soundtoys SuperPlate Five Classic Electromechanical Plate Reverb User Guide
- June 10, 2024
- soundtoys
Table of Contents
soundtoys SuperPlate Five Classic Electromechanical Plate Reverb
User’s Guide
Version 5.4: For Mac and Windows
CONTENTS
- About SuperPlate
- What’s a Plate Reverb?
- The Control Panel
- Additional Information
- Support/Contact
- Trademark Information
About SuperPlate
Thank you for purchasing SuperPlate! SuperPlate is a plate reverb emulation tool that provides significantly increased features, flexibility, control, and sonic capabilities. The five plate styles are not simple convolution impulse responses, they are modeled plates based on the actual sources. They provide for significantly increased ability to modify the reverb parameters in ways that are not possible with convolution or in the natural environment, like having infinite decay, modulation, dynamic decay changes and more.
What’s a Plate Reverb?
In the hardware EMT 140 plate, and other mechanical plates, the decay time is controlled by a damper, which has the effect of shortening reverberation time the closer it is moved to the vibrating metal plate. Even with the damper at its maximum distance from the plate, the physical EMT 140 for example is only capable of about five seconds of reverberation time (at 500 Hz). In SuperPlate we’ve made it possible to get much longer extended decay times when you move into the red section of the Decay control range on each of the Plate Styles. The maximum (non-infinite) decay time setting is about one minute in length. The Control Panel SuperPlate’s Control Panel has various knobs and controls that help you modify the reverb parameters to achieve your desired sound.
DECAY
The large Decay Time knob is the most important control in SuperPlate. It affects how long it takes for a sound to fade away after entering the reverb. Changing the decay time will have a huge effect on how the reverb sounds, with short settings producing tighter, room-like sounds, and very long settings producing huge, cavernous sounds. The decay times listed on the Decay knob are measurements of RT60 at 500 Hz. RT60 is a standard way of measuring reverberation time, and it indicates how long it takes a sound to decay by 60 decibels. The maximum (non-infinite) decay time setting is about one minute in length.
LOW CUT
The Low Cut knob allows you to control the low end of the reverb. Shorter decay times create a tight, controlled sound, and longer decay times (four to five seconds) create a warm, boomy sound that can be reined in with the Low Cut control.
Additional Information
- Support/Contact: For any support or queries, please visit our website at soundtoys.com.
- Trademark Information: All trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Product Usage Instructions
To use SuperPlate, follow these steps:
- Install SuperPlate on your Mac or Windows computer.
- Open your DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) and create a new project.
- Add an audio track to your project.
- Insert SuperPlate as an effect on the audio track.
- Adjust the Decay and Low Cut knobs to achieve your desired sound.
- Experiment with the other controls in the Control Panel to further, modify the reverb parameters.
- Export your project to share your music with others.
ABOUT SUPER PLATE
Thank you for purchasing SuperPlate! We sincerely appreciate your support. SuperPlate is the result of years of research, analysis, and development that builds on the work done to create our Little Plate plug-in. However, SuperPlate goes way beyond what we achieved with Little Plate and takes plate reverb emulation to another level with significantly increased features, flexibility, control, and sonic capabilities. We’ve expanded the number of modeled plates from the single EMT 140 on Little Plate to five different and unique plates in SuperPlate. These include Little Plate’s EMT 140, an EMT 240 Goldfoil, the Audicon plate, the EchoPlate III, and the Stocktronics RX4000 plate. We spent a ton of effort to find the functioning plate reverbs that the models were derived from (they’re all big and heavy!). We then went to work tuning, tweaking, and refurbishing the plates to get the best possible sources to analyze. The five plate styles are not simple convolution impulse responses, they are modeled plates based on the actual sources. They provide a significantly increased ability to modify the reverb parameters in ways that are not possible with convolution or in the natural environment, like having infinite decay, modulation, dynamic decay changes, and more.soundtoys.com.
WHAT’S A PLATE REVERB?
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The plate reverb is one of the most unlikely heroes in recording history. Simultaneously enormous and understated, the huge wood-clad EMT 140 – the original plate reverb and the first of five plates included in SuperPlate – weighs in at about 600 pounds.
