Waves Abbey Road Studio 3

thegummy

What an amazing plugin this is!

It allows you to put headphones on and have the audio sound like you're sitting in the control room at Abbey Road and can switch between their speakers. It even has a bluetooth thing that clips on to your headphone's so when you move or turn your head, the audio image moves the same amount.

It uses binaural techniques to sound very realistic, as fat fetched as it may sound in concept. It also has EQ curves for some common headphones that equalises their response curves.

When you think how much acoustic treatment for a room costs in money as well as time and inconvenience and the fact that, depending on how small/generally bad the room was to begin with, even an insane amount of treatment isn't going to make it in to a great room.

Or even if you do already mix in a properly designed room, this allows another reference.

One of the most useful plugins IMO especially for the price.

poopot

Good innit?...

thecolourbox

I got it with one of their "get loads of freebies and cheap plugins" deals but I must admit I'm yet to really get to grips withi it, or indeed understand it. I tried it briefly while putting together the audio for an online festival thing (live recordings but I was just adding a bit of polish!) and all it seemed to do was show me how awful I might sound through the Abbey Road control room, though it sounded adequate on laptop/headphones where most people would be listening to it!

I should get into it on my more normal recording stuff though as it may help on those more so maybe? But doesn't it sound weird then when you turn it back off again if you've adjusted for the Abbey Road room?

I'm not very clever so must admit I don't fully understand it all

thegummy

thecolourbox said:

I got it with one of their "get loads of freebies and cheap plugins" deals but I must admit I'm yet to really get to grips withi it, or indeed understand it. I tried it briefly while putting together the audio for an online festival thing (live recordings but I was just adding a bit of polish!) and all it seemed to do was show me how awful I might sound through the Abbey Road control room, though it sounded adequate on laptop/headphones where most people would be listening to it!

I should get into it on my more normal recording stuff though as it may help on those more so maybe? But doesn't it sound weird then when you turn it back off again if you've adjusted for the Abbey Road room?

I'm not very clever so must admit I don't fully understand it all

The point of it is that with the plugin on it translates to other systems.

You can mix for something to sound good in a domestic room but then when it gets played back on another system will sound totally different because you've adjusted to your own room. The more neutral the mixing room is, the less different it will sound on various systems so that's what the purpose of a good mixing room is (and the purpose of the plugin is to emulate that).

When you take the plugin out it does sound very different. If you liked your mix on your system but then when you put the plugin on it sounded awful then you might also think it sounded awful through other systems in other peoples houses etc.

But (theoretically at least) if you put the plugin on and mix until it sounds right with that plugin on, it should sound better through a bunch of various systems (including your own with the plugin turned off).

You could test it by doing a mix first without that plugin and save it, reset everything and do the mix again with the plugin on and take the two files to a few different setups, your car, your living room system, a friends house, ipod earphones etc. and see which one translates the best.

Think I might do that at one point as well.

poopot

What it essentially does is simulate the crossover you get in your ears when you sit infront of monitors...

With monitors you hear tracks panned left in your right ear as well and tracks panned right in you left.

when you mix on head phones you hear left in the left and right in the right... but this is not how we listen to music.

with the abbey plugin it allows you to mix on headphones but get the feel of a studio with monitors...