FW: [Dixielandjazz] Re: Columbia's echo

[James Kashishian]

>experimented with 'echo' and used for several live sessions
respectively, the ladies' toilet and >a stairwell.

I suspect just about everything has been used over the years before
digital reverbs appeared on the scene.  I recall at least one recording
studio in Madrid in the early 70's that had a large, tiled room with a
speaker at one end & a mike at another.  Send the sound down to the
speaker, bring it back up on the mixer from the mike.  You got reverb +
delay, which could be mixed (being on a different channel of the mixer)
at the level desired in contrast to the original audio.  

This is exactly what they did when the digital boxes started replicating
different room sizes & shapes, and having pre-delay parameters that can
be adjusted.  I still have my original Quantec Room Simulator (which was
the master of make believe rooms), and even a newer version of the same
reverb unit.  

However, groups will still try "natural" things if it occurs to them, so
bathrooms, etc., do get used.  I can personally vouch for Depeche Mode's
recording of their album entitled Songs of Faith & Devotion, where some
of the vocals were recorded in the garage of the house I rented for them
in Madrid to do that album.  The garage easily would house 6 cars & the
walls were tiled from floor to ceiling.  

Jim