[1] As one of the more prominent effects in many British pop and rock songs of the 1980s, it was brought to mainstream attention in 1979 by producer Steve Lillywhite and engineer Hugh Padgham while working on Peter Gabriel's self-titled third solo album, after Phil Collins played drums without using cymbals at London's Townhouse Studios.
[1][2] Producer Steve Lillywhite claimed he first experimented the "ambience thing" on drums during the recording of Siouxsie and the Banshees' album The Scream (1978),[3] when drummer Kenny Morris played without using cymbals on several songs.
[3] In 1979, gated reverb was prominently used for the snare drum in the song "Behind the Mask" by the pioneering Japanese electronic music band Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO) from their hit album Solid State Survivor.
In this period they perfected their technique on Terry Chambers' drums, which can be heard most distinctively on Black Sea (particularly the songs "Respectable Street", "Generals and Majors" and "Love at First Sight").
When using a hardware reverb unit, echo chamber or digital emulation of either, it is possible to replicate the classic scheme: This setup does not require a "live room" to achieve the enhanced reverberation of the drum sound and therefore the effect can be reproduced at concerts without great difficulty.