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It’s not pretty. It’s a piece of equipment that’s made to be hidden away in a utility closet far from the studio’s live room. Despite its humble, boxy exterior, the EMT 140
is undoubtedly the most iconic example of plate reverb, and remains a truly ingenious invention. Before the plate, when engineers wanted to add realistic reverberation to a recording, they had to pipe sound into physical rooms or echo chambers. Instead, the -
EMT 140 uses a magnetic transducer to vibrate a massive sheet of metal, sending the resulting reverberation back to the engineer via a pickup. The plate is capable of dense and smooth reverberation which has a beauty of its own. That is why plate reverb is still such a sought-after sound.
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EMT 140s and other original plate reverbs are getting hard to find – and replacement parts even harder. Plus, their sheer size and weight keep them out of reach of the average studio. But don’t worry, we’ve done all the heavy lifting for you. SuperPlate faithfully recreates five of the most sought-after plates right inside your favorite DAW – giving you reverbs that would be virtually impossible to access even in the best professional recording studio.
THE CONTROL PANEL
DECAY
- The large Decay Time kob is the most important control in SuperPlate. It affects how long it takes for a sound to fade away after entering the reverb. Changing the decay time will have a huge effect on how the reverb sounds, with short settings producing tighter, room-like sounds, and very long settings producing huge, cavernous sounds
- In the hardware EMT 140 plate, and other mechanical plates, the decay time is controlled by a damper, which has the effect of shortening reverberation time the closer it is moved to the vibrating metal plate. Even with the damper at its maximum distance from the plate, the physical EMT 140 for example is only capable of about five seconds of reverberation time (at 500 Hz). In SuperPlate we’ve made it possible to get much.
- longer extended decay times when you move into the red section of the Decay control range on each of the Plate Styles. The maximum (non-in-finite) decay time setting is about one minute in length.
- The decay times listed on the Decay knob are more specific measurements of RT60 at 500 Hz. RT60 is a standard way of measuring reverberation time, and it indicates how long it takes a sound to decay by 60 decibels. We chose 500 Hz for our measurements because this is how decay time is listed on the EMT 140’s control panel. The reason we need to specify a frequency is that decay times are frequency-dependent in a plate reverb.
- This frequency-dependent decay also depends on the damper (or decay knob on the plug-in) position, giving each decay time its own unique tone. At all decay time settings, high frequencies fade away faster than everything else. The low end varies drastically with decay time though, with shorter decay times creating a tight, controlled sound and longer decay times (four to five seconds) creating a warm, boomy sound that can be reined in with the Low Cut control.
INFINITE DECAY
With Decay set to infinity (decay knob turned fully clockwise), the
reverberating signal will not fade away. This allows sounds to reverberate for
an indefinite amount of time. The sound of the reverberating audio will
continue to change and darken over time, and a new sound that enters the
reverb will continue to influence its sound. Each plate style will
significantly affect the overall sound providing many variations of
tonalities.
CAUTION: Be sure to watch your levels when using infinite decay. Play-ing
sustained loud passages into the reverb can build up a large amount of energy
inside the virtual plate. It might get loud! The Low Cut control will filter
out low frequencies from the audio signal pre-reverb. The range of the Low Cut
is 20 Hz to 1 kHz so it can significantly reduce not only bass, but most of
the midrange as well leaving only the high frequencies above 1 kHz entering
the reverb which can be a cool effect.
TIP
Because low-frequency signals can decay slower than high-frequency signals in
a plate reverb, there will tend to be a natural buildup of bass energy in the
reverb tail. If you find the result of the reverb too muddy or boomy, increase
the Low Cut amount to reduce the amount of bass being fed to the reverb.
LOW CUT SLOPE (TWEAK MENU): We’ll cover the features and parameters in
the Tweak Menu in a bit, but it’s worth mentioning that the Low Cut filter has
three selectable slopes including 6dB, 12dB, and 24db. The Slope setting
controls how much low-frequency content, below the Low Cut frequency setting,
is decreased going into the reverb. The 6dB setting provides a gentle slope
and the least drastic cutoff of low frequencies, while the 24dB setting gives
you a steeper slope and a more significant reduction of the low end as you
increase, or turn up the frequency setting. The 12dB setting is obviously in
the middle and is a common setting on many reverb filters. The Low Cut slopes
can be selected by clicking on the orange round (L) icon at the far left of
the EQ display which will show the three numerical settings: 6, 12, 24.
Clicking on the desired slope number will select the slope and the graphic
display will change to show the selected filter slope type. By clicking the
Low Cut icon and dragging left/right you can quickly change the Low Cut’s
frequency setting, which will also change the Low Cut knob setting on the main
menu in kind. So you can change the Low Cut frequency from either the front
panel or the Tweak menu graphic display.
