gated reverb

Celebrating accidental discoveries, Clive Thompson’s latest Linkfest explores how Phil Collins inadvertently invented the signature sound of 1980s drumming whilst in collaboration with Peter Gabriel, the artificial muffler quintessentially demonstrated in the iconic bridge to his “In the Air Tonight.” The natural reverberation of the percussion is clipped, booming and punchy but not bleeding into the next beat—something even the most skilled could not accomplish without the ambient audio processing technique, illustrating how mixing and sampling factors into the perceived purity of acoustics and record takes, like with the airbrushing and editing we expect for images nowadays. In addition to Collins’ solo career, the effect was also embraced by Prince, Psychedelic Furs, Kate Bush and Duran Duran, the effect eventually falling out of favour but experiencing a resurgence.