series. A well balanced reverb in terms of overall sound and versatility, with simple but effective graphic EQs for quick shaping of the reverb return signal – great for efficiently slotting the sound into a busy mix without adding clutter or low-frequency mush.

More info here.

Honourable Mention:

Waves TrueVerb

Another Waves reverb plugin, but this one is more of a room emulator than a conventional reverb like the Renaissance Reverb. Together, they’re an excellent combination.

TrueVerb actually combines an Early Reflections simulator with its standard reverb algorithms, to produce very natural-sounding room sounds.

More info here.

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6) Best Free Algorithmic Reverb:

Kjaerhus Audio Classic Reverb

The Classic Reverb from Kjaerhus Audio is probably the best basic free reverb plugin out there. Low CPU usage, but it still handles sampling rates up to 96kHz, meaning that if you’re aiming for super-smooth reverb tails on a budget, this is the way to go.

More info: The Kjaerhus Audio website is no longer in operation, but you can still download the plugin for free from the good people at KVR Audio, here.

Honourable Mention:

Smartelectronix / Magnus Ambience

Another excellent reverb with a great reputation. Created by a guy called Magnus, apparently in his spare time between ‘studies’, the sound quality is much better than you might expect – in fact a lot of people swear by Ambience as their go-to reverb. Magnus also lets you decide how much you want to pay for the plugin, what a guy.

More info and download here.

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7) Most Expensive Reverb!

Lexicon PCM Native Reverb Bundle

This reverb collection from the long-serving hardware effect/processor company really is in a league of it’s own, both in terms of price and quality. It’s the company’s first step into the purely digital plugin domain, and as they’ve set the gold standard for digital reverbs with their hardware over the last 40 years, they really had to deliver. Fortunately it seems that they did! Another nail in the coffin for cumbersome external hardware units :)

More info here.

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8) Best Simple But Versatile Reverb:

Audio Damage Eos

I really like Audio Damage software, apart from anything else their plugin and instrument interfaces are refreshingly different and stylishly minimal. I also like their audacious and witty Avatar-referencing sales blurb, so I’m going to quote it here, hope you don’t mind:

“Where Eos really comes into its own is when you drop Superhall on your piano or synthesizer tracks. The long modulated hall sounds of Eno-style ambience are where Eos thrives, something that is made of unobtanium with convolution ‘verbs. Quite simply, an impulse response can not do what Eos does.”

Eos only has 3 algorithms, but it’s so well thought out that in my opinion they cover everything you’ll need, at least for modern/electronic styles.

More info here.

Honourable Mention:

PSP EasyVerb

PSP are another great company (I will probably be mentioning their magical Vintage Warmer plugin a lot in other posts). EasyVerb looks basic, and it is, but in the best possible way – easy to use, good sound and low CPU overhead.

More info here.

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9) Don’t forget…

Your Sequencer’s Reverb

One great thing about all the major modern sequencers – Logic, Pro Tools, Cubase, Sonar, Digital Performer etc. – is that the average quality of the bundled plugins and instruments is actually very high these days, and certainly for the most part useable in ‘pro’ productions. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise! Something to bear in mind through all of this is that no-one (except maybe another producer) is ever going to come and say to you, “I really liked your track, it was really amazing… it’s just a shame about the slightly brittle quality of the reverb tails…”

The best things about using the reverb plugins supplied with your sequencer are that a) you don’t have to pay any more, and b) they are likely to run more efficiently within their host program than a third-party plugin. Shown here is Logic Pro 9’s Space Designer Convolution Reverb.

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10) Best ‘Classic Emulation’ Reverb:

Universal Audio EMT 140 Classic Plate Reverberator

Having just written the above, I’m going to switch back to gear fetish mode so I can tell you about the EMT 140 Classic Plate Reverb. It was EMT’s founder Wilhelm Franz who actually invented plate reverb in the late ’50s with the original EMT 140, so the pedigree for this plugin is pretty impressive. UA locked their ‘DSP circuit modelling experts’ in a room for four months until they came up with this emulation, so for their sakes, give it a try.

More info here.

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So there you have it, the best reverb plugins in the world today. I hope you find the article useful – if you’re spluttering over how I’ve completely overlooked your favourite amazing reverb that you use on every single production, or you have a request for further info or future articles, let me know below!

G.

Next up: The Best 10 Delay Plugins In The World!

Hi, and welcome to the all-new getthatprosound.com!

I decided to start this site so that I can share my thoughts, tips and information with other music-makers and music-listeners.

I named the site after that phrase that often bounces around between aspiring producers – getting that ‘pro’ sound seems to be a sort of holy grail amongst music-makers up to a point, being all about making your music the punchiest, cleanest, and (often, but not always) loudest, and with the most balanced mix of the musical elements that can be achieved. Basically, when your mixes sound pretty much indistinguishable from anything in your commercial music collection, you’re on your way.

Who am I? I started making music with Cubase 15 years ago, and quickly got into the habit of scouring books, magazine articles and interviews (pre-Internet, just), looking for even the tiniest insight into how and with what gear professional producers worked their magic. I’ve picked up a few things over the years, and of course also played about until I worked out my own way to do things.

After a while, I realised there is no definitive way to make and record music – in fact, it’s those people who deliberately buck the accepted view of how to do things who usually end up being musical heroes or creating whole new genres. A defining moment for me in this respect is DJ Shadow’s Endtroducing album from 1996 – the first album to be made completely from sampled records. DJ Shadow must be the ultimate bedroom producer. In fact I think I’ll do an article for you about Endtroducing.

So do take any ‘definitive advice’ you hear, from anywhere, with a pinch of salt… work out your own system, and your music will develop its own unique sound.

However, I do remember how often I thought “whatever works best for you” or “just use your ears” is both the best and worst advice when you’re starting out! Sometimes, especially when you don’t have the experience to trust your instincts, you need someone’s concrete advice to start with, if only as a jumping off point to discovering your own techniques and ways of working. So hopefully this site can become one of those sources.

“It Ain’t What You Do….”

In this day and age, whether you’re working out of your bedroom or you’re sitting in air-conditioned bliss in one of the finest studios in the world, you’re likely to be using very similar, if not essentially identical tools to make and/or mix your music – a PC or Mac loaded with a sequencer, a rack of virtual instruments, a whole bunch of effects and processing plugins, and an ever-growing sample library (if you’re like me anyway).

So, if you’ve got essentially the same gear, what’s stopping you achieving the same, ‘pro’ quality sound that comes out of the big studios? Not much really. The answer used to be that professionally recorded music only came out of expensive recording studios with racks of outboard gear and huge mixing desks costing tens of thousands.

Now though, equipment is not so much of an issue, as almost everything you need is ‘ITB’ (In The Box) – including virtual versions of those massive mixing desks.

The answer lies more in how you use that music software that you’ve probably got installed on your computer right alongside this web browser. So this site is also not just about which processor plugins are out there, for example, but how to make the best use of them in your own music.

I’ll be adding a whole bunch of articles over the next few days, weeks and months, and I’m excited to hear from you guys and girls, to build a little community here and get some feedback and advice myself! Never stop learning, right..? :)

So if you have any requests regarding future posts, reviews, tutorials or anything else, tell me what you’d like to see more of at getthatprosound.com, and I’ll get to it.

So, here we go… Enjoy.

George, aka The Big Boss at getthatprosound.com