Columbia Records Reverb on Vocalists

[Teasing the Korean]

Mitch Miller sure loved reverb.  One of the things that gave Tony Bennett and Johnny Mathis their distinctive sounds in the 1950s and 1960s was the reverb that was slathered onto their voices.  

[Hardbopjazz]

Sometimes too much reverb on Bennett, Mathis and Andy Williams.  I always wondered why Reverbed was looked at as something that needed to be added. Sometimes it’s so intense it feels as if I’m in a tunnel listening to music or an empty shopping mall with music playing over the sound system.  Is there an industry reason why reverb was used so much?  

[Teasing the Korean]

4 minutes ago, Hardbopjazz said:

Sometimes too much reverb on Bennett, Mathis and Andy Williams.  I always wondered why Reverbed was looked at as something that needed to be added. Sometimes it’s so intense it feels as if I’m in a tunnel listening to music or an empty shopping mall with music playing over the sound system.  Is there an industry reason why reverb was used so much?  

It was a Mitch Miller directive.  He loved him some reverb.

On the one hand, I very much agree with you, but when I hear one of those records, the reverb totally transports me to a time and place.  It's like the reverb is a part of their voices.  

[JSngry]

AM radio.

And not just those singers, Kind Of Blue, Time Out, Ah Um, all them records had that Columbia reverb that sounded like a massive central air unit was always running.

Ray Coniff, Percy Faith, Kirby Stone, for crying out loud! The Firestone Christmas records! Robert Goulet!

AM radio was often noisy. Reverb would lift the music out of that noise and put into a swirling noise all its own. Phil Spector just took it to the next level or five 

Solid State, Thad-Mel, remember how they removed all the reverb for the Mosaic? NOW those records were ready for the FM! Before that, AM.

[sgcim]

The lack of reverb on Wes Montgomery's Riverside recordings was the only thing that stopped me from buying that boxed set.

[felser]

Gary U.S. Bonds.  Those records sounded like they were from Mars.

  

[JSngry]

9 minutes ago, felser said:

Gary U.S. Bonds.  Those records sounded like they were from Mars.

One of the 70s Phil Spector bios looks at those records as predecessors for the Spector concept, and actually goes into a bit of detail about how they were made. I believe the description was something to do with sounding like they were recorded outdoors, on a runway with planes taking off and landing, and pressed on asphalt.

As usual, the effect was born of a combination of high imagination and low resources. It was a tiny studio, and they double tracked the voices by having the coming back into the studio in real time. So you got actual, real-time slap-back effects. Then they compressed the already shitting sound of the studio to make it a advantage, not a limitation. And then, yes, they used shitty pressings, because that's what they could afford. If you ever get an OG Legrand, the noise starts the secong the stylus drops, and it's not the noise of wear and tear, it's the noise of the crappiest viny imaginable.

As with damn near all 45s, if you hear these records in digital and/or FM form, you're really not hearing those records.