Building a DIY plate

[losthighway]

I know there was an article in the Tapeop mag about this some years ago. A kind soul over on the forum associated with Electrical Audio/Steve Albini's place, posted this video: https://cdm.link/2022/08/heres-a-diy-pl ... under-100/

It seems really cool and fun and thought I'd gather some thoughts about it over here on the TOMB.

Listening to it in use, I feel like I'm hearing the fundamental tone of the piece of metal quite a lot. Maybe all plates, or smaller plates do this, but it's the only flaw keeping me from jumping in head first. Then again, most of what he's sending is percussion/high transient stuff which is the least forgiving. I'd have started with vocals, or horns, or strings or something easier.

What do you think?

[trodden]

I think the second version sounds "better", and definitely works better on synthy stuff than beats in my opinion. But the original had some funk that made it interesting as well. Fun project, but I'll just stick to my Valhalla plugs or my LXP-1 "Dark Plate", which is what I've used more than anything for the last 20 years!

[The Scum]

I've built a number of plates through the years, and now have a Mk I Ecoplate (plus a loaner Brick Audio plate).

I think the third video answers your question about boinginess/clankyness. If the thing goes "boing" or "clank" or "clunk" when you tap it (ie: excite it with an impulse), then it's going to impart that onto whatever signal passes through. That's just how the whole impulse response convolution algorithm works (or it's mechanical equivalent in a plate).

Testing with percussion is a good stress test of reverbs in general. If it's going to get objectionably metallic, that will reveal it.

I see some things in the video that are reasonable, and a few that make me scratch my head.

The electronics shown are pretty decent. My Ecoplate has a bunch of pre-filtering in front of the power amp - highpassed at around 100 Hz, and a significant boosted HF shelf around 10 KHz. The highpass helps keep low frequencies from inducing bonginess. The HF boost acts to counter the HF cutoff of the driver, to get some brightness back into the sound.

It seems like a ton of work to grind the flanged sides and paint off the Ikea shelf, when you can get a piece of unpainted, flat steel at the hardware store.

The damper on an EMT or Ecoplate doesn't actually touch the plate. It's a layer of absorptive material that can move closer or farther from the plate, but it just constrains the air between it and the plate. Putting a rag on the plate will lead back to clank-land, losing HF faster than LF.

If you're going to build your own reverb, the first thing I can recommend is tinkering with spring reverbs. They're inexpensive, comparatively small, and lightweight. A series/parallel combo of 17" 3-spring Accutronics tanks can do lush reverb if you don't drive the springs too hard. Get 8-ohm input ones, and drive them with a Lepai amp, recovery gain from a mic pre.

If you really have to go the plate route:

• thinner plates are better
• stainless is less boingy than cold rolled
• Ecoplates got smaller with each generation - they had some sort of magic in the plate itself, so they didn't have to be giant.
• it seems like the less visible metal grain in the plate, the better the sound
• you'll hear a lot about how tension is important - but it's not a ton of tension - EMT clips are designed to break before you tear the plate. If you can tune a drum, you can tune a plate.

[trodden]

It seems like a ton of work to grind the flanged sides and paint off the Ikea shelf, when you can get a piece of unpainted, flat steel at the hardware store.

...

If you really have to go the plate route:

• thinner plates are better
• stainless is less boingy than cold rolled
• Ecoplates got smaller with each generation - they had some sort of magic in the plate itself, so they didn't have to be giant.
• it seems like the less visible metal grain in the plate, the better the sound
• you'll hear a lot about how tension is important - but it's not a ton of tension - EMT clips are designed to break before you tear the plate. If you can tune a drum, you can tune a plate.

THIS.

[trodden]

also.. "CLANK-LAND". ahahahha. Totally.

[The Scum]

And a couple more thoughts since I wrote that:

The Valhalla (and their Audiodamage cousins), UAD and SoundToys plates are all pretty good.

There's a second set of DIY plate instructions floating around. I think it was written by Jim Cunningham (Mr Ecoplate), and it includes some better schematics for the electronics. I think found my copy by using archive.org to scrape platereverb.com.

The stainless in both plates in my current stable has an extremely smooth surface. Both are stainless, both hail from Illinois (if there's some sort of alloy or a mill there that made it). Significantly less visible grain than my fancy stainless fridge.

