Discover how to get the most out of Plate, our custom-shop electro-mechanical reverb, with insight from UVI developer Rémy Müller:
#1 Chorused Reverb
To create new interesting sonic textures and give life to synthetic sounds like sawtooth:
- Set Mix to 100% to only hear the wet signal, then dial in a long Decay, and a large Plate Area
- Increase modulation to taste around 10-15% until the result sounds dynamic and evolving
- Switch to the EQ section and use the Octave Band EQ to sculpt the frequency response to fit the musical context
#2 Multi-Band Reverb
To only apply reverberation to specific frequency bands:
- Use the Octave Band Decay curve as a frequency mask, then use the other natural decay controls as usual
- This can be useful to only add ambience to the mid or high frequencies
#3 Long and Enveloping Ambiance
Use Gold material, and set the Decay to some high value like 8-12s such that low frequencies have a long decay time.
Then use the Friction editor to shape the high-frequency decay time to be shorter and lowpass-like, around 5kHz, to make the reverb sound darker (but don't go too far, the goal is to stay long, plenty and natural).
Once you have that long and ambient natural reverb sound set, lower the Mix parameter to a small value like, 10-20% max, such that at first listening the reverberation doesn't sound obvious, but really shines during the silences between phrases.
It brings a contemplative aura around the sound and gives an impression of space with the dry signal staying tight and focused.
This kind of reverb sounds great on guitars and vocals.
#4 Spring-like Reverb
Set the Plate dimensions to be wide and short in order to simulate a long strip of metal.
Then place the Input and Output transducers at opposite sides, close to the edges, to obtain the typical dispersive chirped transients reminiscent of spring reverberation.
#5 Dispersive Ambiance
Use a dispersive starting point (see Tip 4).
Set Mix to 100% to only hear the wet signal and shorten the Decay time to only 0.1-0.5s.
Now go to the Decay Editor and push the Friction and Air damping curves’ modifiers beyond their natural settings to sculpt the transient decay response to your need.
#6 Dispersive Ambiance (continued)
Adjust the Area, and aspect parameters, to tune the modes until you find frequencies matching your input material.
With materials, such as gold, silver or aluminium, Tension can have a dramatic effect: gently increase the Tension so that Plate starts to sound more like a short echo or filtered impulse train. At this point you may want to go back and forth between Area and Tension. Tension’s effect raises the lowest modes’ frequencies more than the higher ones, while increasing Area lower all of them and increases the modal density.
#7 Infinite Decay
Set (Damper) Decay to infinite, and shape your "infinite decay curve" to suit your needs using the spectral decay editor.
Then automate the Decay to "hold" the reverb after specific notes.
A free 15-day trial of Plate is available here: https://www.uvi.net/plate#trial
Discover more about Plate: https://www.uvi.net/plate