How to Build a DIY IKEA Plate Reverb for $100
LeoMakes’ DIY IKEA Plate Reverb
While everyone was busy writing Black Friday buyer guides this week, LeoMakes created a DIY plate reverb out of a Bror storage unit from IKEA, and it only cost him $100. A plate reverb is essentially a sheet of metal that’s vibrated by a transducer and recorded with two pickups. Plate reverbs tend to produce reverb tails that are initially bright, and rich with low-end as they decay.
The first half of LeoMakes’ video consists of him demonstrating what the plate reverb he created is capable of. The IKEA unit he made the plate reverb out of sounds almost like a steel drum by default, but he dampens the plate using different objects like a scarf, as well as his hand. LeoMakes describes it as a “hands-on reverb,” which I think is a perfectly fitting analogy.
The second half of LeoMakes’ video demonstrates in detail how he assembled everything. To fall within the $100 price point, you need to already own a hacksaw ($10), a soldering iron ($26), and various recording software and hardware to record the sound of the plate reverb. You’ll need IKEA Bror legs ($16), two IKEA Bror shelves ($17 x 2), a surface transducer ($19), two pickups ($1 x 2), an amp ($18), and a sacrificial cable that you can cut up to record the sound captured by the pickups.
LeoMakes notes a few issues with his plate reverb prototype. These issues include excess ground hum captured by the pickups which he filters out in Final Cut, and the impedance for each pickup isn’t well matched to the audio interface, which he thinks could be dealt with using an appropriate preamp. Watch LeoMakes full tutorial video on his YouTube channel for an in-depth walkthrough that explains how he built this unique DIY plate reverb.
Charles Hoffman is a Mixing and Mastering Engineer at Black Ghost Audio. After graduating from the University of Manitoba with an English degree, Charles completed his education at Icon Collective in Los Angeles, CA.
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