Hi,
 
Does anyone know how to get that big vocal reverb used by the 80's electro-pop euro-band, Orchestral Manoeuvers in the Dark? I've been trying to figure it out but am stuck so I've come to the experts here in the forums. I really like how it sounds on their song "Forever Live and Die" which seems to have reverb on top of reverb but still under control.
 
Thanx, Frederick

That sounds like a plate. ValhallaPlate would serve, it that's specifically the effect you're looking for. Valhalla Vintage Verb also covers that era's reverbs well. ValhallaRoom also does those lush tails well and would be my first choice for that kind of application. Valhalla stuff is incredibly good and best of all, cheap.

Thanx Bitflipper! I'll check it out. Maybe I already have something that can do it though. I have Waves H-Reverb and all the reverbs in their Gold bundle, plus all the Cakewalk/Sonar reverbs. If my ears are hearing it correctly, there doesn't seem to be any dry signal at all, the reverb is full on all the time and then swells at the end of the phrases in the chorus. Guess I just need to record the reverb send going up and down as needed to get that big wash of reverb.

There were quite a few of the then new-fangled, expensive and for the time high-tech digital reverb units available in the 80s, no studio was complete without at least a Lexicon unit or two. Layering reverb on reverb on top of a recording that was made in a naturally live room was pretty common as well.

Not forgetting that other newcomer to the studio, digital delays.

Using different reverbs on pretty much every microphone was common, it was the era of the gated reverb snare, booming toms with cathedral quantities of reverb and whooshing cymbals. Then shove the whole lot through another digital reverb just because.

So layer slap-back delays, short and long reverbs and, for the electro-pop quality, run everything through a 12-bit sampler/bitcrusher while you're at it.

 I'm pretty sure a bitcrusher would be an anachronism!
 
If you're looking for something already in your toolkit, try PerfectSpace with a plate IR if you have it.

Paul Humphreys about Enola Gay:
 
"The single might sound big and grand, but when you listen to the solo parts on the master, everything is so small; 60 per cent of that sound must have come from the reverb effects we used in the studio."
 
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/jan/07/orchestral-manoeuvres-dark-enola-gay
 
OMD doucmentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyYaWD3DWIU

Thanx for the links. I had already come across the documentary which inspired me to try to emulate their reverb. They were a band I had mostly forgotten about because I don't think they were real big here in the USA but I stumbled upon their excellent documentary by accident by just surfing the net the other day. Don't recall how I ended up with OMD but I'm glad I did and can now, through advances in home recording technology, recreate these type of sounds that only big studios could do back in the day. If only I were in my teens now instead of 58.....

bitflipper
 I'm pretty sure a bitcrusher would be an anachronism!

The few samplers that existed back in the 80s didn't have anything like CD bit depth or sampling frequency. Bitcrushers/resamplers like d16's Decimort can be very useful in emulating their peculiarities.

On a side note, they have new album coming out this September. I'm so excited as they are one of my top 3 influencers. Still very inventive and not afraid to experiment in a future far afield of pop music. Not for everyone, and I get that, but you can't deny thier talent at writing catchy songs and using long-held chords.
 
http://www.omd.uk.com/
 
KEv

We didn't need bit crushers back then.  Digital was 8 and 12-bit. 
 
And people would say "I wish I had a reverb that would finish completely quiet.  0 dB." But we didn't know it was crunchy.