HIGH (HIGH CUT FILTER)
The High Cut filter control will filter out high frequencies from the reverb
signal’s input. High Cut will not affect the dry, unprocessed audio signal.
The High Cut control covers a frequency range from 20kHz down to 1 kHz and
like the Low Cut has a significant impact on the reverb sound and presence
beyond just cutting off some sizzle.
TIPS
A common technique is to filter out some high frequencies to avoid brighter
parts of the reverb interfering with the source signal. This can produce a
smoother, darker, and more natural reverb sound. Depending on the type of
source signal more or less dampening of the highs will prove beneficial and
result in a better overall tonal balance. Cutting the high frequencies can
also help the separation of the source input from the reverb signal increasing
the overall clarity of the composite sound.
The combination of the Low Cut and High Cut provides a lot of control allowing
you to get an almost infinite number of different reverb tones.
HIGH CUT SLOPE (TWEAK MENU): As mentioned above, we’ll cover the features
in the Tweak Menu in a bit. Like the Low Cut filter, the High Cut filter also
has three selectable slopes including 6dB, 12dB, and 24 dB.
The Slope settings provide you with significantly increased control over how
much of the high-frequency content in the reverb signal is reduced starting at
the selected High Cut frequency setting. The 6dB slope provides a gentle roll-
off and the least drastic cutoff of higher frequencies, reducing them 6dB each
octave above the selected cutoff frequency. The 24dB gives you a steeper slope
and a more significant decrease.
HIGH
of the high end as you turn down the frequency setting. The 12dB setting is
obviously in the middle and a common setting on many reverb filters. The
slopes can be selected by clicking on the round orange (H) High Cut icon at
the far right of the EQ display which will show the three numerical settings:
6, 12, 24. Clicking on the desired slope number will select it and the graphic
display will change to display the selected filter slope which is very handy.
Clicking the High Cut icon and dragging left/right allows you to change the
High Cut’s frequency setting, which will also change the knob setting on the
main menu in kind. You can change the High Cut frequency from either the front
panel or the Tweak menu graphic display.
PRE-DELAY
Pre-Delay delays the source signal before it enters the reverb as measured in
milliseconds with a range from 0 ms to 250 ms. Pre-Delay helps give a sense of
the perceived size of the reverb space and generally mimics the time it takes
for a sound to initially reflect off the walls before reverberation occurs in
a natural room. Increasing the delay time can help provide some clarity by
separating the source signal from the reverb as well as increasing the
perceived size of the space. The maximum Pre-Delay time available is 250
milliseconds which is quite long. Really long Pre-Delay times are somewhat
unnatural but can be useful in creating special effect reverbs or for long
ambient-type sounds.
TIP
Short delay times are useful for many dynamic and rhythmic sounds and as you
increase the delay time you can create the impression of different-sized
spaces. Really long delay times are generally great for slower sounds and
large, ambient, spacious reverbs.
MODULATION
The Modulation knob on the main interface controls the depth of modulation in
the reverb signal. This can create subtle to drastic pitch shifts in the
reverb signal that simply aren’t possible in a physical plate. In small
amounts, modulation creates subtle pitch variations in the reverb decay which
can help add smoothness to the reverb tail and reduce resonances that can
build up in a reverb. While modulation can be used on any sound, it’s
generally most useful for pitched instruments like keys, guitar, and voice as
opposed to percussive instruments like drums. Using modulation can in some
cases sound a bit unnatural so if you’re looking for the most realistic and
natural plate reverb for things like vocals and acoustic instruments, you’ll
likely want to keep the modulation low or off. Modulation at higher amount
settings can have a very cool effect on electronic and synth sounds and may be
just what you need for more ambient types of music.
Modulation Rate (Tweak Menu): There is an additional Modulation Rate
control in the Tweak menu that defines the speed of the modulation. While
there are no rules, in general, you’ll likely find that slower rates work
better with higher-depth settings. At the same time you can get some really
interesting vibrato-like effected reverbs using higher speeds and depths. The
Rate control speed goes from a slow 0.2 Hz to 8 Hz at the highest setting.
TIP
Try experimenting with Mod when you are using decay times that are very long,
especially when using the infinite setting, for a rich, lush sound.
