by RayL » 27 Aug 2010, 08:24
An echo is a sound that returns to the listener. Reverb is a whole mass of echos, so many that the ear cannot distinguish one from another and which come back to the ear at different times. Each time a sound is bounced off a hard reflective surface it loses a little energy, but the more reflective the surface, the less energy it will lose and the longer it will bounce.
So even quite a small room, provided it is covered in hard tiles and has the additional tubular pipes to further 'randomise' the sound, will sound like a huge space. Buddy Holly even helped to tile the echo chamber that Norman Petty installed for his Nor Va Jak studio in Clovis, Joe Meek used a domestic bathroom and many of Duane Eddy's early recordings used a grain silo for reverb!
Ray L