Inside The Abbey Road Reverb Chamber

Located deep in the heart of Abbey Road Studios, the original Studio Two echo chamber has lent its rich ambience to everyone from Cliff Richard to the Beatles. Resurrected in the 1990s, it’s a part of recording history and a unique resource for today’s artists and producers. In our exclusive video, Mirek Stiles explains how EMI’s studio boffins developed their secret weapon, and puts it through its paces on drums, guitars, vocals and more.

Chapters
00:00 - What Is An Echo Chamber?
01:30 - Abbey Road Reverb Development & Use
04:31 - Listening To The Studio 2 Echo Chamber
06:03 - Abbey Road Echo Chambers
08:24 - Snare Sound
09:10 - Has The Space And Usage Changed?
11:06 - What Are The Pipes For?
12:08 - Synths With The Echo Chamber
13:10 - Microphone & Speaker Setup
14:43 - Guitar Sound
16:31 - Waves Abbey Road Reverb Plug-in
17:15 - Full Mix With Reverb

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[diogomp]

More of this kind of thing SOS, please? Thank you very much.

[davewestner]

It's great that you're mentioning the names of the people who made this stuff happen.

[place_desjardins]

That was cool to hear him just talking in the room and hearing the natural echo/reverb effect in the microphone.

[ianseward]

I visited in the 70's . I worked for neves and we built studio 3 desk . Met all the staff, the lathe room was amazing . The lathe operator was unique and in demand . He wore a cloak, a large hat and resembled Dr Who . I wonder if any footage exists Inc him . The two maintenance guys, Tom and Jerry I think we're ex BBC . Like two Profs . Lovely guys .

[NOOBeMAX]

Was fortunate enough to visit Abbey Road last year and listen to the echo chamber first hand. Sent hairs on the back of my neck up hearing the familiar reverb from so many of my favourite records. The room itself actually had a massive bump around 150/200hZ to my ears. Amazing video

[kingdommelodies]

The original 'L' shaped reverb room of studio 2 (used as an air raid shelter during ww2) was dismantled somewhere around 1990.
It was situated behind the north wall of the studio, next to the garage where the old location recording van used to be parked.
It use to have a much longer reverb time when listening closely to Cliff/Shads records, recorded by Malcolm Addey (today still a engineer/masterer in New York) between July 1958 until 1968.

[artysanmobile]

Abbey Road Studios is the very lucky beneficiary of a dream staff employed by the deep pockets of a major label and a nationalized broadcast base. The timing was everything, as Abbey Road’s EMI affiliation guaranteed it steady traffic of the music industry’s very best, who could avail themselves of innovative design to make their artistic dreams come true before anyone had heard such sounds. Kind of a self-sustaining loop, started at the perfect time and in the ideal place.

Even as American studios leapt ahead in terms of track counts, and the trend to client engineers, Abbey Road had a sound and had it first in the English-American pop battle of rock and roll. Their lead was brief but meaningful and, for one customer, The Beatles, it was everything. With their solid financial footing, Abbey Road was able to supply musical visionaries with anything their hearts desired, including an unlimited collection of instruments and a book of top players. I’m just old enough to have experienced in my own work the American boom of the 1970s and I can tell you, even then, we envied the magic coming out of Abbey Road.

[MartinvonBargen]

I've been trawling YT looking for something informative and it's SOS to the rescue again.

Great video as usual, many thanks. 🤘🤘

[WarmVoice]

The history, people and inventions of Abbey Road are part of our shared World heritage of sound. The Waves plug-in is amazing too. I've used it on lots of productions, and it always gives specific tracks a distinctive sonic placement 👍

[djentlover]

I'm blown away how that small room made the snare sound so massive 9:00

[bradarmstrong]

Wonderful to have an experienced professional talk and demonstrate in this clear and casual manner. Great get!

[swaffstudios]

If anyone is wondering, the "S.T.E.E.D" idea stands for "Send, Tape, Echo, Echo, Delay." I've been inside it, and the Abbey Road chamber is kind of a mildewy-smelling mini dungeon, but it's one of the coolest rooms I've ever experienced!

[patrikknoerr]

Genius. Works great for me on my Yamaha RX15 drums, but essentially, it has only one preset: "Bad sounding room". Very interesting video, though.

[stevenewtube]

I like to use figure 8 patterns with the null sides towards the source speakers in my room sometimes, it’s a great way to hear the echo off the walls. I didn’t hear you mention this miking technique but I’m sure you’ve tried it also. Great video!

[songswithryan]

Fascinating, I learned a ton! This guy has really done his homework on the fascinating history of this place. Nails it with his comment at 8:15 about using real acoustics.

[alanhaynes]

I have been working on my Lexicon PCM 91 in Cascade mode for the past year trying to get as close as possible to the sound of this chamber, as it was in the mid to late '60's.
I've used recordings from Syd Barratt's vocal out takes from his solo albums and footage from George Martin's film of the Hollies doing the vocals from On A Carousel.
Digital reverb never sounds as rich or dense as the real thing, but I've got pretty damn close!

[idlewise]

I had a tour of the facilities back in the 70s. Had tea with Kim Wilde! I remember a few anecdotes of the engineers sometimes running the chamber on the roof at night but forgetting to shut the door!

[Audiojunkk]

great video. wow to that Neve desk too!

[petersvan]

So now I know where those old Cliff Richard records got their great vocal reverb from :)

Thanks for documenting one of the chambers left. It inspired me to use chambers in my mixes more :)