MIX
The Mix control blends the reverb signal with the unprocessed input signal.
With the knob set to “Dry,” there will be no reverb signal present in the
output of the effect. With the knob set to “Wet,” there will only be a reverb
signal in the output of the effect.
There was no mixed control on physical plates. Instead, the signal was
traditionally sent out to the plate via a mixer’s auxiliary send and blended
back in on a return fader. This enabled engineers to send multiple sounds at
differing levels into their plate simultaneously and control the overall
reverb balance with a single fader. This creates the impression that all of
those instruments are playing in the same space. This is how we recommend you
use SuperPlate – on an aux bus with the Mix knob at 100 percent wet.
However, you are obviously free to use SuperPlate however you wish, and we
have included a specially-designed Mix knob for you should you wish to use
SuperPlate as an insert effect. The Mix knob differs from a typical mix knob
in that when you start at 0 percent and fade up, it is mostly increasing the
level of the reverb, and doing very little to the level of the dry signal,
similar to how you would “bring up” the reverb on an aux send. As you pass
about 70 percent, the dry signal will quickly and smoothly begin to drop until
it is completely gone at 100 percent wet.
TIP
Use the Parameter Lock feature that is a part of all Soundtoys plug-ins to
lock your Mix knob where you want it while auditioning presets. Our presets
are almost all 100 percent wet. Hold Control + Option on Mac or Control + Alt
on Windows to lock a parameter. It will turn red when it is locked. Parameters
that are locked will not change when you switch presets. Note that Parameter
Lock is not stored with a preset or session and is designed to allow you to
audition different presets and keep the Mix amount at a consistent desired
setting.
INPUT
The Input knob controls the amount of signal sent into the selected preamp style (more on this below) and the reverberation, with the LED meter providing a visual indication of the level of the signal. In general, you’ll likely want to keep the levels “in the green” with occasional peaks veering into yellow for a clean sound especially when using the “Clean” input style. However, if you have selected the “Solid- State” or “Tube” input styles the Input control also acts as a “drive” control imparting both overdrive and compression when using the Transistor style and tube saturation when using the Tube input style. This can result in significant tonal changes on the input signal as it gets clipped and/or compressed prior to entering the reverb. At high input levels, you can get some significant overdrive and distortion going into the reverb, so the resultant reverb effect will have the character of the overdriven sound though the reverb signal itself will not be distorted as such.
OUTPUT
The Output knob controls the overall amplitude and volume of the composite
affected signal post-reverb. Depending on the type of source signal and if you
are using the reverb in-line or from an Aux effect send, you may need to
either increase or decrease the final signal coming from SuperPlate to get the
right balance in your mix. The Output knob provides control over the total
output level from SuperPlate.
PLATE STYLES
Our renowned and award-winning Little Plate offered a single plate style based
on the popular EMT 140 reverb plate. Little Plate employed a unique and
proprietary approach to create not only an incredibly realistic plate reverb,
but one that could do things no physical plate could achieve like infinite
reverb. To create SuperPlate we used the same unique development approach and
have added four additional rare real-world plates, greatly expanding the sonic
palate and power of SuperPlate. So, you now have five completely different
plates to choose from using the selector knob, or by clicking on the plate
name on the left side of the main panel.
Five Plate Styles
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Classic 140 (EMT 140): The first plate is the same EMT 140 model included in Little Plate. The 140 was the first plate reverb designed back in the 1950s and is likely the standard bearer for plate reverbs. Its sound is on the warmer side and it was originally designed to replicate a concert hall. It’s a bit fuller and richer sounding than many of the plates that came after including the Audicon and Echoplate. When people think of plate reverb, the EMT 140 is that sound.
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Goldfoil 240 (EMT 240): This plate is based on the slightly less well-known EMT 240 which was essentially a smaller and lighter version of the 140 with a darker sound and an overall shorter reverb time. It’s “gold foil” moniker is based on the fact that the plate was made from gold foil and was extremely thin at only 80 microns, about the same thickness as aluminum foil.
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Audicon: The Audicon is based on what is commonly known as
“The Plate II” was built by Lawson in the 1970s and used quite notably in Nashville. It has a more punchy sound from its steel plate and a bit more sparkle than an EMT 140. -
E. Plate III: The fourth plate is a model of the “ECOPLATE III” built by Jim Cunningham of Studio Technologies in Illinois back in the 1980s. The ECOPLATE III is styled after the EMT but its sound is on the brighter side which sounds good on percussion, brass, and source material with high harmonic content. It was used quite a bit in the 1980s on albums by Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones, George Benson and others.
