Reverb or room mic on old guitar recordings

[Saapanael]

Hey, fellow guitar nerds. I have a question concerning the recording practice of distorted guitars in the 80s. The isolated guitar tracks I've listened to always sound roomy, in contrast to modern guitar tracks that sound super tight and close-mic'd, without any ambience. In most cases, does the wet sound come from a room mic that's used to capture the sound of the room surrounding the guitar amp or is it reverb added in post-production (or reverb FX pedal)? I suspect the former.

A couple of examples:

 

[Edington]

Thanks for an excuse to listen to the isolated guitars of Infinite Dreams again. Beautiful.

In most cases, does the wet sound come from a room mic that's used to capture the sound of the room surrounding the guitar amp or is it reverb added in post-production (or reverb FX pedal)? I suspect the former.

I'm no expert in this field, but I'd guess it was actually the latter, as to my ears it sounds like too much to be ambient reverb from the room. Plus heavy reverb makes the sound bigger and thicker, I suppose it's easier than adding another guitar track.

 

[Saapanael]

Thanks for an excuse to listen to the isolated guitars of Infinite Dreams again. Beautiful.

I'm no expert in this field, but I'd guess it was actually the latter, as to my ears it sounds like too much to be ambient reverb from the room. Plus heavy reverb makes the sound bigger and thicker, I suppose it's easier than adding another guitar track.

I remember reading about Maiden using plate reverb back in the day. Then again, I've looked into quite a lot about EVH's tone and never heard that he used reverb as an effect. He did use analogue delay but that's not what I mean. But who knows if an audio engineer put reverb on his tracks in the end. It might have been reverb in the case of some guitarists, and room mics in the case of others.

 

[Mosh]

Not sure about the other examples but I think the Van Halen albums are added reverb (maybe a separate room mic to capture reverb). One thing that contributes to that huge sound is that the reverb track is hard panned to the opposite side of the guitar. It's almost like double tracking but more organic sounding. Especially great for a band like VH that only has one guitar player.