Plate Echo - The Greatest Studio Effect Of All Time! 

I'm going to need a much bigger pedal board.

A monolith? _"it's full of stars"_

2:30 - "...a cathedral tiled in gold - a mile long." That is one well-turned phrase.

You have a great singing voice

Fran is definitely one unique and special person. :-)

I worked in a studio in the early 80's that had a plate echo. It was the best thing going at the time. The fact that the studio had a plate echo and a Synclavier was definitely a major feature of this studio (this and twin syn locked 16 track MCI recorders) and drew lots of producers and artists. We had the Ecoplate in the basement and they had to come up with an isolation stand because the studios toilet facilities were also in the basement and if some slammed the bathroom door or walked down the wooden staircases to heavily it would vibrate the plate. Not much but enough that if you isolated the recorded tracks you could hear the vibrations. I haven't seen one of these in about 35 years. Digital reverbs with a "plate echo" setting are ok but there is nothing like the real thing that I have heard. Nice score. This is one of the great things about your channel. You dig up stuff that I have either heard about but have never seen or stuff I just never heard about but find it interesting.

I always wondered how that haunting echo effect in 'Riders on the Storm' was done, thank you for showing it.

What is so great about old technology is that it had to understand, and manipulate, and utilize the physical characteristics of matter, real stuff in the real world, in order to achieve the desired result. Now everything is virtual. Something like reverb has been reduced to a mathematical equation, encoded and compiled into a string of zeros and ones that exist only in a cloud somewhere, accessible at the click of a mouse. I miss technology that we can see and touch.

*[ Fran Blanche Plate Echo ASMR ]*

In a former life I worked as a sound operator for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and I had access to a few plates. What a fantastic sound. Envy Envy Envy!! :D

The transducers appear mounted in accordance to the golden mean. (1:.618)

plate reverb is the best reverb although spring comes pretty close. some impulse responses would be neat

You definitely need to do more videos like this one!

Cool toy! I didn't know about that device. Thanks for setting it up.

I discovered this as a kid our garage door was a one piece section of stamped steel it was fantastic! Always wondered what the studio ones looked like thanks 😃

Our recording studio at Syracuse U’s Newhouse School had a DIY plate reverb made using a with a large piece of sheet metal suspended from a rectangular frame made from 2” pipe. There were two transducers on one end that fed the sound into the plate and two transducers on the other end collecting the “wet” reverb signal. It certainly wasn’t the equivalent of a commercially-made plate reverb but it really sounded great, the idiosyncrasies gave the sound some character.

I'd heard of plate reverb , but never seen one. Thanks so much for sharing and showing !

What a fascinating bit of kit, I love the old mechanical effects since I first took the lid off a Fender header amp and discovered a real spring reverb line.

I had some friends with a studio, in 1981 or so, that made their own plate echo for their studio. I never examined it in detail, but they bought a normal steel plate, hung it in springs, mounted transducers etc.

The original was made by EMT in Germany in the late 50's. So that was the studio sound we all got used to.

Thank you for showing this fine piece of sound equipment.

That is impressive! What a great effect! Thanks for hauling it out for us.

Over 50 years ago when I was fourteen I created an echo record player. I am building another and plan to put it on youtube when it's done. Nothing at all like this.

I had the exact same model in my basement for years, it’s in Montreal now, such a nice, dense sound! 😻

The coolest thing I’ve see in a long time…. Thank you for posting this! I’m now going to rethink all of the patches in my rack gear.

I used "plate echo/reverb" effects for years when I had a little recording studio, but I never had any idea what an actual plate echo/reverb was. Extremely cool!

this is such an analogy for a room when viewed from above, which begs the question of transducer placement and pickup placement as well as plate shape.

That noise when she taps it is straight out of the Blade Runner scene flying over the city, love that music and this device!

another day another thing I never knew existed and am now absolutely fascinated by. Thanks Fran!

Wow, that's fascinating! It has a very distinct sound to it. I love this kind of vintage stuff.

It's amazing how far effects have come. That thing is a "Boat Anchor!"

Wow, I’ve never seen one of those! My Uncle was in a band back in the mid 70’s, and he had all kinds of cool gear, like a tape echo, an early synth, and a Leslie cabinet that was almost as big as your echo plate. The fact that you know the history of the device as well as how it works, instead of just showing it off, is what makes this such a great channel. Thanks Fran!

Hadn't a clue about this... truly brilliant! I love audio Fran :-)

Wow! I thought this kind of effect had always been done electronically.

This is awesome. Thanks Fran. A bit of history but also inspirational. So much left to explore.

Very Clever Fran thanks for putting it up.

That's neat as heck , Thanks for showing us this Fran :)

Thanks for all the "Good Vibrations" Fran!

Thank you Fran. I loved this.

"A cathedral, tiled in gold...a mile lonnnng." Effects poetry! Thanks, Fran!

Riders on the Storm .... Riders on the Storm .... :)

I'm old enough to know about these but never thought I would see one in use! Wow, cool is not a strong enough concept.

You have the perfect voice for this stuff. I enjoyed listening to you. Thank you for posting.

Never seen one of these up close - thanks! You have a good voice, Fran!

This is awesome! :) Also the singing was awesome!

You always have the most interesting stuff, Fran :)

That's amazing. Thanks Fran, keep it going!!!

Definitely one of the coolest videos I’ve seen on YT. It sounds beautiful.

Our three piece rock band recorded in 1971 and a plate echo was used. This is the first time I've seen one. THANKS Fran!

Nice video, they have four of these in a special room at the legendary Abbey Road Studios in London.