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Stocktronics: The fifth plate is modeled after the Stocktronics RX4000 plate reverb which is a Swedish Plate reverb designed
by Lars “Stockis” Liljeryd. Only 250 units were made, and it has a unique sound as the cold-forged, stainless-steel plate is only 0.3mm mix.
ANALOG STYLES
Real plates have real electronic preamps driving them. These preamps have
their own unique sonic characteristics, adding things like saturation and
compression. We have modeled two flavors of EMT140 preamps that can be mixed
and matched with any of the plate styles to add some extra spice to your sound
if desired.
Tube: The Tube is inspired by the EMT V54 tube preamp. It can impart
harmonic warmth, and slight overdrive, and can even get quite distorted(in a
good way) with louder input levels. You can select this tube input style by
clicking on the tube icon which is located to the far left below the Plate
Styles. This allows you to impart the EMT V54 preamp input character on any of
the plate styles. There will be a noticeable change in the sound of the reverb
making it both more full and present.
Solid State: The Solid State style is inspired by the transistor-based
EMT 162 solid-state preamp that also includes a compressor that was preset and
couldn’t be changed. This compression was intended to protect the circuitry
from overload, but can also be used creatively. The Solid State input style
can be selected by clicking on the middle icon that represents a transistor
(or a bug, spaceship, or octopus depending on what you think!). The transistor
input can be overdriven using the Input gain control but will not distort
nearly as much as the tube input. In addition, you’ll hear the compressor kick
in as the input signal increases, especially on sounds with strong transients.
The compression is especially useful for smoothing out and reducing
transients, providing a more consistent and even input level going into the
reverb. However, it sounds great on virtually any input source and gives you a
bit more control over the smoothness of the reverb.
Clean: The third input style is Clean which is the rightmost icon that
represents a resistor as it is depicted in a circuit diagram. The clean input
does not impart any change on the input signal providing you a clear,
unaltered path into the reverb. What goes in is what comes out unchanged
without coloration. Obviously, this is the style to choose if you want the
cleanest and most unaltered sound.
TIP
While the V54 and 162 preamps were only available on the EMT 140 we felt that
extracting these unique input styles and allowing you to combine them with any
of the five plate styles would really expand the tonal palate of SuperPlate’s
core reverb styles. By combining the Plate styles with Input styles and
various drive settings you can get totally unique sonics not available in any
other plate reverb.
TWEAK THE BUTTON & TWEAK THE PARAMETERS
The Tweak button located to the left under the Decay knob provides access to an additional set of controls for SuperPlate that may not be used quite as much as those on the main panel. To keep SuperPlate’s user interface clean we’ve put these parameters in this drop-down display. Pressing the Tweak button will turn the button white and the drop-down menu will be shown. Click the Tweak button again to hide this menu.
MODULATION RATE
The Modulation Rate control defines the speed of modulation in the reverb
tail. More than a simple LFO, SuperPlate’s modulation algorithm is specially
designed to produce a lush sound without excessive pitch warble. The
combination of Modulation (Modulation Depth) and Modulation Rate allows you to
go from a very subtle pitch shift to some fairly affected settings that can
sound great and provide some unusual tonalities.
If you’re looking for a natural reverb sound for vocals or acoustic
instruments, you’ll likely want to use minimal modulation and keep the rate
fairly low. But as always there are no rules and experimentation can lead to
some interesting happy accidents.
AUTO-DECAY
Auto-Decay is a totally new and unique feature of SuperPlate that gives you
dynamic control over the decay time, based on the changes in the input
signal’s amplitude. Conceptually, it’s very similar to the common “Duck-ing”
control that reduces the volume of the reverb signal based on the dynamics of
the input signal. Auto-Decay works in a similar way to ducking but instead of
reducing the volume of the reverb, it dynamically reduces the decay time
providing the ability to automatically shorten the reverb time based on the
input signal’s volume and dynamics. This lets you play into long reverbs while
avoiding excessive reverb buildup.
Threshold: The Threshold knob is similar to a compressor’s threshold,
used to set the point where the auto-decay will engage and shorten the reverb
decay. The Threshold setting can significantly impact how often and how much
the auto-detection will affect the reverb. Setting the threshold very low can
cause the circuit to impart a constant reduction in the decay, essentially
keeping it at a lower time, while setting the Threshold too high will keep the
detection circuit from engaging thus having no impact.
