Welcome to my Behringer X32 FX Series tutorials. Today we are going to be looking at the Vintage Reverb. Be sure to watch my YouTube video that I released on the Vintage Reverb as it goes along with this blog post!
Behringer Vintage Reverb
The Vintage Reverb is a time-based effect on the Behringer X32 that is modeled after the historic EMT 250. The EMT 250 was originally released in 1976 at the AES convention, and it was the first digital reverberation device to create ambiance through a completely electronic system. The unit was a ground sitting unit that was controlled via levers. At the time of release, it had a price tag of $25,000, which when we add inflation, today would be the equivalent of $100,000! The Behringer Vintage Reverb Effect has a few different controls in comparison to the original EMT 250, so let’s take a look!
Hallgerät
One other fancy tidbit, is that ‘hallgerät’ is German and roughly translates to ‘Reverberator’ or ‘Hall Device’. Both the hall device and reverberator are devices that generate ambiance (reverb).
Vintage Reverb Layer 1
- Front/Rear – This control yields a slightly different sound from the reverb. The original EMT 250 had 4 outputs, two on the front and two in the rear. They worked together in the reverb mode to create a quadraphonic signal. So changing between the outputs would produce a different sounding reverb.
- Decay – Allows us to control the main reverb tail decay time. This is the decay time at 1kHz. The red LED’s on the left side of the lever will show the time from 0.4 seconds to 4.5 seconds in 16 steps.
- Lo Multiply – This controls the Low-Frequency decay time at 300Hz. The red LED’s on the left side of the lever will show the multiplier. There are 4 available x0.5, x1.0, x1.5 and x2.0. The multiplier refers to a factor of the main decay time. The higher the factor, the more low-frequency content will be in the reverb tail.
- Hi Multiply – This controls the High-Frequency decay time at 6kHz. We have x0.25, x0.33, x0.5 and Max available for the multiplier. When the main decay time is set to 3 seconds, Max on the Hi Multiply is approximately x1.0. Just like the lo multiply, the higher the factor, the more high-frequency content will be in the reverb tail.
- Modulate – Modulate is a type of chorus that you can slightly hear when having this at 100%, basically the modulate varies the reverb in the stereo field more than if it was turned off. Control allows for 0%-100% in increments of 2%.
- FX Home – Pressing this button takes you back to the ‘home’ tab of the effects.
Vintage Reverb Layer 2
- Vintage – Vintage emulates the noise characteristics of the original EMT 250 hardware. Greying this button will eliminate the modeled noise characteristics for a quieter operation.
- Pre Delay – Pre Delay is the time between the original source and the reverberation effect starting. The original EMT 250 had 4 options for the pre delay, 0ms, 20ms, 40ms and 60ms. The Vintage Reverb offers us a pre delay setting from 0ms up to 120ms in 10ms increments.
- Lo Cut – This offers us a high pass filter with a variable frequency from 10Hz to 500Hz
- Hi Cut – This offers us a low pass filter with the variable frequency from 10kHz to 20kHz.
- Level – This allows us to control the overall gain of the effect. Contol allows for adjustment from -12dB to +12dB in 0.5dB increments.
- FX Home – Pressing this button takes you back to the ‘home’ tab of the effects.
What do I use the Vintage Reverb on?
I love this effect, it is one of my favorite reverb effects on the X32. I will typically use this for vocal reverb, instrument reverb, and drum reverb. One of my favorite settings with this is to create what I call a ‘hard wall reverb’ emulating a hard walled amphitheater. I will shorten the decay time, but then have a long pre delay to create the simulation of space. Here are the settings that I love to use for this:
Want to see more Effects Tutorials?
To view more of my Behringer X32 Effects Tutorials, click here: dBB Audio FX Series.