Thankyou Fran, superb video, love your channel!

You are just the sweetest person Fran ! Love your videos !!

That plus a vocoder would be interesting

"Mom, Dad, I've decided to quit school and follow my lifelong dreams of playing pencil eraser."

This is the reason I've subscribed to this channel! Absolutely best and unique content!

That Was AWSOME Thank you Miss!

Wow, I need this, didn't even know it existed. Thanks for this vlog

When you knocked on the plate, it reminded me of V'Ger's sounds at the end of Star Trek I

OMG. I'm so used to seeing "plate" as an option on digital effects, I had no frickin idea how big they were. And, then in the manual: "space saver". How funny. What fun. Thank you Fran.

Thank you for sharing your knowledge! Your singing at there end sounded so beautiful.

I work in professional audio... These things have become a rare sight indeed. Excellent!

Fran, you are way out there. So Frikkin cool. :)

Back in the 70s, I was working at a TV and music production studio. They had four of these units made by Siemens. Back then the ones they had were using tube amplifiers for processing the in and out of each. During the late 80s they invested in to solid state ones using microprocessor circuits. The pickups you are mentioning on the ones I worked on were magnetic as like used on a tape head. The amplifiers had to have proper EQ to make the sound flat.

Amazing demonstration! Thank you....

Wow, that's really awesome! (some, some, some some ...)

Just doing my part to help build your female viewership...! Great video too, Fran!!

Brings to mind the vintage reverb boxes used in 1960s cars. As I recall they used long springs anchored in a box to generate a stereo effect in the pre-stereo era. Might be an interesting tear-down project.

Best Fran Lab video EVER!!!

I know these things look large, but they sure did save a lot of real estate. Before these we had to lacquer up a room lol. Thanks very much for the tour of your plate!! Very cool!!

Not gonna lie... Watched this on my phone while working. Was wondering which "pedal" this would be... Then you pointed out the "crate" behind you and I was like... "Oooohhhh". At least I know now! LOL Awesome video!

I actually built most of the Ecoplates 1, 2, and 3’s. I was production for Studio Technologies. The plate was a non magnetic stainless steel alloy. The pickups were Barcus-Berry piezoelectric hot dots, that were glued to the plate with rear view mirror adhesive. I built most all of those plates, for approximately 4 years, until digital reverb finally became more affordable. If you were to dust that plate for fingerprints, mine would be all over it. The Ecoplate 1 originally used Columbia Scientific accelerometers for the pickups, but they were very expensive. Jim Cunningham, who designed the plates, experimented with various replacement pickups until he found that the hot dots would work. The slogan for them was “The Brightest And The Best”

Thanks for demoing this and showing it off. I saw plans and a description for this effect in the 80s and did not understand how it could work. But work it does!

What an amazing artefact of that era of music! Great video Fran thank you

Brought to mind Todd Rundgren's "Sounds of the Studio" track. More please!

Thanks for the demo!

brilliant. knew a lot about music of the 70s and recording desks but was totally unaware about this device . So thanks so much for this vlog.

I feel like everytime you sign off, you should always end it with this effect while shouting "IN THE FUTURE!"

You should speak to Rick Beato im sure hed love to talk more about the ecoplate and possibly do an episode on it...

Wow Fran. Thanks for showing us this. Too amazingly cool.

I used to have a HUGE plate echo from an old studio in md. Was a bit larger than 4x8 feet. Sounded very nice.

Excellent score Fran. A major piece of music history. Not familiar with that brand, But I know EMT well.

Sound sync --- *whack* :D I really dig the post-credit scenes of your videos, Fran ^^ Anyway, awesome rig, would have loved to see how it's hooked up and stuff ^^

Cool! I love learning about new old things.

Good to see you having fun again.

Ah! Possibly my favourite Fran video yet! I've used one of these before, but never seen the inner workings. Thanks, that was fun!

That was totally awsome, when you starting the solo singer channel using the plate echo? Is it possible to reproduce these sounds with modern electronics on a budget, would be an awsome multi episode vid set? Thanks for sharing.

Amazing! Thank you for this video.

that was COOL Fran ...THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!

It's reverb, actually.

You should be teaching at MIT or Harvard.

Go Fran! Love your videos, always learn something new.

Very amazing piece of tech. Thanks for showing this to us!

Fran ASMR Channel Coming Soon? Think of the different sounds you can make with that, magic in a BIG box. What else are you hiding that you have?

How long before this video gets demonetized by RU-vid's over-zealous copyright content ID? Apparently the music labels are getting really tough creators and there are many, many reports of videos being claimed just because someone hummed a few bars of a well-known tune. Crazy!

I'm so amazed by this device. I didn't knew that was the way they made those sounds. I love your channel and everything you do Fran! Good vibes form Argentina.

Thank you Fran!

"Line level vs balanced" is a false dichotomy. Mic level, instrument level, and line level can be either balanced or unbalanced. Like she said, it is unbalanced because it was geared for prosumers. This is because they wouldn't have the equipment to utilize a balanced signal anyway, so they left out the additional components needed to send out such a signal.

When I got my first car, a 1963 Chrysler New Yorker, around 1980, I put a reverb unit in it. That I found in a car built around the 50's in a junk yard. It was a black box around 4" x 4" x 12", with a large coil of wire in it. I also hooked up an equalizer/amp to it. With Pink Floyd playing, that system rocked.

I've noticed reverb qualities in every day stuff around the house like metal doors to the furnace and even the oven itself. I guess if you know what you are doing you can get scrap metal and make your own plate reverbs.

Awesome! Thanks for sharing this with us!