The general rule of thumb and most common approach is to set the Threshold to
react to a range around the peak level, maybe slightly below, so there’s a
decrease in the reverb time when the input signal is around or past the
threshold. This provides a very dynamic and noticeable change in the reverb
time. The setting of the Threshold can vary pretty significantly based on the
type of sound, in general, it reacts best with dynamic sounds like drums,
plucked or strummed instruments, and vocals. This can shorten the re-verb
moving it “out of the way” of the source sound at its peaks. The Threshold
knob also has a red outer ring that displays the volume changes and dynamics
of the input signal much like a VU meter. This provides a visual indication of
how the incoming signal is changing and where its peak levels are occurring
which can be very helpful in determining where to set the Threshold.
Target: The Target knob defines how much of a reduction in reverb time
you’ll get when the signal passes the Threshold level and the maximum target
point for the reduction in decay time. Threshold and Target are very
interactive and careful setting of the Threshold level and Target amount can
result in a highly variable decay time where the shorter target time is only
achieved at the loudest peaks of the sound. While this may sound complicated,
it should be clear once you start turning the knobs. In addition to the volume
display around the Thresh-old knob, there’s a similar visual display around
the Decay knob showing you how the Decay time is being affected. Just keep in
mind that this is effectively a one way street; the decay time is always
reduced, never increased.
Recovery: This one is pretty simple but also has a big impact on how the
dynamic decay works. Once a sound reaches the threshold level the decay is
reduced quickly as there is a very short “attack time” on the detection
circuit. The Recovery knob sets how fast or slow the decay returns to its
normal setting. The Recovery speed is set in milliseconds, from 1 ms (very
fast), to 500 ms (quite slow). In some instances, you’ll likely want the decay
to “jump back” to its normal setting very quickly to get the most dynamic
change, especially on highly dynamic and fast-changing sounds. In other
instances, you may want the response to be slower and return to the normal
decay time more smoothly. This can be extremely useful when a sound is less
dynamic with more sparse notes that are farther apart. In this scenario,
you’ll likely want to get to the target decay time at the peak volume of a
note and want the reverb to ring out with a longer reverb decay as the note
fades thus using a slower recovery time.
STEREO WIDTH & BALANCE
Width: Unlike Little Plate which has a summed-to-mono input like the original hardware, SuperPlate is a true stereo-in, stereo-out device where the left/right placement of sounds in the stereo field will have the reverb occurring in the corresponding location in the stereo field. This helps improve the overall clarity of the reverb especially with complex signals or full mixes. SuperPlate will still create a nice wide stereo reverb with a mono input when the Width control is at maximum like most reverb plug-ins. There are times when you may not want a wide reverb that fills the whole stereo spectrum and the Width control allows you to compress the stereo field all the way down to mono. Shrinking the width of the reverb and placing it in the same location as the source sound can move a sound “back” in the mix and keep its location intact. It can also help get a more vintage vibe and sounds when closer to mono. Say you want the guitar to appear panned midway between center and far right, and also have it sound like it’s somewhere back in a room and not close. Panning the source signal to the desired location, collapsing the reverb, and panning it to the same location will help preserve the perception of the guitar being in that specific location (within a room) and if you add some pre-delay, you can increase the perceived depth of the sound moving it even farther back in the room. To achieve this, you need to have the ability to pan the reverb which is why there’s the corresponding “Balance” knob on SuperPlate. Balance: The Balance knob is essentially a pan control that can be used in a number of ways. The first is to bias the whole stereo reverb from wide and centered to either more to the right or left, and at extreme settings actually force the reverb to collapse to mono. If you’ve decreased the width of the reverb as discussed above, the Balance control allows you to pan and focus the reverb to a specific location in the stereo field. Mono reverbs can be incredibly effective in placing a sound in a specific location in your mix, both left and right and front to back. The Width and Balance give you a lot of power to control the stereo spectrum of the reverb in unique ways and you’ll likely find it a very useful feature without having to modify settings on your mixer.
PARAMETRIC TWO-BAND EQ
- It’s pretty common to use an outboard EQ following a plate reverb to tweak and adjust the reverb sound to fit better as reverb can really fill a lot of the sonic spectrum. In many cases, you may want to adjust the reverb and either remove or boost certain frequency regions to obtain greater clarity, or enhance a specific sound. On SuperPlate we’ve added a powerful two-band parametric EQ that is post-reverb. This EQ is controlled via the graphic display or via automation and is extremely easy to use.
