From concert-hall designers to pop record producers, everyone in the music industry knows we love reverb. But why?
THE TALL, arched, windowless space has just enough light for me to make out the explicit frescoes of naked bodies and skeletons adorning its walls. But I'm not here in the suburbs of Oslo for the visuals. For people in my line of work, the mausoleum of the Norwegian artist Emanuel Vigeland (photo below) is most famous for its stunning acoustics.
I burst a balloon, and the bang takes 15 seconds to die away. I sing a note, and another and another, and they hang in the air together as a chord. The effect is spine-tingling. And although this is an extreme example, it illustrates a near-universal truth: we love our sounds with a bit of reverb.
This is, on the face of it, rather odd. Reverberation replaces the clear, unadulterated ...
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