[digitaldrummer]

I noticed that there were 2 ads for full sized Plate reverbs on Craigslist in Austin this week. Probably because they use plugins now too.

[Recycled_Brains]

SoundToys plates are all pretty good.

While I appreciate the initiative and fun part of building a thing, I got the ST for $29 and it rules.

[digitaldrummer]

I use the SoundToys "Little Plate" on probably 80% of the stuff I mix (except when I'm just sending out drum tracks). I own the SoundToys 5 bundle and I've been waiting for the full Plate, but it seems like SoundToys hasn't released anything new in 4-5 years? not sure what's going on. oh well, in the meantime, I just put an EQ with the plate (to roll off some lows for sure).

[CraigS63]

I wonder if a cymbal or a gong could be used, instead of a steel plate?

[A.David.MacKinnon]

I built a plate about 10 years ago. It was a failed experiment at best. I built mine with angle iron and sheet metal from Home Depot. By the time I got it tensioned tight enough to approach sounding good the frame was starting to bend and buckle.
You want a flexible piece of steel tensioned pretty tight. The tighter you can get it the higher the resonant note will get. Much like a drum. Low tension sounds pretty clanky and dark.
In the end I decided that given the engineering and metal work involved I'd be better ahead to pay for a real plate or just use plugs.

[Recycled_Brains]

oh well, in the meantime, I just put an EQ with the plate (to roll off some lows for sure).

Has there been talk of a more fully featured version? I honestly think that the genius of it is how ridiculously simple it is. The built in HPF is usually good enough for me. I like to put the Echoboy Jr. in front of it for more pre-delay than is already there if I want it. Always a Decapitator afterwards for further shaping. Soundtoys stuff is great. I wish they would do a Helios EQ. I know they have that console there. One of these times I end up in Burlington I want to ask if I can check it out.

[digitaldrummer]

oh well, in the meantime, I just put an EQ with the plate (to roll off some lows for sure).

Has there been talk of a more fully featured version? I honestly think that the genius of it is how ridiculously simple it is. The built in HPF is usually good enough for me. I like to put the Echoboy Jr. in front of it for more pre-delay than is already there if I want it.

I don't know what I was thinking about when I wrote that - of course it already has the HPF built-in and I do always use that (but have to use EQ with other reverbs). I guess I was really hoping they would do a full-featured Plate with a HF EQ control as well and maybe some more control over the modulation (vs just on/off). But I agree it's simplicity as is works pretty well already. I also use EchoBoy Jr. a lot more than the full Echoboy for the same reason... OT - I've got the UAD Helios but it can be pretty hungry on DSP so many times I have to freeze/commit the track .

[Recycled_Brains]

oh well, in the meantime, I just put an EQ with the plate (to roll off some lows for sure).

Has there been talk of a more fully featured version? I honestly think that the genius of it is how ridiculously simple it is. The built in HPF is usually good enough for me. I like to put the Echoboy Jr. in front of it for more pre-delay than is already there if I want it.

I don't know what I was thinking about when I wrote that - of course it already has the HPF built-in and I do always use that (but have to use EQ with other reverbs). I guess I was really hoping they would do a full-featured Plate with a HF EQ control as well and maybe some more control over the modulation (vs just on/off). But I agree it's simplicity as is works pretty well already. I also use EchoBoy Jr. a lot more than the full Echoboy for the same reason... OT - I've got the UAD Helios but it can be pretty hungry on DSP so many times I have to freeze/commit the track .

I demo'd the UAD Helios and it kinda blew my mind. The saturation when you crank the input and back off the fader is really good and that EQ is sick. Much cooler than the API/1073 strips IMO (those are of course no slouch either). It's so DSP hungry that I couldn't really rationalize paying for it though.

[ubertar]

I wonder if a cymbal or a gong could be used, instead of a steel plate?

I do this. Not exactly the same idea, but close. I've used two methods: 1) speaker in front of the gong, either a piezo on the gong or glue a tiny NIB magnet to the gong and use an electromagnetic pickup; and 2) Vibration speaker coil on the gong (one of those things you stick on table tops, etc. to "make" any object into a speaker) and a mic in front of the gong. Both work well. It's been a long time, too long for me to remember enough to compare. I'm working on a variation of this that would be guitar pedal sized and work as a guitar pedal, but I have a billion unfinished projects atm, so maybe I'll revisit this thread in 2032 with my results...