MusicAgated Reverb: The studio ‘error’ that originated the sound of the 1980s know the sound that changed the history of music, which came to us for a studio ‘error’ and represents the 80’s as a blazer with the jampery

Imagine that you are sitting by the sea, looking at the horizon, watching the waves break naturally, listening to the sound of its complete cycle, from the first impact of water to the effervescence of foam bubbling in the sand: tchuaaaaaaaaaa… tchhh……

With all poetic license to the Brazilian Association of Defenders of the correct use of onomatopoeias, we will continue with the exercise of sound imagination (however paradoxical that this action may seem).

Well, now imagine that a wall extends in the same place where it was before the beach, the sea and the sand. The wave now, instead of breaking in the sand and having its full cycle, clashes with the wall and has its natural interrupted reverberation cycle: Tchuaa. A short and dry sound, despite being made of water.

Before you think the Rolling Stone Brazil is flirting with the culture of wellness For new publications, I explain: This is not a guided meditation, but about music, more specifically a subject that could chase away unavoid readers: Music Engineering. Keep the exercise described above, because it will be very useful for understanding today’s subject: the battery sound that marked the 1980s (and returned!).

Today we will meet about Gated Reverb, a sound originated from a studio accident, but it sounded so well that it was impossible to discard it and today it inhabits our imagination.

Any phone nowadays is not only able to record a sound but also manipulate it. In a simple press of a button, you get a distorted voice, a serious voice, a sound that seems to be talking inside a cathedral, a corridor, etc. But in 1979, it wasn’t quite like that.

If you wanted to hear your voice recorded with a cathedral sound, there was no other way out: you had to go to the cathedral and take boxes and more equipment of equipment to record right there. This was the only way to get the sound of this sound reverberation or, as we import from English for the jargon of music production, reverb.

Studios and more studios were differentiated (and even today they differ) by their rooms with their feet high or low rights, the material of their walls – and all this makes a difference at the time of recording. Famous studios were even built from places that already offered an interesting “room” sound even before being a studio. The iconic Electric Ladyin New York, studio of Jimi Hendrixresponsible for recordings of artists such as Stevie Wonder, LED ZEPPELIN, Rolling Stones, Taylor Swift, D’Angelo and Frank Oceanbeyond the discs of one’s own; Even before being a studio, it was a concert hall. THE Van Gelder Studioof the most famous jazz albums in history, it was a church before. These two examples show that this natural sound of construction, which was called “room”, made all the difference.

The most famous battery turn of the 1980s, present in the song “In The Air Tonight“, from Phil Collinswas recorded in a studio with stone walls that simulated a castle! But it is not the airline of its architecture that perpetuated it, but a new sound that was beginning to show the world, thanks to the smith’s successful success, which occupied the successful charts in the year of its release, 1981.

And what’s so special in this recording? The sound of the battery. In “In The Air Tonight”There was a battery that no longer sounded” natural “with the reverberation of the room itself (the sound of the sea breaking freely, remember?), But now it sounded manipulated, controlled (the sound of the sea breaking against the wall). Translating into the onomatopaic universe, the battery that sounded before like taaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhive Recordings forever.

However, this recording was only possible because, before “In The Air Tonight”, Phil Collinsthe producer Lillywhite and the recording engineer Hugh Padgham entered the studio to record the track “Intruder” with Peter Gabrielyour companion in the band Genesis.

The console used to record at the time, a SSL 400 B table, came with a new mode, a channel to listen through the aquarium (no, marine metaphors have not come back), that famous glass window that separates the technique (where the recording room is) (where the microphone is to record the instruments). To be able to hear what the person is talking about, just push a button called Talkback and talk to the microphone at the table: “Take good, let’s go to the next,” “Go Battery, 1, 2, 3, 4”.

But so that those who are recording hear well and the sound that comes out of the technique boxes do not return to the drummer’s phone, creating that famous delay effect (“sandwich, iche, iche”), this microphone needs to have its sound compressed. It’s like a door that opens and closes, letting only pass the sounds spoken directly on it and block the surrounding environment. This door or gate, or passage in English, we call Gate. Ok, but what does Gate and Gate have to do with the sound of the 1980s and how does it represent the time more than hair with the permanent hairstyle?

At the moment when Phil Collins recorded the track “Intruder”The technical team accidentally left the talk channel open, capturing the drums of the people of the technique, but processed, compressed by the table, with this gate. So the battery that should sound” tum tum da tum, tum “tch tch guéh tch, tch guéh.” Onomatopoeia. Sound pleased so much that they really decided to take this as the official battery sound of the track.

In order not to be just in the imagination, I separated here part of the material used in my research: it is the excerpt of a statement, where Phil Collins Explains all this with a mouth battery or beatbox to show the difference in sounds. It is worth checking out!

Gated Reverb’s story helps us identify what I believe is the elixir of pop life, its cornerstone: experimentation. However, it is not enough just to try, it is necessary to play this choice, not underestimating the listener, as the artists did Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins, Ryuichi Sakamotoamong other pioneers of this technique, this sound that would soon flood – in every way of metaphor – the radios and albums for the seven seas.

*I prepared a playlist here for you who was curious and wants to enter this trip in time through the waves of Gated Reverb, Boa Viagem!

+++ Read more: Are these classic rock memes generated by AI deceiving someone?