- There are two EQs and a typical usage is to use (1) to control lows/mids and (2) to control mids/highs, but each one has full range frequency control so they can be used interchangeably across the frequency spectrum.
It’s not uncommon to use two EQs within the same frequency range, one with a
wide subtle cut or boost, with a second with a sharper focused EQ to perform a
more surgical removal or boost of a small frequency spectrum.
EQ Frequency Setting: Simply click and hold one of the EQs and drag it
right or left to define the center frequency of the EQ, and move the icon up
or down to boost or cut the selected frequency.
EQ Bandwidth Setting: By default, each EQ filter has a wide bandwidth
affecting a large part of the frequency spectrum. Each of the EQ’s bandwidths
is fully adjustable from very wide to extremely thin.
- ON A MAC: To reduce or increase the EQ’s bandwidth (or Q), press and hold the (Control) key and use the mouse scroll function to adjust the EQ’s bandwidth. The display will dynamically change to reflect the change in the EQ’s bandwidth.
- ON WINDOWS: On a Windows machine, press and hold the (Alt) key and use the mouse scroll function to increase or decrease the EQ’s bandwidth.
Output EQ On/Off Switch: Located in the upper right of the EQ display is
a small white toggle switch that allows you to turn off and bypass the two
parametric EQ bands, which are post-EQ, but leaves the Low Cut and High Cut
filters on. This can be handy in comparing the non-EQ’d reverb sound with the
EQ settings. Between the parametric EQs and the High and Low Cut filters, you
have a lot of control to tweak the reverb tone for any situation. Just keep in
mind that all the EQs are post-reverb, while the Low and High Cut filters are
pre-reverb.
TIP: Note that while the title above the EQ display says “Output”, this
is referring to parametric EQs 1 and 2 only. The Low and High Cut filters,
which are on the input, are included as part of this display for convenience.
This provides complete tonal control in one place.
PRESET MANAGER
See the Preset Manager section of the Soundtoys User’s Guide.
SUMMARY
- As mentioned, SuperPlate is the culmination of years of effort by our team here at Soundtoys and we’ve tried to push the envelope beyond what’s found on most plate reverb plug-ins. We’ve focused on providing what we believe are some of the most realistic and varied plate reverbs, and also a user-friendly design that greatly expands the variety and power of a plate reverb plug-in.
- Thanks again for purchasing SuperPlate. We hope it helps you find new and exciting sounds that are useful, inspiring, and fun. Mix on!
SUPPORT INFORMATION
Now that you’ve taken the time to learn all about SuperPlate, have a fun,
experiment, and make greatness! If our plug-ins helped you take your
production to the next level, let us know, we’d love to hear from you and what
you were able to create with our software.
If along the way however you should run into any hiccups or anything
unexpected, we offer free technical support for all registered users. Our FAQ
contains many helpful answers. You can find it and our contact form at:
https://support.soundtoys.com/. You can also reach our support staff by
e-mail at: support@soundtoys.com. If neither
of those options works for you, our office can be reached via telephone at:
Please have the following information available to help assist our support
team:
- The product version and serial number or activation code
- The version number of your audio system (e.g ProTools 12, Cubase 9.5, Logic 10.7, Ableton Live 9.2.2 )
- Your interface/hardware (e.g. Apogee Quartet, RME Fireface, etc.)
- Your computer and operating system info (e.g. Mac OS X 10.9.5, Windows 10, etc.)
- A detailed description of the problem
Wave Mechanics, Soundtoys, SuperPlate, Little Plate, Crystallizer, EchoBoy, EchoBoy Jr., FilterFreak, PhaseMistress, PitchDoctor, PurePitch, SoundBlender, Speed, Decapitator, PanMan, Tremolator, Devil-Loc, Radiator, MicroShift, PrimalTap, Sie-Q, and their respective logos are all trademarks of Soundtoys, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners, which are in no way associated or affiliated with Soundtoys. These trademarks are used only for historical reference or to identify products whose sounds or tones were studied in the development of our plug-ins. © 2023 Soundtoys Inc. All rights reserved.
References
Read User Manual Online (PDF format)
Read User Manual Online (PDF format) >>